“Medication and Female Moods”
Listen: NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook discusses the new book “Moody Bitches: The Truth About the Drugs You’re Taking, The Sleep You’re Missing, the Sex You’re Not Having and What’s Really Making You Crazy,” by the psychiatrist Julie Holland.
“Programs Expand Schizophrenic Patients’ Role in Their Own Care”
Benedict Carey at the New York Times covers the push for new programs that emphasize supportive services, therapy, school and work assistance, and family education, rather than simply drug treatment.
“Breaking News Consumer Handbook: Health News Edition”
Listen: NPR’s On the Media talks about how bad health information ripples through the news. Gary Schwitzer of HealthNewsReview.org cautions against other problematic health reporting in a Breaking News Consumer's Handbook: Health News Edition.
“FDA Proposes Reclassifying ECT Devices”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is attempting to reclassify the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) device for use in treating severe depression (MDE) or bipolar “disorder” (BPD). The device is currently a class III device and the proposal is to make it a class II device.
“Letter to the Editor: Guns and Mental Illness”
The president and president-elect of the American Psychological Association penned a letter to the New York Times calling on “Congress and other policy makers to address these factors with interventions supported by evidence rather than avoiding them by scapegoating the mentally ill.”
“Think Twice Before Using Ritalin on Children as Terrible Side-Effects are Common”
Miriam Stoppard writes an opinion piece on the lack of good research on Ritalin, a drug often used for ADHD, and discusses the latest Cochrane review which found a high percentage of side-effects in children. Despite the lack of quality evidence, “NHS figures show that nearly one million ADHD prescriptions were handed out last year in England – a number that has more than doubled in 10 years.”
“The Wisdom of the Aged”
A New York Times piece by John Leland asks “Do you know what you want to do when you get old?” as it follows six New Yorkers over age 85 throughout the year. For them, “old age is a mixture of happiness and sadness, with less time wasted on anger and worry.”
“The Nixon-Masked Man Who Helped End Homosexuality as a Disease”
In a Forgotten History article for the Daily Beast, Brandon Ambrosino tells the story of the 1972 meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. There,...
“Look Beyond Martin Shkreli for Pharma Reform”
Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager who became infamous for buying a life-saving drug and then raising the price significantly, was led away in handcuffs by the FBI last week. Unfortunately, the Boston Globe editorial board reminds us, “viewing his much-publicized takedown as anything like a tipping point in the push for pharmaceutical industry reform would be a mistake.”
“The Feeling That Expands Time and Increases Well-Being”
PsyBlog presents research on the experience of awe. “That jaw-dropping moment when coming across something surprising, powerful, beautiful or even sublime can have a transformative effect, they find.”
“New Jersey Psychology Practice Revealed Patients’ Mental Disorders in Debt Lawsuits”
Pro Publica and the NY Times collaborate on an investigative report revealing loopholes in HIPAA laws that allow providers to release the mental health...
“How James Bond is Helping Mental Health Diagnosis”
“The paper, The psychopathology of James Bond, and its implications for the revision of the DSM-007, has just won first prize in the Australian Medical Journal's...
“Watching Too Much TV in Your 20s May Impact How Your Brain Works in...
The Washington Post reports on a new study in JAMA Psychiatry that shows that watching more than 3 hours of television a day in...
“Why Ted Cruz’s Plan to Overhaul the FDA Would Jeopardize Public Health”
"To be sure, the FDA review process is not perfect. What is? But the agency is still considered the gold standard by which other...
“Psychologist: Telling Your Child About Santa”
“Can Santa blur the divide between fantasy and reality and, as a result, delay a child’s cognitive development?”
“Why Does Psychiatry So Often Get a Free Pass on Standards of Evidence?”
Rob Wipond takes HealthNewsReview.org to task for its coverage of a Philadelphia Inquirer article about a medical device designed for people experiencing panic. He writes that “hyperbolic psychiatric and psychological claims frequently get free passes from otherwise thoughtful medical critics.”
“As Opioid Deaths Reach Record High, Drug Industry Resists Efforts to Rein in Prescriptions”
“In 2014, the number of people who died from drug overdoses in the United States reached 47,055 — an all-time high, according to a disturbing report published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),” but “the effort to get physicians to curb their prescribing of these drugs may be faltering amid stiff resistance from drugmakers, industry-funded groups and, now, even other public health officials.”
“The Free Will of Ebenezer Scrooge”
Philosopher Richard Kamber discusses what Dickens’ tale of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol can add to our discussions of free will in the present....
“Children Today Suffer From a Deficit of Play”
Boston College Psychologist Peter Gray writes for Aeon about the impact of the gradual erosion of children’s’ play in the United States. “Over the...
“A Force Awakened: Why So Many Find Meaning in Star Wars”
Star Wars taps into some fundamental facets of the human condition and tells mythic and religious stories, Professor Patti McCarthy explains for The Conversation....
“Study on ‘Bah Humbug Syndrome’ Offers Cautionary Tale”
“Throughout the world, we estimate that millions of people are prone to displaying Christmas spirit deficiencies after many years of celebrating Christmas,” write the...
Failure to Report, Patients at Risk”
"A STAT investigation finds that “Most research institutions — including leading universities and hospitals in addition to drug companies — routinely break a law that requires...
“When Pills Are the Problem”
In the context of the Silicon Valley suicides, one mother offers her story about her daughter. “It’s my premise that not only the culture of Silicon Valley, but also, almost more importantly, the nature of the remedies that are being proposed in the name of mental health counseling, are to blame in these deaths.”
“Hospitals Want to Test Drug with No Consent”
“A group of Boston doctors is proposing to join a study that would provide emergency treatment for brain-injured patients without obtaining the trauma victims’...
“A Compassionate Approach Leads to More Help, Less Punishment”
“Published in the journal PLoS ONE, a new set of studies suggests that compassion—and intentionally cultivating it through training—may lead us to do more to help the wronged than to punish the wrongdoer. Researchers found compassion may also impact the extent to which people punish the transgressor.”
