“Modern Day Mengeles”
-Is it reasonable to compare the roles American psychologists played in the CIA torture program to the roles that psychiatists played in Nazi Germany?
“When the mental health system failed me, online communities became my coping mechanisms”
-Hannah Giorgis describes how she felt even more "crazy" when her mental health professionals denied the existence of racism against black people in Britain.
How It Came to Be that Sadomasochists Are No Longer “Mentally Ill”
-The Atlantic reports on the history of pathologizing and de-pathologizing different sexual practices.
Neuroscientists Too Often Exceed Chance Levels Only By Chance
-The findings of many neuroscientific studies are really just random background noise.
“How a Patient Suicide Affects Psychiatrists”
-"It’s hard to listen to a psychiatrist who sounds so broken," writes Sulome Anderson in The Atlantic.
“Cop Stalks Woman, Has Her Committed When She Rejects Him”
-AlterNet reports on a lawsuit that accuses a police officer of abusing his mental health law powers.
“Potential biomarker that could predict”? – caveats about psychiatric brain imaging
-HealthNewsReview.org takes on Dr. Richard Friedman's description of a “potential biomarker in the brain that would help psychiatrists direct depressed patients towards treatment to which they would more likely respond.”
“The Post-Irene Mental Health System of Care”
-Hurricane Irene seems to have left some community-based approaches to psychiatric care in its wake.
Prominent Psychiatrists Discuss “the Crisis of Confidence in Medical Research”
-A large excerpt from a post by David Healy is sandwiched between commentary by psychiatrist Allen Frances.
NPR’s “Invisibilia” to Explore Intangible Forces Behind Human Behavior
-A new regular radio program from NPR "explores the intangible forces that shape human behavior."
Sunday History Channel: When Psychiatrists Removed Intestine Parts to Cure Schizophrenia
-Neuroskeptic discusses two 20th century American surgeon-psychiatrists who believed that they could cure schizophrenia by removing parts of their patients’ intestines.
Is Everyone Too Afraid to Conduct Real Research into the Causes of Gun Violence?
-A Washington Post story suggests that Centers for Disease Control researchers are worried about what they'll find if they investigate the causes of gun violence.
“We Are All Hoarders, But…”
-How much is hoarding rooted in consumerism?
Most People Who Use Drugs Don’t Become Addicted — And Why That’s Important
--The former CEO of the UK's National Treatment Agency describes the social circumstances of people most susceptible to addiction.
Playpen Rats Making Popular Comeback, Defy the Brain-disease Model of Addiction
-University of Queensland addictions experts challenge last year's Nature editorial that claimed there is a scientific "consensus" that addiction is a brain disease.
A Neuroscience Laboratory That’s “Green” and Supports “Neurodiversity”
-What would an anti-militaristic, animal-loving, non-toxic, anti-sanist neuroscience look like?
“Why is Depression Incidence Increasing?”
-Was life better in the past, or is there some other reason depression is increasing?
“Sebastian Seung’s Quest to Map the Human Brain”
-A neuroscientist hopes to identify the exact place inside a brain where a particular memory is held.
Hospitalizing People for Mental Illness Can Be Worse Than Putting Them in Prison
-Chandra Bozelko has been involuntarily committed and imprisoned, and has strong opinions on which is more therapeutic.
“Redefining Mental Illness”
-Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann reflects on the British Psychological Society's "Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia" document.
“The Whisper Whisperers”
-Newsweek visits the Hearing Voices Network.
“Randomized Controlled Trials in Environmental Health Research: Unethical or Underutilized?”
-Simon Fraser University health scientists argue that we need to start doing more randomized controlled trials to better understand the negative impacts of environmental pollutants on human bodies and brains.
“We Need Publicly Funded Research Centers”
-Are publicly funded research centers the answer to curbing corruption and bias in medical and psychiatric studies?
How Can Two Such Radically Different Experiences Both Be Called “Schizophrenia”?
-Psychiatrist Jose Andres Saez Fonseca disposes with the language of the diagnostic manuals, and tries to grapple with different ways of seeing.
Psychiatric Times Still Seeking Suggestions for Broken Mental Health System
-Psychiatric Times will continue its series of commentaries on how to fix the mental health system through 2015.
