Interview with Peter Gøtzsche: How Psychiatry Has Gone Astray
Dr. McDougall's Health and Medical Center has posted a three-part interview with MIA Foreign Correspondent Peter Gøtzsche, author of the book Deadly Medicines and...
The Lancet Psychiatry “Diagnosis Debate” Continues
The Lancet Psychiatry's December issue includes two letters commenting on Mary Boyle and Lucy Johnstone's article, "Alternatives to psychiatric diagnosis," along with a new...
Call for (Pithy) Submissions: “Is Psychiatry a Real Science?”
In a call for submissions posted on the History of Madness in Canada website, the long-running OUR VOICE / NOTRE VOIX magazine, publisher of...
“Pay $1000 to criticize a bad ‘blood test for depression’ article?”
In the PLOS Blog Mind the Brain, James Coyne recounts how he wanted to participate in post-publication peer review surrounding the "bad science" in...
“Vermonters Using Social Media as Peer Support”
The Rutland Herald uses a recent study about online "mental illness peer support" as an opening to interview people in Vermont concerning what they...
End of the Road for Genetics/Behavior Claims?
In Discover, Neuroskeptic discusses a new study that "could undermine the concept of ‘endophenotypes’ – and thus derail one of the most promising lines...
“Why Do More Men than Women Kill Themselves?”
In Scientific American Blogs, Jesse Bering argues that there's at least one simple explanation for why more men than women kill themselves: Their respective...
Psychiatrist Discovers Who Was Secretly Paying the Psychiatrists Who Mocked Her
Young psychiatrist Jean Kim argues that psychiatrists need to reflect more on the morality of their work, then gets "laughed out of the room"...
Sunshine Act Could Make Pharma Target Other Groups Over Doctors
More action will be required if the public hopes to benefit from the new legislation requiring doctors to disclose the money and gifts they've...
Depression Caused by an Infection?
In the New York Times, Anna North discusses research looking into infectious causes of depression, and theories that depression may be an important evolutionary...
Lax Online Security Makes Hacking Your Way to Scientific Prominence Easy
How easy is it to gain access to some of the biggest online hosts of academic research journals in the world, and then start...
Sunday Oddity: “How do you diagnose and treat an illness that doesn’t linguistically exist?”
Canoe.ca reports on the doings of Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Stanley Kutcher, previously exposed by MIA Blogger Alison Bass for his role as a co-author...
New Antidepressant Shows Little Benefit, Significant Risks
Patient Drug News advises avoiding use of the antidepressant Vortioxetine (also called Brintellix or Trintellix), because the most recent evidence from the FDA shows...
Half of Us are Mentally Ill — Or are These Numbers Finally Going Too...
The Australian Bureau of Statistics states that some 45 per cent of Australians aged 16 to 85 have been mentally ill at some point...
NIMH Webinar Explains New Way of Categorizing Mental Disorders
The US National Institute of Mental Health is providing public access to a video of a webinar explaining the Research Domain Criteria initiative and...
Should Antipsychiatry Embrace the Disease Model?
Critical Psychiatry mentions the upcoming Sedgwick Conference, and links to a retrospective appraisal by two British academics of the central ideas in Peter Sedgwick's...
The Hidden Costs of Paying Physicians More to Diagnose Dementia
A plan from the British government to pay doctors for every diagnosis of dementia that they make is an act of "folly," writes physician...
“Should Suicidal Students Be Forced to Leave Campus?”
In The New Yorker, Rachel Aviv discusses an apparently common practice among some US universities to expel students who attempt suicide -- even when...
The Vicious Cycle of Depression and Lack of Exercise
Does depression make us lethargic, or does lack of exercise make us depressed? The Mental Elf tries to answer this question, and reviews a...
How are Professional Artists Similar and Different from People Diagnosed with Schizophrenia?
People "who are prone to psychosis" in its most "extreme" forms, such as delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized thought, have been found to also show...
Neuroscientists Recreate Ghostly Presences in Laboratory
Neuroscientists have been able to consistently recreate in people the feeling of another person or ghostly entity hovering nearby, according to a study reported...
How Similar Was the Experience and Treatment of WWI Shell Shock to Modern PTSD?
In The Conversation, Cardiff University psychiatrist Stefanie Linden discusses her own research, reviewing old records of World War I veterans and their experiences of...
“Can psychedelic trips cure PTSD and other maladies?”
The Washington Post explores some of the history of research into the therapeutic potentials of even just one session with a psychedelic drug, and...
“The 100 most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter”
The British Psychological Society's Research Digest has compiled a list of what it claims to be the 100 psychologists and neuroscientists who have the...
NIMH Director Insel Proposes Solutions to Lack of Reproducibility in Research
National Institute of Mental Health Director Thomas Insel laments the lack of reproducibility in such a large majority of mental health-related research. He describes...
