Around The Web

From Compassionate Mental Health: "Strong feelings are often at the bottom of psychosis – we need to be able to power down the emotions with interpersonal and physical environments where emotional relaxation is possible," says psychiatrist Luc Ciompi.

"If I and the people around me could have been helped to see that there was some significance in what I was proclaiming, that I could actually do something meaningful in the world, something with impact, something with power to affect change -- was that so crazy? Or did it come true?" ~ Dina Tyler

From Hole Ousia: Paid opinion leaders who generally control the narrative in relation to psychiatric drug prescribing continue to be very much a thing of the present.

From KFF Health News: A yearlong investigation by KFF Health News revealed that a series of FDA-cleared products have been suspected of contributing to thousands of injuries and patient deaths.

From Psychology Today/Joanna Cheek MD: Diagnoses take on a life of their own, when we try to treat "the depression" instead of addressing the problem it’s signaling.

From Psychology Today/Annie Wright, LMFT: It sounds unbelievable to someone with a trauma history that there are people who can think forward decades into the future, visualize a happy outcome for themselves and then work backward, taking steps that secure that future.

From KFF Health News: The campaign against excited delirium seeks to transform the way police deal with people undergoing mental health crises. “This is really about saving lives,” said attorney Joanna Naples-Mitchell.

From The Washington Post: Federal health authorities are intensifying their scrutiny of the drug ketamine for "treating mental health disorders," as the mind-altering compound grows in popularity despite the lack of regulatory approval for such use.

From World Association for Infant Mental Health: By the time most of us reach adulthood, we have not only lost the capacity to regularly access states that we achieved routinely as infants, but we have also lost awareness of that loss.

From Psychology Today: “Population dependence on mood pills looks like a fantastic marketing strategy, but it must be over-the-top and we must be missing something," said psychiatrist and professor Eugene Breen in Dublin.

From ProPublica: A temporary program for “dangerously mentally ill” patients has continued for five decades, despite calls from critics to provide better care. Soon, Idaho will be the only state still using prisons to house patients who face no criminal charges.

From The Irish Times: A new training approach to mental health care was launched by the Irish Mental Health Commission, coinciding with a report finding the use of restraints and seclusion has been decreasing in the country.

From CPTSD Foundation: When I talk to people in the workplace about trauma, all the air gets sucked out of the room and they try to change the subject as quickly as possible. I am curious about what is driving this response.

From The Guardian: Dr Piers Gooding, a senior research fellow with Melbourne Law School, said: “Digital approaches are often presented as an unquestioned good, particularly in the mental health field...There is hype around digital technology like AI – and industry pressure – that can shut down critical reflection."

From OK Doomer: Almost everything in our culture attempts to convince us that mental health is a personal responsibility, a performance we owe to society, not the result of a society where we take care of each other.

From AP News: Schools across the country are sending children to the ER for psych evaluations in response to behaviors prompted by bullying or frustration over assignments.

From Psychiatry at the Margins: What can be said with quite some certainty, says clinical psychologist Martin Plöderl, is that antidepressants overall do not decrease suicidal behavior.

From The Guardian: An open letter to the government from experts and politicians says rising antidepressant usage "is a clear example of over-medicalisation."

From FOX31 Denver KDVR: “I suspect they’re extending his stay here so they can keep on using his insurance until it expires at the end of the month,” said the man's cousin, who contacted Fox 31.

From The New York Times: Traditional mourning practices were designed to preserve a place for the dead among the living, to help mourners carry the weight of their grief not by getting over it but by maintaining their relationship with the deceased.

From gustav f./unlearnwithdrawal.substack.com: What we call ‘protracted withdrawal’ is not technically withdrawal; it’s more like withdrawal memories that the brain has learned to play back over and over again.

In commentary for the Globe and Mail, Rob Wipond, MIA contributor and author of Your Consent Is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions,...

From Psyche: In Sufi shrines, rituals of attunement offer sufferers a path beyond the fear and isolation of their mental distress.

From Psychiatry Letter: The DSM is a social construction, based on “pragmatism” much more so than science, and as such should only be used administratively at present.

From The Real Truth About Health: Mary J. Ruwart, PhD, Robert Whitaker, and John Abramson, MD delve into institutional corruption, misinformation, the shift from prevention to treatment, and the urgent need for healthcare reform.