The Delusions of Western Medicine
From Terry Baranski/Healing the Self: Western Medicine is firmly entrenched in three fundamental ideologies when it comes to chronic mental and physical pathology: A disease-based perspective, symptom-focused treatment, and mind/body separation.
“New Course on ‘Making Sense’ of Trauma, Creating a Coherent Narrative”
PsychAlive is releasing a new blog and e-course on “Making Sense of Your Life,” with psychologists Lisa Firestone and Dan Siegel. They draw upon the...
“The Only Cure for OCD Is Expensive, Elusive, and Scary”
The Atlantic features a story about the availability of effective treatments for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). “Many OCD sufferers and their families say finding the...
For-Profit Psych Hospital Corp. US HealthVest Brings Peril to 3 States
From The Seattle Times: No private mental-health care operator in Washington state in recent years has pushed to expand as rapidly or racked up as many serious violations as quickly.
‘Psychology Is’ Podcast: The Scientific Emptiness of Psychiatry, With Dr. David Cohen
From Psychology Is: The field is comprised of psychiatrists who primarily act as drug prescribers and justify their practices on the basis of "silly theories that are continually refuted," said the UCLA professor.
A Mad World: Capitalism and the Rise of Mental Illness
From Red Pepper: Capitalism produces much of the mental distress that is categorized as "mental illness" by turning human creativity and connectivity into social isolation,...
Why Do Congenitally Blind People Never Get Diagnosed with Schizophrenia?
"A long-standing enigma in psychiatry has been why no-one has been able to find someone who has both congenital blindness and a diagnosis of...
The Dangers of Being Too Nice | Gabor Maté, MD
From Way of Thinking: The irresolvable tension between authenticity and attachment that many children in our society are faced with results in their self-suppression. And one possible outcome is the development of niceness as a coping mechanism.
Rap Embraces Schizophrenia and Owns It
Vanderbilt University psychiatrist Jonathan Metzl, author of The Protest Psychosis, has published a brief history of "schizophrenia" in relation to African American culture in...
The Psychological Impacts of Poverty, Digested
From BPS Research Digest: "Kids from lower socioeconomic levels show brain physiology patterns similar to someone who actually had had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult."
When Psychotherapists Are Less Healthy Than Their Clients
From Daniel Mackler: It is common for therapy clients to be healthier than their therapists, for two reasons: clients are often humble whereas therapists often are not; and clients are often actively grappling with their feelings whereas many therapists are stuck in dissociation from theirs.
‘More Like Spin-the-Bottle Than Science’: My Mission to Find Proper Treatment for My Son’s...
From The Guardian: After years journeying through the traditional healthcare system, could radical alternatives save my son from an endless cycle of hospital stays and drugs?
The Empty Promise of Suicide Prevention
From The New York Times: Antidepressants can’t supply employment or affordable housing, repair relationships with family members or bring on sobriety.
IFS: The Revolutionary Treatment That Could Change Psychotherapy Forever
From Elemental: "If it is true that these things we think of as our inner enemies are really heroes stuck in time, that allows people to relate inside with a lot more compassion and love."
How Emotions Affect Our Cognitive Functioning | Gabor Maté, MD
From Gabor Maté, MD: Nature has given us the capacity to tune out or dissociate as a survival mechanism to escape overwhelming stress.
A Mindbody Approach to Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal
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.
“The Rise and Fall of the Blockbuster Antipsychotic Seroquel”
Martha Rosenberg highlights how the popular antipsychotic Seroquel is a perfect example of how direct-to-consumer advertising made billion dollar blockbuster drugs possible before side-effects...
America Has Reached Peak Therapy. Why Is Our Mental Health Getting Worse?
From TIME: The issue isn’t only that demand is outpacing supply; it’s that the supply was never very good to begin with, leaning on therapies and medications that only skim the surface of a vast ocean of need.
On the Myth of the Chemical Imbalance
In this piece for Psychology Today, Mark L. Ruffalo critiques the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorder and examines why the chemical imbalance myth persists today despite...
Gabapentin: A New Target for Abuse
From STAT: Gabapentin, a drug that acts as a sedative and is also used to treat conditions including nerve pain, epilepsy, restless leg syndrome, and...
How Mindfulness Privatised a Social Problem
From New Statesman: Mindfulness has become the perfect coping mechanism for neoliberal capitalism: it privatises stress and tells people to locate the root of mental ailments in their own work ethic.
Testimonial Injustice and Borderline Personality Disorder
From The Huffington Post UK: The diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder frequently serves to invalidate the trauma of women who have experienced abuse.
"‘BPD’ is so...
Don’t Ostracize Drugs Users – Empathize With Them | Gabor Maté, MD
From The Globe and Mail: "From Abraham to the Aztecs, ancient cultures exacted human sacrifices to appease the gods – that is, to soothe...
The Myth of the 30 IQ Point “Communication Range”
From Neuroskeptic: The idea that two people who have an IQ difference of more than 30 points cannot communicate with one another is not based...
Podcast: The Rise in Forced Treatment and Abusive Guardianships
From PsychCentral: Often well-meaning family members are trying to 'help' by having their loved one force-treated, but they end up traumatizing and permanently damaging them instead.
