“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...
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.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or: Play by the Rules, Hysteric!
From Surviving Psychiatry: The idea that the "DBT clinician" is the "master" who holds the authority to assess individuals’ emotions, experiences, and coping strategies, and to "fix" them is, as a premise, utterly disempowering.
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,...
How the Life Coaching Industry Sells Pseudo-Solutions to Our Deepest Problems
From Current Affairs: The cultural pressures to become a self-made individual have intensified at the same time that sources of social support have decreased. Enter the life coach.
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 Childhood Origins of Narcissism
From Vital Mind Coaching: The core childhood origin/genesis of the ‘narcissistic personality' occurs when a child is used by the parent(s) to meet the parent(s)' own needs.
Psychiatric Hospitals With Safety Violations Still Get Accreditation
From The Wall Street Journal: Psychiatric hospitals kept their accreditation after patients said they were raped or assaulted; died by suicide; slept on chairs due to crowding; and more.
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...
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.
We All Want to Cut Out the ‘Bad Parts’ of Ourselves. It Won’t Work,...
From The Guardian: Better mental health is about repairing internal connections, not cutting them.
How Society Gaslights Survivors of Narcissistic, Sociopathic & Psychopathic Abuse
From Self-Care Haven by Shahida Arabi: Not only does secondary gaslighting from other people further isolate the survivor, it also hinders the healing process.
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."
Why the DSM Is Mostly False | Nassir Ghaemi, MD
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.
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 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.
How Antidepressants Destroyed My Life
From Marc Reinsdorffer: How I went from working as a frontend software developer in a exciting city to living in my parents basement for the last 1.5 years.
‘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?
Trans-Generational Dynamics and Mental Illness: A Family Constellation
Family constellations are a fascinating, cutting-edge tool for exploring issues within families, groups, and individuals and can lead to a high degree of healing in a short amount of time.
Mind Control: It’s Happening to You Right Now
From Jeremy Lent/Patterns of Meaning: Your mind is being controlled by distant strangers who don’t have your best interests at heart. If that sounds like a paranoid fantasy, brace yourself and read on.
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."
Popular ‘Benzo’ Drugs Linked to Suicide, Brain Damage — Even If You Stop Taking...
From The New York Post: Researchers have coined the term BIND, or benzodiazepine-induced neurological dysfunction, to describe the long-lasting effects of benzo use.
The Art of Stimming: ABA Has Left a Legacy of Traumatized Kids
From Pacific Standard: Children in ABA programs learn that body is not their own, the way they move is wrong, and there is no neutral way for them to naturally exist in the world.
I Take ‘One of the Worst’ Antidepressants for Withdrawal – And Don’t I Know...
From LancsLive: It's like I can hear the blood flowing through my ears. It is truly terrifying and impossible to ignore
Injured, Not Broken: Why It’s So Hard to Know You Have CPTSD
From Brickel & Associates, LLC: Because living in a triggered state of alarm is so familiar, many don’t realize trauma is the source of their feeling “not okay.”
