‘If the Land Is Sick, You Are Sick’: An Aboriginal Approach to Mental Health
From Mosaic: The traditional expert–patient relationship of psychological treatment has often been seen by Aboriginal people as being based on that of the colonial master and the colonised.
‘We Have to Speak Out…and Be Heard’: Life After Sexual Abuse
From The Guardian: Is society doing enough for adult survivors, who, too often, are overlooked, pathologised and criminalised?
Thousands of Immigrants Suffer In US Solitary Confinement
From the The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: Locked for weeks or months in isolation cells, mentally ill and other vulnerable detainees from around the world are plagued by anxiety, anger, depression and suicidal impulses.
It Is Time to End Coercion in Mental Health
From Council of Europe, Commissioner for Human Rights: "My experience as your Human Rights Commissioner has . . . confirmed . . . the vicious circles caused by a coercion-based mental health approach."
Is Sexual Desire a Medical Issue? New Drug Revives Debate
From STAT: Sexuality can be understood through the 'dancing model.' Dancing, like sex, requires having a body, but no one would study the art of ballet by cracking open Gray’s Anatomy.
‘Ghost Networks’ of Psychiatrists Hinder Patients’ Access to Care
From STAT: Every insurance company should be required to keep its provider lists updated so they can’t collect premiums for services they don’t actually provide.
Doctors Beg Court for Action on NJ State Psychiatric Hospital
From NJ.com: Violence, mismanagement and despair have become 'normalized' at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Parsippany, according to a federal lawsuit.
Relationships Are Human Rights Determinants in Mental Health
From Health and Human Rights Journal: Access to a psycho-social and social environment that fosters respectful relationships is a human right, as outlined by the latest report from UN Special Rapporteur Dainius Pūras.
Our Mental Health System May Be Unfixable. But There’s an Alternative
From Salon: Our healing journeys are not just about individuals. They are about transforming society and shifting the culture.
Suicide Is Becoming America’s Latest Epidemic
From The Nation: In contrast to the United States, suicide rates are noticeably lower and have been declining in Western European countries where social safety nets are more extensive.
What It Means to Have a Trauma of Identity
From Goop: "When people get the opportunity to express themselves and show exactly who they are, including their traumatized past—and be met with love and compassion—that in itself has a great effect."
Mending Hearts: How a ‘Repair Economy’ Creates a More Caring Community
From The Conversation: Returning to an economy of repair could help create a kinder, more inclusive society. By mending broken things, we might also help mend what’s broken in ourselves.
Psychology, Meet Politics: Two Sides of the Same Coin
From openDemocracy: Our internal and external crises are reinforcing and amplifying each other, creating a situation full of risk. How do we interrupt this dynamic?
Surveying Canadian Organizations and Officials on Rights in Mental Health
From Mad Canada Shadow Group: Canada has agreed to abide by the UN CRPD, which seeks to prevent the use of involuntary treatments, committals, restraints and seclusion.
Put Down the Self-Help Books. Resilience Is Not a DIY Endeavour
From The Globe and Mail: The science of resilience is clear: Our social, political and natural environments are far more important to our well-being than our individual thoughts, feelings or behaviours.
Health Warning: Social Rejection Doesn’t Only Hurt, It Kills
From Aeon: We don’t just live with others but also through them and in them. And when they turn away, when we become unseen, in a way we cease to be.
FDA Overlooked Red Flags in Drugmaker’s Testing of Esketamine
From Medscape: Esketamine's trajectory to approval shows — step by step — how drugmakers can take advantage of shortcuts in the FDA process.
EMA Acknowledges Persistent Sexual Dysfunction After SSRIs & SNRIs
From RxISK: For the first time, European patients prescribed an SSRI or SNRI will, if they read the product information, be warned about the risk of long-term sexual dysfunction.
Why What We Think We Know About Schizophrenia Is Wrong
From The Guardian: I remember the first time I forcibly medicated a person against his will. In that moment, however good my intentions, I was knowingly participating in his suffering.
Psychiatrist Claims Royal College ‘Gaslighted’ Him in Antidepressant Row
From The Herald Scotland: "I’ve just had enough of how I’ve been treated by the Royal College of Psychiatrists for trying to raise ethics of good medical practice, patient safety."
Depression and Western Cultural Hegemony
From The Guardian Letters: Claiming that a local idiom of distress – 'thinking too much' – is really depression is asserting the universalist supremacy of western frameworks and categories.
I Know Antidepressant Withdrawal Is Real. Why Didn’t Doctors?
From The Guardian: Why, when the health of so many people is at stake, did it take so long to listen to patients?
Rethinking the Infamous Stanford Prison Experiment
From Scientific American: New evidence makes it clear that merely assigning people to play the role of prison guards did not lead them to engage in cruelty naturally, of their own accord.
The Healing Power of Gardens: Oliver Sacks on the Consolations of Nature
From Brain Pickings: "I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains... [but] in many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication."
The Shamanic View of ‘Mental Illness’: Birth of a Healer
From Uplift: "The Western culture has consistently ignored the birth of the healer. Consequently, there will be a tendency... to keep trying as many people as possible in an attempt to get somebody's attention."
