Where Mental Health and Social Justice Meet
From Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: What it means to be a black American struggling with mental health is that socio-historical 'trauma lives in our blood,' materializing in our daily lives.
America’s Forgotten Mass Imprisonment of Women Believed to Be Sexually Immoral
From The History Channel: From the 1910s through the 1950s, tens—perhaps hundreds—of thousands of American women were detained and forcibly examined for STIs.
Concern Over Rising Antidepressant Use in England
From BBC News: A total of 70.9 million prescriptions for antidepressants were dispensed in England in 2018, almost double the number dispensed in 2008.
Britney Spears and a Civilised Response to her Mental Health
From The Guardian: In 2019, suffering is less a spectacle, more something to be understood. It is a tentative sign that the conversation is, at last, maturing.
Civil Commitment for Addiction Treatment Led to Loved One’s Suicide, Family Says
From WBUR: "It was the worst experience of my life. Here I was — not having committed any crime — in the hole and being harassed by really dangerous people."
‘Fight or Flight’ and the Dangers of Consuming All the Bad News in the...
From ABC/Hack: What happens when we take a brain and nervous system evolved for running away from cheetahs, and give it a big glowing screen showing all the bad news in the world?
Study Linking Autism to ‘Male Brain’ Retracted, Replaced
From Medscape Psychiatry: The article, published in April 2017 in JAMA Psychiatry and since cited in fourteen other papers, contained "serious errors," writes lead author Christine Ecker.
Social Farming Ireland Shown to Have Positive Outcomes for Mental Health
From AgriLand: Social farming is ideally placed to contribute to people’s recovery, providing opportunities to re-engage with life, with nature and with other people.
Is NY’s Mental-Health System Listening to the Peers Who’ve Lived It?
From City Limits: The current state of affairs is a far cry from the intended purpose of peers, which was as a corrective for the chauvinism of clinicians.
Democracy Dies in Darkness
From the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association: A democratic problem arises when politicians abdicate public debate in favour of expertocracy in matters related to health.
She Wanted to Be the Perfect Mom, Then Landed in a Psychiatric Unit
From WJCT: Right now, UNC is the only hospital in the country that has a designated psych unit just for pregnant women and new moms.
Psychiatry’s Incurable Hubris
From The Atlantic: The protracted attempt to usher psychiatry into medicine’s modern era is the subject of Anne Harrington’s Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness.
I Spent 16 Months of My Childhood Locked in a Warehouse
From HuffPost: The warehouse was occupied by a "tough love" drug rehab program called Straight Inc., which the ACLU branded "a concentration camp for throwaway teens."
Moral Injury: A Systemic Issue in Medicine
From The Atlantic: The term "moral injury" describes what happens when health care workers following a calling to help others confront a system that cares only about profit.
Scottish, Welsh Parliaments Debate Psychiatric Drug Dependence and Withdrawal
From RxISK: The Petitions Committee received an astonishing number of written testimonies from people reporting severe symptoms when stopping psychiatric drugs.
Outcome Misreporting Goes Ignored by Top Medical Journals
From Lown Institute: Journals are supposed to be the gatekeepers separating high-quality evidence from poor science, but when it comes to outcome reporting, they are shirking that responsibility.
Connection Is a Core Human Need, But We Are Terrible at It
From Medium: The biggest problem in most people’s lives is trauma, and trauma is what creates a damaged ability to connect with others.
Even Docs Get Killed by Akathisia
From RxISK: The doctor whose suicide was recounted by Dr. Wible was clearly a victim of his psychiatric treatment far more than his professional or personal angst.
The Disorder That Affects Us All: What You Need to Know About Developmental Trauma
From the Institute for Attachment and Child Development: Two articles discuss the primary cause of many mental, physical, and behavioral health problems, which often goes unaddressed in mainstream approaches.
Kids Are the Victims of the Elite-College Obsession
From The Atlantic: Education has been eclipsed by marketing..."It comes down almost to marketing one’s soul, which gets to undermining the meaning of one’s entire life."
How to Quit Antidepressants: Very Slowly, Doctors Say
From The New York Times: A pair of prominent psychiatric researchers calls the establishment’s position badly mistaken and the standard advice on withdrawal woefully inadequate.
Montana Had the Highest Suicide Rate in the Country. Then Budget Cuts Hit.
From NBC News: Some who have lost loved ones — frustrated by the budget cuts and driven by the state’s urgent needs — are mobilizing to do whatever they can to stop the deaths.
Turned Down for Federal Disability Payments, Thousands Die Waiting on Appeals
From USA TODAY: "It is totally unacceptable for 10,000 people to lose their lives waiting for insurance they paid into," said U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-Conn.
California Looks to Lead Nation in Unraveling Childhood Trauma
From California Healthline: CA is poised to become a vanguard for the nation in embracing the research that traces adverse childhood experiences to later onset of physical and mental illness.
Drug Commonly Prescribed to Veterans Could be Making Suicidal Thoughts Worse
From FOX News Nashville: Prazosin is a blood pressure medication commonly prescribed to treat PTSD nightmares, although it's not approved by the FDA for that purpose.
