Childhood Adversity/Trauma

From MinnPost: According to pediatrician Michael Pitt, M.D., pediatricians see a spike in suicide attempts at back-to-school time, in part due to anxiety over bullying...

In this piece for Aeon, David A. Sbarra discusses the philosophy and science behind cognitive behavioral therapy and explains why it is so effective. "Importantly, emotions...

Black college women endorse more perceived stress and depressive symptoms than White college women, highlighting the impacts of racism.

New research is investigating how “poverty reduction promotes cognitive and brain development.”

Noting that "childhood adversity is gaining increasing attention as a plausible etiological factor in the development of psychotic disorders," researchers from Johns Hopkins, Aarhus...

In a review of the evidence regarding benzodiazepines, researchers from the University of Michigan find that benzodiazepines used in the treatment of PTSD are...

To coincide with World Mental Health Day on October 10th, 2015, Verso Books, the largest independent and radical publishing house released a series of blogs on mental health and critical and antipsychiatry. The posts include pieces on R.D. Laing, colonialism, women’s oppression, delusions and art, “The Happiness Industry,” and social and institutional oppression.

Dr. Brian Koehler is petitioning the American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization to drop the stigmatizing term "schizophrenia." Click here to sign the...

Recent years have seen an influx of numerous studies providing an undeniable link between childhood/ chronic trauma and psychotic states. Although many researchers (i.e., Richard Bentall, Anthony Morrison, John Read) have been publishing and speaking at events around the world discussing the implications of this link, they are still largely ignored by mainstream practitioners, researchers, and even those with lived experience. While this may be partially due to an understandable (but not necessarily defensible) tendency to deny the existence of trauma, in general, there are also certainly many political, ideological, and financial reasons for this as well.

From The Independent: Mental health awareness campaigns inundate us with lifestyle tips for managing stress such as mindfulness, meditation, exercise, and nutrition. But these tips...

This month’s issue of JAMA Psychiatry ran an editorial commenting on recent research revealing that the majority of youth prescribed antipsychotics have not been diagnosed with a mental disorder.

Maternal antenatal depression is highly correlated with a history of the mother having been mistreated in childhood, and these two facts significantly increase the...

According to a study published in this month’s British Journal of Psychiatry, people diagnosed with depression in high-income countries are more likely to limit...

From The Conversation: In the five years between 2010 and 2015, U.S. teens' mental health greatly deteriorated. The sudden ascendance of the smartphone is most...

The American Academy of Pediatrics came out with new recommendations that suggest doctors screen all of their child patients for hunger. About 16 million children in the US live in food scarcity and poverty that can lead to physical health issues as well as behavioral issues, which can then be misdiagnosed.

Contemporary empirical research explores new ways to conceptualize and heal racial trauma through anticolonial and sociohistorical lenses.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Writing Therapy both reduce PTSD symptoms in children who experienced a single traumatic event.

Whistle Blown. On October 5th, 2014, I began an indefinite duration Hunger Strike upon the State of Colorado. I'm doing this because I have hard evidence of a pattern of plea coercion and child abuse coverup at Boulder County Mental Health Center, Inc. in the form of a wire recording of one of their employees, Dan Shearer.

In a guest blog for the Scientific American, Peter Kinderman takes on the “harmful myth” that our more distressing emotions can best be understood as symptoms of physical illnesses. “Our present approach to helping vulnerable people in acute emotional distress is severely hampered by old-fashioned, inhumane and fundamentally unscientific ideas about the nature and origins of mental health problems.”

From The Atlantic: In the mid- to late 1800s, psychiatric institutions were used to oppress women and reinforce patriarchal norms. The new Netflix show Alias Grace, based...

Researchers in the Netherlands compared childhood trauma and auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in 127 non-psychotic individuals with frequent AVH, healthy controls, and 100 psychotic...

In this episode of the Psychoanalytic Voices podcast, Dr. William Sharp discusses his work introducing psychoanalytic techniques into school-based settings.

From The Atlantic: Over the past few decades, numerous studies have documented the negative impacts of childhood adversity, indicating a correlation between growing up in an unstable...

A network analysis of participants’ social media use and well-being reveals complex links with social capital but a minimal association with attentional control.

A study out of the University of Buffalo explores the use of Narrative Exposure Therapy to treat youth PTSD and substance abuse. “Trauma is...