Childhood Adversity/Trauma

From The Atlantic: Although acceptance of LGBT individuals is growing, LGBT teens still on average experience lower life satisfaction and more depression than their straight peers,...

Dr. Jeffrey Brenner, a recipient of a 2013 MacArthur Foundation genius award, wrote: “ ACE Scores should become a vital sign, as important as height, weight,...

Children who lose a parent before the age of 3 are 84% more likely to experience psychosis as adults, according to research published in...

MIA contributor, Peter Kinderman, from the University of Liverpool, is teaching a free online course that explores new perspectives on the “nature vs nurture” debate, and how we are affected by life experiences.

On Tuesday, NPR told the story of DeAngelo Cortijo. DeAngelo became a foster kid at age 3 after his mother attempted suicide. He was “diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety disorders, attachment disorder, intermittent explosive disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder,” and was prescribed “a combination of antipsychotics, antidepressants and stimulants, and was told that taking them was his only hope of being normal.” Through equine therapy, DeAngelo was eventually able to get off all of his medication. Now, California is hoping to pass reforms that would prevent foster kids, like DeAngelo, from being “prescribed antipsychotic drugs at double to quadruple the rate of that not in foster care.”

The Mercury News reports that California’s judicial council is taking major steps to address the rampant use of psychiatric drugs in foster care. The...

The staff at Minneapolis’ Southside Village Boys and Girls Club are implementing  a specially targeted free interactive counseling toolkit designed by a team of volunteers...

From UT News: A new study has found that allowing transgender youths to use their chosen name at home, school, and work dramatically decreases their risk...

When I teach workshops or lead discussions on coming off psychiatric drugs and alternatives, there are invariably parents present who are at loose ends. They want to know what to do for their children, how to help them best, and how it can be possible for their child to live without medication given all they have been through.

Researchers in the U.K. (lead by Richard Bentall) found that specific childhood adversities were significantly associated with specific forms of psychosis in adulthood in...

“Children from poorer families are more likely to experience changes in brain connectivity that put them at higher risk of depression, compared with children from more affluent families,” according to new research covered by Medical News Today. "Poverty doesn't put a child on a predetermined trajectory, but it behooves us to remember that adverse experiences early in life are influencing the development and function of the brain. And if we hope to intervene, we need to do it early so that we can help shift children onto the best possible developmental trajectories."

For most parents, addressing the topic of death is an uncomfortable proposition. Yet, it may be one of the most important discussions we have with our children.  Our lifelong response to death often affects our mental and physical health.  We must teach our children practices from an early age that can buffer the unavoidable distress that would come if the worst occurs.

From The Guardian: According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the number of children and young people seeking mental health support has spiked since recent...

Writing for Truth-Out, hurricane Katrina survivor G. Maris Jones writes: “To adapt to a changing climate, survivors of these catastrophes - especially those in marginalized, low-income communities - need long-term physical and mental health services.” She adds a concurrent call to “assume our responsibility to make positive change through action on climate change.”

Data from the World Health Organization World Mental Health Survey showed that early-onset mental disorders were associated with reduced household income in high and...

Reuters covers a new study in JAMA Psychiatry that suggests that children exposed to physical abuse and emotional abuse suffer from similar psychological and behavioral problems. “Even though doctors and parents often believe physical or sexual abuse is more harmful than emotional mistreatment or neglect, the study found children suffered similar problems regardless of the type of maltreatment endured.”

In a sample of 175 persons with severe mental illness, researchers at the University of Hawaii found that rates of trauma exposure and PTSD...

Researchers in Spain assessed 71 patients diagnosed with psychoses for dissociative experiences, trauma, delusions and hallucinations. Childhood trauma was positively associated with dissociation (r =...

Although psychosis is more common in the parents of people with psychosis than those without, the difference cannot be attributed to genetics, research from...

Psychology Today offers a psychoanalytic perspective on childhood bipolar disorder that finds trauma at the root, a view that sees Beyond Meds as extending beyond the diagnoses...

Furthering findings that social adversity and urbanicity increase the risk of psychosis, research in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry finds that moving schools, family adversity,...

Psychologist William Copeland writes for Mental Health Recovery that “bullying can occur at any age and the effects of which remain harmful long after the behavior has been endured.” “We, as a society, are just beginning to understand and come to terms with the havoc that bullying wreaks on the emotional lives of its victims.

According to Jesse Singal, “ever since the 1930s, young people in America have reported feeling increasingly anxious and depressed. And no one knows exactly...

L. Alan Sroufe, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, writes in the New York Times Sunday Review that there is no...

A new study finds that ninety percent of military veterans who identify as transgender have at least one mental health diagnosis. “Traumatic brain injuries...