“Half of US Preschoolers Diagnosed with ADHD Get Drugs, Is that Necessary?”

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Laura McClure for Ted.com explains why giving amphetamines to children for behaviors deemed abnormal is a societal and public policy issue. “It’s a little...

Trauma and Misdiagnosis in Childhood Bipolar Disorder

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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...

Early Trauma, Social Stress Accompany Psychosis

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Researchers at Emory University find that childhood trauma, sensitivity to psychosocial stress and a heightened biological response to stress are associated with the onset...

The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study

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Gianna Kali reviews the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, "one of the largest investigations ever conducted to assess associations between childhood maltreatment and later-life...

“How Poverty Affects Children’s Brains”

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

Early Attachment Deprivation Predicts ADHD Symptoms

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A study in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology finds that in a sample of 641 adopted adolescents, an increase in the level of ADHD...

“A Child’s First Eight Years Critical for Substance Abuse Prevention”

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This week, the National Institute of Health (NIH) released a summary of new research on the effects of early childhood on substance abuse and...

“Emotional Child Abuse Has to be Banned – The Science Backs up our Instincts”

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The U.K.'s Guardian newspaper concludes that "The government is right: children need love as much as they do vitamins – and a lack of...

Childhood Adversity Increases Psychosis

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Researchers in the U.K. and Netherlands found a nearly 3x greater chance of childhood adversity among patients with psychosis in 36 studies of various...

 “Why are More Children Being Prescribed Antidepressants? Funding Cuts”

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Eleanor Morgan writes in the Guardian opinions that the long waiting times for talk therapy and the increasing use of drugs in the UK...

Spanking is Associated With Mental Illness

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Canadian researchers, publishing today in the journal Pediatrics, find that physical punishment such as spanking is associated with an increased risk of mental disorders....

Review of the Evidence: Childhood Adversity High in Schizophrenia and Other Disorders

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Researchers from Australia and the UK found that people with a schizophrenia diagnosis almost four times more likely than controls to have a history of...

“Too Many PA Foster Children are on Psychiatric Meds”

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For Philly.com, staff writer Stacey Burling reports on the PolicyLab analysis of psychiatric drug use among Pennsylvania children on Medicaid.  “Many children in foster...

“Children Today Suffer From a Deficit of Play”

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Boston College Psychologist Peter Gray writes for Aeon about the impact of the gradual erosion of children’s’ play in the United States. “Over the...

Discipline, Not Drugs

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This is how a child gets into the mental health system. At age 3 he pitches a fit in the grocery store because he...

Adverse Childhood Events Contribute Significantly to Most Mental Health Problems

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John Read and Richard Bentall write in the British Journal of Psychiatry about the growing understanding and acceptance of the significant role adverse childhood...

“U.S. Doctors Advised to Screen Child Patients for Signs of Hunger”

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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.

Questions About Childhood Trauma And Schizophrenia Settled

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In the first analysis of 30 years of studies, including 46 studies (selected from 27,000) involving 80,000 subjects, researchers in the U.K. and Australia...

Bullying Affects Mental and Physical Health Long-Term

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Researchers from Boston Children's Hospital analyzed data from 4297 children surveyed over 3 time points (fifth, seventh and tenth grades) to find that bullying...

Many Ears Make Light Listening

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When we share our stories publicly, whether in speaking, writing, or another art form, we acknowledge we are part of something bigger. We are aware we aren't the only ones who have been abused or witnessed abuse, or who are scared to let go of our ancestral shame and fear. We are, rather, part of an entire generation, an entire society that is moving away from silence, blame and abuse. In sharing our stories, we instantly recover from a big hunk of loneliness, loneliness that might not be so easily resolved sitting in a room across from a professional, with a few non-offensive art pieces on the walls. We acknowledge that every single one of us who experiences physical or emotional symptoms is holding onto things for others, in our bodies, and together, word by word, we can break free.

Familial Factors Affect Depression, BD, OCD, PD, and Phobias

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A study of 566 families with 1416 bipolar-disordered members, and 675 families with 1726 depressed members by researchers from Johns Hopkins and the University...

“Does Psychotherapy Research with Trauma Survivors Underestimate the Patient-Therapist Relationship?”

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Joan Cook, professor of Psychology at Yale, writes than in her work with military veterans she realized that her psychotherapy techniques mattered much less than her training had indicated. Instead, what mattered was “the bond forged over years of therapy,” known as “the therapeutic alliance.”

“Suicide, Mental Illness Risks Increase During Recessions”

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The latest economic recession led to a spike in diagnoses for mental illnesses, suicide attempts, and suicide, according to report out of the University...

Childhood Stress Alters Memory and Brain Structure

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Researchers from the universities of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New Orleans collected MRI scans and assessments of executive functioning and stress exposure from 61...

“Forensic Psychiatric Patients and Staff View the Effects of ‘Mental Illness’ Differently”

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“Offenders sentenced to forensic psychiatric care do not consider their mental illness to be the main reason for their crime. Instead, they point to abuse, poverty or anger toward a particular person.”