Childhood Adversity/Trauma

A new article explains common misconceptions about ADHD that are held by teachers and mental health professionals and may lead to overdiagnosis and overmedication in schools.

“Groundbreaking research in New Zealand shows sexual abuse may cause schizophrenia.” "The biggest myth about schizophrenia is that it's a solely biological disorder," co-author...

Many individuals diagnosed with eating disorders describe and internal ‘voice,’ which may be linked to experiences of childhood trauma and dissociation.

Researchers distinguish between two different forms of perspective taking and examine their impact on helpers’ wellbeing.

Race often determines whether school punishment or therapy and drugs will be used to address children’s problem behaviors.

Researchers present loneliness as a health threat facing a growing number of Americans.

From GoodTherapy.org: Although not currently listed in the DSM, the diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress (C-PTSD) has gained widespread acceptance in the mental health community. The...

Study in Brazil demonstrates how the exploration of contextual determinants of distress in mental health care can inform therapeutic change.

School discipline that punishes minor misbehavior may increase adolescents’ misconduct and lead to racial inequalities in school discipline.

A meta-analysis of known risk factors for psychosis finds elevated risk with the presence of childhood trauma, adverse life events, and affective dysfunction.

Study finds that traditional healers in South Africa, whose services are widely used by the country’s population, perform important suicide prevention work.

Researchers offer a critical take on the inclusion of the Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder in the DSM-V.

Individuals who experience psychosis can also experience posttraumatic growth, which can be a central component of the recovery paradigm.

Researchers find evidence of low socio-economic status White Americans’ rising distress and declining well-being since the mid-1990s.

One author outlines the foundations of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) research, addressing its dimensions, limitations, and potential future directions.

Childhood victimization associated with experiences of psychosis later in life, and in persons without childhood victimization, there is a bidirectional association between psychosis and adult victimization.

A new article, just published online in the journal Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, presents research suggesting that the diagnosis of ADHD is philosophically inadequate.

Researchers argue that a structural competency and social determinants of health approach must be made central to psychiatry training.

The authors of the report expand upon the traumatic and sociopolitical factors underlying presentations of psychosis and “schizophrenia.”

The Division of Clinical Psychology of the British Psychological Society published a paper titled Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia. The central theme of the paper is that the condition known as psychosis is better understood as a response to adverse life events rather than as a symptom of neurological pathology. The paper was wide-ranging and insightful and, predictably, drew support from most of us on this side of the issue and criticism from psychiatry.  Section 12 of the paper is headed "Medication" and under the subheading "Key Points" you'll find this quote: "[Antipsychotic] drugs appear to have a general rather than a specific effect: there is little evidence that they are correcting an underlying biochemical abnormality."

Researchers detect a striking relationship between the month of school enrollment relative to peers and patterns of ADHD diagnoses in a large sample of elementary school students throughout the US.

I thought I would make a small contribution to the discussion about how coverage of the recent airline tragedy focuses so much on the supposed ‘mental illness’ of the pilot and not so much on the possible role of antidepressants. Of course we will never know the answer to these questions but it is important, I think, to combat the simplistic nonsense wheeled out after most such tragedies, the nonsense that says the person had an illness that made them do awful things. So, just to confirm what many recipients of antidepressants, clinicians and researchers have been saying for a long time, here are some findings from our recent New Zealand survey of over 1,800 people taking anti-depressants, which we think is the largest survey to date.

A study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience proposes a new model for the treatment of adolescents diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD).

Behind the U.S. task force recommendation to screen all children and adults for depression.

Black patients are almost twice as likely as their white counterparts to be diagnosed with schizophrenia while whites are significantly more likely to receive a diagnosis of anxiety or depression, according to a recent study published in the journal Psychiatric Services. The researchers also found that the likelihood of receiving psychotherapy for any diagnosis (34%), regardless of race or ethnicity, was much lower than the likelihood of receiving a psychotropic medication (73%).