Causation Theories

“No, cortisol in hair can’t ‘reveal future mental health risk’ in children.” HealthNewsReview gives a low rating to a recent story in the Guardian that reported that cortisol levels in children’s hair might be a useful mental health screening tool.

In a continuing series, Scientific American analyzes the "Trouble at the Heart of Psychiatry's Revised Rule Book." Article →  Part 1: Psychiatrists Are About to Shift...

In an opinion piece for care2, Katie Medlock discusses how “mental illness” awareness campaigns have shifted, dangerously, “and ended up insinuating that people with mental illness could turn on ‘us’ at any time and should be feared.”

In a sample of 3021 adolescents and young adults with anxiety or depression, Dutch researchers found that 27% also had one or more psychotic symptoms. Read...

While some will frame Eleanor Longden’s story, told in her awesome TED video (which has now been viewed about 1/2 million times!), as the triumph of an individual struggling against “mental illness,” I believe the story might better be seen as a refutation of the whole “illness of the mind” metaphor, and as an indication of a desperate need for a new paradigm.

-John Horgan criticizes psychiatrist Richard Friedman's effusive portrayal of a study that allegedly identified the "feel-good" gene in humans.

Past research has revealed the children who get hospitalized in the intensive care unit are more likely to develop the symptoms associated with ADHD....

The Guardian covers research out of Australia that found that levels of the “stress hormone” cortisol in the hair of 70 nine-year-old children corresponded to the number of traumatic events experienced by the child. “Childhood is an imperative and sensitive period of development, and when things go wrong it can have lifelong consequences, not just on mental health, but also on general health.”

In a lead editorial, The Lancet took the position that the proposed revision to the DSM that would modify the exclusion for bereavement "is not...

"We are in the process of turning the disease into the norm and where the normal becomes the exception. If this continues, we will...

Article Abstract: Although research supports the stigma and labeling perspective, empirical evidence also indicates that a social safety net remains intact for those with mental...

Edward Machtinger, MD, director of UCSF's Women's HIV Program, nearly 84 percent of patients with HIV/AIDS died from trauma, such as physical abuse, neglect, substance...

The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports on legislation being passed in California to go after physicians who overprescribe psychiatric drugs to foster youth. The proposed legislation also targets government agencies that fail to offer nondrug alternative therapies to help foster youth recover from traumatic childhoods.

Robert Whitaker speaks about how the data shows we could have far better outcomes for people diagnosed with mental illness by going to a selective...

Exposure to pesticides is linked to significant increases in suicidal depression in farmers, according to a study by US National Institute of Health researchers...

ACES Too High, the trauma blog, analogizes the rise of medication to the concept of manifest destiny. Issues of personal responsibility, depletion of resources,...

Researchers in Finland reviewed questionnaires filled out by 911 primary and psychiatric care patients over 16 years of age. They found that more than...

A 48-year longitudinal study of 244 subjects, published in Schizophrenia Research, finds that those with schizophrenia-spectrum diagnoses had had the worst social functioning scores at...

Researchers from the University of Hawaii found that PTSD was associated with severity of depression, substance use, and overall mental and physical health in...

In a sample of 236 children recruited from the Environmental-Risk Longitudinal Twin Study, researchers from Duke University and King's College London found that children...

-"Aboriginal youth are nine times more likely to be depressed and three times more likely to think about suicide compared to non-aboriginal youth."

A team of Egyptian researchers found, in a sample of 74 outpatients, a relationship between trauma and first-episode schizophrenia, with a "mediating" role of...

Researchers found that of 1,534 patients assessed at Australia's Black Dog Institute Depression clinic, a significant number received a false positive diagnosis of bipolar...

In an essay in the Sydney Morning Herald, a psychiatrist explores how the same blind faith in reductionist economic models that lead to a global...

The BBC reports that the number of people in Scotland taking antidepressants has increased by 5% in the past year with most of the patients being women and those in the poorest parts of the country. “We are now looking at the flabbergasting statistic of more than one in seven people in Scotland being prescribed antidepressants this year,” Conservative health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said. “We urgently have to look at better alternatives than simply parking people on medication in the hope things don't get any worse, with no aspiration for complete recovery."