Causation Theories

It turns out that our stress response and inflammatory modeling are set early in our childhood. While our infant microbiome certainly lays a foundation, our beliefs and the thoughts that run like a ticker tape under our life experience cannot be underemphasized. How can we heal our pasts?

"... Absence of clear practice guidelines for psychotropic medication use in children with ASD" leads to a range of drugs for depression, anxiety, psychosis...

Results reflect moderate to strong evidence in support of the non-pharmacological school-based interventions reviewed in the study.

It’s time to change how we think about and relate to people whose makeup is or appears to be different from the norm. Currently, the dominant way in research, practice and the general public is to think of what’s different—let’s say a biological or neurological difference—as the source of disability and difficulty, and to relate to and treat (in various ways) that biological or neurological difference. But there’s another way to go, and more and more researchers and practitioners are taking it.

In this piece for Aeon, Bonnie Evans chronicles the history of the diagnosis of autism, from its establishment as a marker of dysfunction and impairment to the...

In this piece for TIME, Mandy Oaklander provides a comprehensive review of the current status of and potential future directions for the depression treatment industry. The...

A new study suggests digital media use among adolescents has a smaller negative effect on well-being than bullying or smoking marijuana.

In this video for IAI TV, clinical psychologist and vocal critic of psychiatry Richard Bentall reveals why structural inequality, institutional racism, and systemic oppression play...

From Aeon: Throughout history, scientists have made inflated promises about medical genetics, vowing that the field will prevent or cure all diseases. These hyperbolic and grandiose...

In these days with limited access to mental health facilities, and when in-patient or out patient treatment might be focused on invasive treatments and not on recovery, you may be tempted to "provide sanctuary" for a friend or family member who is experiencing serious mental health challenges. Many of you have probably already done this.

From Asia Times: In his new book The Playstation Dreamworld, Alfie Brown discusses the role of video games in both reinforcing and challenging capitalism through the...

Amidst a reported leveling in medication usage among young children, a disturbing side trend has emerged. Antipsychotic medication use in preschoolers has soared over the past decade, to the upwards tale of a two- to five- fold increase despite lack of FDA approval in almost all of these medications for this age group and little to no information about long-term side effects. In addition, researchers have noted that most antipsychotic medications were being used off-label, and increasingly for the treatment of behavioral issues that many argue are both developmentally inherent and often a product of significant environmental dysfunction.

Cross-cultural data suggest that happiness involves feeling the emotions one deems as right, in accordance with personal and cultural values.

From The Guardian: In a society where unemployment is prevalent and people feel isolated from friends, family, and community, opioid use has become a coping...

From Pacific Standard: Women's medical problems have long been dismissed as psychological by our healthcare system. In her new book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad...

The first time I tried to kill myself, I was 14. I won’t go into the indignity of being involuntarily locked up, time after time, until I satisfactorily convinced the staff that I wouldn’t harm myself or attempt suicide again. (I was lying.) The system taught me to lie, to hide my suicidal feelings in order to escape yet another round of dehumanizing lock-ups and “treatments.”

The International DSM-5 Response Committee, sponsored by Division 32 of the American Psychological Association — the Society for Humanistic Psychology — now has an online petition against the DSM-5.  This is a truly international effort. Please support the petition by signing it at http://dsm5response.com

The U.K.'s Guardian writes today that "the proposal by the American Psychiatric Association to create a new illness – prolonged grief disorder – and...

Study examines relationships between experiences of victimization, beliefs in government, and political participation among 12th grade students

Researchers experimenting on mice found that Lactobacillus—the probiotic commonly found in yogurt—may help reduce depressive symptoms in reaction to chronic stressors. But human studies have found mixed results.

The US National Institute of Mental Health is providing public access to a video of a webinar explaining the Research Domain Criteria initiative and...

Imagine if we, as a society, started recognizing trauma, pain, grief, fear, the need for connection and understanding, and oppression without defensiveness or denial. What if, hypothetically, we saw the signs in people who were "defiant," "withdrawn," "oppositional," "depressed," "manic," or otherwise as desperate pleas to have their needs met, and stopped telling them they were sick for doing so? What would a society that actually encouraged expression of emotion, compassion, and empathy look like?

A new study offers radical solutions for improving the cardiovascular health of people with mental health diagnoses: reducing antipsychotic prescriptions..

--The former CEO of the UK's National Treatment Agency describes the social circumstances of people most susceptible to addiction.

There seems to be no end to illogical and even comical “findings” from MZ-DZ twin method comparisons, where the original twin researchers argue that the greater behavioral resemblance of reared-together MZ (monozygotic, identical) versus same-sex DZ (dizygotic, fraternal) twin pairs demonstrates the “heritability” of the behavioral characteristic in question. Among these we find a twin study whose authors concluded in favor of a genetic basis for being a “born again Christian” (65% heritability), another that found important genetic influences on tea and coffee drinking preferences, and still another that found that the heritability of “loneliness in adults” is 48%.