Anxiety

A new study suggests needing to appear perfect to others leads to mental health stigma and a higher risk of untreated psychological distress.

New research points to numerous harmful effects of high-level lead exposure in childhood on adult mental health and personality characteristics.

A review of all the relevant research comparing benzodiazepines (BDZ) to antidepressants (AD) for the treatment of anxiety was published Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics this Friday....

Based on my experience both as a therapist and client in the mental health field, I have learned that when therapists or psychiatrists give you the following diagnoses all too often here is what they really mean:

Jürgen Margraf and Silvia Schneider, both well-known psychologists at the University of Bochum in Germany, claim that psychotropic drugs are no solution to mental...

A study published online today (May 26, 2012) in Current Psychiatry Reports recommends Zyprexa as "elusive" pharmacologic solution to anorexia nervosa. On the basis...

Confronting existential anxiety through “Basal Exposure Therapy” shows promising results in people withdrawing from psychotropic drugs.

A new study finds poorer depression and anxiety outcomes in psychotherapy for people in economically deprived neighborhoods and those on antidepressants.

Recently I wrote an article on MIA entitled Trauma, Psychosis, and Dissociation. Several people responded privately with some very thought-provoking questions that I would like to explore and possibly answer to some extent here. Dedicated readers of the MIA website are all too familiar with the myriad problems that exist with diagnoses in general, the stereotypical (and often untrue) assumptions associated with these various categories, and their lack of scientific validity or reliability. First, though, I want to state that my area of experience and research is with trauma, psychosis, and dissociation . . .

In this piece for The New York Times, suicidologist and psychotherapist Stacey Freedenthal tells her story of having struggled with suicidality and discusses the importance...

I had managed to get off the drugs again, this time with practically no withdrawal reactions other than some disturbances to my sleep which eventually settled down. I truly feel that I have been given a second chance because I am aware of how many people struggle terribly with these drugs just as I did.

When I first interviewed Brandon Banks, in the spring of 2008, while researching Anatomy of an Epidemic, he had recently entered Elizabethtown Community College...

High job demands, low job control, and high job strain are associated with the development of a mental health issue at age 50.

According to new research by Joanna Moncrieff and Sebastião Viola, mental health problems have become the leading cause of disability claims in the UK. While the overall number of claims for other conditions has decreased by 35%, claims related to “mental disorders” have increased 103% since 1995.

Anxiety can be a clarion call from our better self, a nagging inner tension that will persist until real-life changes are made that attend to deeper needs. When anxiety is reduced to a symptom to be medicated away, or an aberrant emotion based on cognitive distortions in need of correction, the all-important representational value of that anxiety can be lost.

In 1980, the British Medical Journal published a “Systematic Review of the Benzodiazepines” by the Committee on the Review of Medicines. The committee denied the addictive potential of Benzodiazepines and limited their suggestions to short term use. The results have been devastating.

The researchers found that, of those who were initially prescribed both antidepressants and benzodiazepines, approximately 12% went on to engage in long-term benzodiazepine use.

While any effort to generate awareness and potentially curb the benzodiazepine epidemic is commendable, we have to ask ourselves, is Xanax just the scapegoat in this situation? Will legislative action and media attention for only one benzodiazepine out of so many make any difference?

Treating insomnia using online cognitive-behavioral therapy appears to improve a variety of mental health concerns.

Findings point to association between race and the mental health care experiences of African-American and White veterans.

A new study finds that individuals being treated with open-label placebos showed significant reductions in pain and disability, even when compared to individuals receiving treatment as usual.

Despite concerns about the risk to benefit ratio, the FDA approved flibanserin (Addyi) to treat low female sexual desire in August. In a new...

From Red Pepper: Capitalism produces much of the mental distress that is categorized as "mental illness" by turning human creativity and connectivity into social isolation,...

From Metro: Poverty can have a dramatic effect on people's mental and physical health, as it can impact diet, healthcare access, sleep, and socialization. "There are plenty...

A new study published in the journal Neuroscience finds that rats given regular doses of amphetamines during adolescence have brain and behavioral changes in adulthood....