Bipolar

From UPLIFT: In the shamanic view, emotional distress and psychosis signal a spiritual awakening or emergence, not a pathology. Western cultures can learn a great...

A large review and meta-analysis of 167 studies across 60 years dissects placebo-controlled randomized controlled trials of antipsychotic drugs.

In this piece for Elephant Journal, one man tells his story of being locked up and forcibly drugged in the psych ward, and how he...

Previously taking antidepressants could make individuals less likely to respond to treatment for bipolar II depression.

There are some things to applaud about the recently released update of the NICE bipolar guidelines, not least the recognition that the diagnosis has been inappropriately applied to children with behavioural problems. Hopefully this will help curtail the worrying trend of using toxic bipolar drugs in this age group. As usual, however, the Guidelines overlook glaring problems with the evidence base for drug treatment in general, and miss an opportunity to stem the diagnostic creep that has come to the UK and Europe via the United States.

From The New York Times: Clinicians have long known that sleep schedules and levels of exposure to sunlight can have a significant impact on...

In a study published yesterday, researchers from the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo bring attention to a condition known as neuroleptic-induced deficit syndrome (NIDS)...

Study finds that individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression have diets that are more inflammatory and higher in calories.

Noting that "childhood adversity is gaining increasing attention as a plausible etiological factor in the development of psychotic disorders," researchers from Johns Hopkins, Aarhus...

With deep regret, Mad in America announces another loss in our contributor community. Julie C. Greene, writer and antipsychiatry advocate, lost her battle with kidney disease on November 29 at her home in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. Julie had been an MIA blogger since 2014, including several pieces on the dangers of lithium.

Between 2,150 and 4,100 children suffered from severe malformations connected to valproate prescription.

A blog in Scientific American reviews sleep’s role in "Obesity, Schizophrenia, Diabetes... Everything".  The article notes  a tight link between depression and sleep apnea,...

Despite the integral importance of blinding and blinding assessment to randomized controlled trials (RCTs), they are rarely reported on or documented in trial reports...

When children do things like recoil in fear from monsters and ghosts in their darkened bedroom at night, it’s easy to see the “out of touch with reality” aspect of their experience as being closely related to the faculty that gives them their ability to play – their imagination. We help children through such challenging experiences by being with them, and by playing together, doing things like creating scary images together and then figuring out how to cope with them or laugh at them. In the process we help them explore how to create a world view that works to at least some extent and has room for joy and originality - when their imagination helps them (and maybe others) see the world in new ways.

In a series of experiments in mice, researchers found that the drug risperidone alters gut microbes, which in turn profoundly influence metabolism, weight, and overall health.

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:

Patients are at an increased risk for suicide during the three months immediately following discharge from an inpatient psychiatric hospital.

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

Subsidiaries of Johnson & Johnson have agreed to pay $5.9 million to settle Montana's lawsuit over the company's fraudulent marketing of Risperdal.  According to...

Whether it’s the Nurtured Heart Approach, or any other method that’s truly up to the task, we need these effective strategies and ways of thinking to be more widespread so we can lessen the pitfalls of the medical model’s limited prospective which has no idea of how to turn intense into immensely great.

In this month’s issue of Psychological Medicine, researchers from King’s College London found evidence for associations between different types of childhood adversity and specific symptoms associated with psychosis. As current categorical approaches to psychosis and schizophrenia diagnoses come under increasing scrutiny, this study adds support to sociological and psychological theories and treatments.

Re-examination of meta-analytic claims finds the prevalence of pediatric bipolar disorder is close to zero.

After 25 years of chronic emergency, 22 mental hospitalizations, a stint at a “community mental health center,” 13 years in a "board & care," repeated withdrawals from addictions to legal drugs, and a 12-year marriage, I plan to live every last breath out as a survivor, an advocate, and an artist.

These are not happy times for the embattled drug maker AstraZeneca.  The patent for Seroquel has expired; the company’s profits have plummeted; and its...

In 1988, the introduction of Prozac was hailed as a breakthrough in the treatment of depression. A quarter of a century later, the prospect of a similar breakthrough in psychiatric medications seems remote. On August 19, 2013, the New York Times ran an article called, “A Dry Pipeline for Psychiatric Drugs".