Mania is Not Strongly Associated With Violence
A review of New South Wales court documents from 1992 to 2008 found that only 12 of 272 people found not guilty by reason...
Fostering Secure Attachment Prevents Depression and Anxiety
Researchers from China and the Harvard Medical School studied the effects of anxious and avoidant attachment on the development of depression and anxiety in...
The Large, Statistically Significant Effect of Walking on Depression
Researchers in the U.K. searched eleven databases for randomized, controlled trials of walking as a treatment intervention for depression. 14,672 retrieved articles yielded eight...
How the “Brain Defect” Theory of Depression Stigmatizes Depression Sufferers
Viewing depression as a “brain defect” rather than a “character defect” is supposed to reduce the stigma of depression, according to the American Psychiatric...
Minimal Empirical Support for Antidepressant Treatment in Young People
Researchers from Australia reviewed the existing literature for good-quality evidence of effective prevention and treatment of depression in young people. Prevention research was dominated...
SSRIs Significantly Increase Falls in Dementia, Even at Low Doses
Researchers in the Netherlands followed 248 nursing home residents with dementia for two years, finding that even 25% of the defined daily dose of...
Labels Initiates Core Social Support, Lose Peripheral Ties
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...
Mountain Hiking Improves Hopelessness, Depression, and Suicidal Ideation in High-Level Suicide Risk
Researchers in Salzburg, Austria found that 20 participants who had attempted suicide at least once showed a significant reduction in hopelessness (P < 0.0001),...
Fast-Food and Commercial Baked Goods Cause Depression
Researchers in Spain followed 8.964 subjects who had never been diagnosed with depression followed for over six years, finding that consumers of fast food...
Lawyers Starting to Blame Military’s Psychotropic Drugs For Aberrant Behavior
Military psychiatrists and judges are beginning to see the effects of an eightfold increase of SSRI use in the military since 2005, according to...
Long-Term Psychotherapy Changes Prefrontal-Limbic Function
In the first neuroimaging study of changes in the limbic system and prefrontal cortex caused by long-term psychotherapy, researchers in Germany and the United...
Study of Antidepressants and Suicide is Retracted
A controversial 2010 paper, "Antidepressant Medication Prevents Suicide in Depression", has been retracted by Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. In a contemporaneous issue of British Journal of...
Antidepressants, Not Depression, Raise Risk of Preeclampsia in Pregnancy
In a study of 69,448 pregnant women with depression, researchers from the Harvard school of public health found that use of SSRI (selective serotonin...
Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy and Childhood Autism Spectrum Disorders
"Objective To systematically evaluate whether prenatal exposure to antidepressant medications is associated with increased risk of autism spectrum disorder ... Conclusion Although the number of children exposed...
Pharmas Exiting Antidepressant Market
As patents expire on current antidepressants pharmaceutical companies are getting out of the market, according to an article in yesterday's Vancouver Sun. In the latest...
Hypertension in Pregnancy 50% More Likely With SSRIs
Researchers in Montreal found in a sample of 1,216 pregnant women that those who used antidepressants were at least 50% more likely to experience...
Living Alone Nearly Doubles Antidepressant Use
Finnish researchers found that in a study of 3471 men and women, those living alone were almost twice as likely to use an antidepressant....
Mindfulness Decreases Depression & Anxiety, Increases Hope
In a sample of 56 participants who met criteria for a mood disorder, anxiety disorder, and/or substance dependence, researcher from the Emory School of...
Spontaneous Improvement in Depression, With and Without Placebo
Researchers at Columbia University and Queens College reviewed 10 trials of antidepressants that used wait-listed controls in order to determine the contribution of spontaneous...
Remembering Kate
I first wrote this story of my mother back in 2000, six years after her death. I share it today as my first entry on this important blog, in the hope that people will see that there is another way. In future entries I want to share with you why I don't believe in mental illness and the use of psychotropic medications, and how I believe people who are experiencing emotional distress can get well, stay well, and live the lives they want to live.
Anhedonia in Schizophrenia Reflects Beliefs, Not Deficits
Researchers at the University of Maryland investigated "the emotion paradox" in schizophrenia; the tendency of individuals with schizophrenia to report similar levels of positive...
Women on SSRIs Less Likely To Breastfeed
In a prospective cohort study of 466 pregnant women over 10 years, researchers at the California Teratogen Information Service found that women exposed to...
Environmental Factors Drive Mania
Harvard researchers investigated 6,214 cases of major depression for factors that would predict transition to bipolar disorder. Clinical characteristics such as age of onset...
Brain Volume Recovers With Remission, Not With Medication
In a prospective study of 28 outpatients with major depression, Canadian researchers investigated whether brain volume changes stabilized with antidepressant treatment and/or reversed with...
