Personality Disorders

Professionals are paid to share their wisdom with those who are, typically, less informed. But, when dealing with mental health professionals in the psychiatric arena, it is wise to retain a degree of skepticism about the words spoken by the doctors and nurses commissioned to help reduce human misery and suffering.

From The Hill: A group of more than 100 psychologists and mental health professionals marched through the streets of New York on Saturday calling for President...

Researchers from Australia and the UK found that people with a schizophrenia diagnosis almost four times more likely than controls to have a history of...

Study counters previous evidence supporting multisystemic therapy, finding adolescents are just as likely to have out-of-home placements when receiving multisystemic therapy versus management as usual.

From Discover Magazine: Using psychiatry and neuroscience to explain President Trump's personality and behavior leads to circular reasoning. "We don’t need these kinds of quasi-scientific analyses of...

Researchers recently completed a first of its kind, large-scale international survey of attitudes about mental health and they were surprised by the results. According to their analysis published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders, people in developed countries, like the United States, are more likely to assume that ‘mental illnesses’ are similar to physical illnesses and biological or genetic in origin, but they are also much less likely to think that individuals can overcome these challenges and recover

In an effort to reduce coercion, researchers isolate associated factors including age, relationship status, location, and diagnosis.

From Alternet: A new book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, written by 27 psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health experts to warn the public of President Trump's...

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

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:

In this creative nonfiction piece for Literary Hub, one woman shares her story of trauma, depression, and suicidality, and recounts the unconventional approach of the...

From GoodTherapy.org: Although not currently listed in the DSM, the diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress (C-PTSD) has gained widespread acceptance in the mental health community. The...

A new study examines the role parent borderline pathology plays in the perpetuation of childhood maltreatment.

One study indicates that pointed fingers incriminating youth for narcissism may be pointed in the wrong direction.

In this opinion piece for the New York Times, Allen Frances, chairman of the task force that wrote the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental...

A new meta-analysis finds that DBT reduces self-harm, suicide attempts, and reduces the frequency of psychiatric crisis service utilization.

In this piece for The Guardian, Jay Watts explores the social and societal factors that often lead to self-harm and explains how psychiatric labeling can exacerbate self-harm. "Self-harm...

New research published in the August issue of Psychiatric Annals evaluates the results of randomized control trials on the use of various psychotropic drugs for patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Despite the “American Psychiatric Association’s practice guidelines endorsement of SSRIs as first-line therapies for BPD,” the results of the meta-analysis reveal that pharmacotherapy in BPD is “not supported by the current literature,” and “should be avoided whenever possible.”

I think it is time to reclaim the word disability. Disability needs to be appreciated. To the extent we value community over isolation, anything anyone cannot do, or needs help with, builds community. There are infinite examples in every career and walk of life of how necessary “disability” (since we're calling it that) is for connection, service and meaning in life. Without it we'd have absolutely no need for each other. And the fastest way to despair is to feel unnecessary.

This blog was prompted by an invitation to do a guest post on the site of one of my favorite bloggers, 1 Boring Old Man. This is my response to the notion that there are certain conditions - Schizophrenia among them - that correspond more directly to biomedical conditions

New analysis of post-discharge suicide rates finds estimates 6 times higher than recent studies.

In this piece for Psychology Today, Dr. Jonathan D. Raskin lists 10 facts about the current version of the International Classification of Diseases, which is...

Audit of ECT usage, demographics, and adherence to guidelines and legislation raises concern over its continued use.

From The British Psychological Society: Dr. Susan Simpson provides an introduction to schema therapy and its uses in treating people who have been diagnosed with...

Six men were hospitalized and one was pronounced brain dead after participating in a phase 1 clinical drug for a mood, anxiety, and motor dysfunction drug manufactured by Bial and administered by Biotrial. Carl Elliott, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota, said investigators should look into questions like how much the men were paid and whether they properly consented to the trial. “Many Phase 1 trial volunteers are poor and unemployed, and they volunteer for trials like this because they are desperate for money,” he said. “This means they are easily exploited.”