PTSD

Ten years after being fired for taking a mental health leave after the Virginia Tech massacre, I was diagnosed as "schizophrenic" and involuntarily committed to a hospital. Now I have a job and a life, but I'm still forced to take drugs and report to a social worker.

Current suicide assessment practices of the VA are reductive and do not allow for the individual’s narrative to be heard.

Group-based MBSR and PCGT therapies effective as a complementary treatment for PTSD.

Study finds that not believing sexual abuse survivors often leads to self-blame and mental health issues.

A case analysis of an American Indian woman illustrates how the DSM diagnostic criteria misrepresent the lives of indigenous people.

Individuals who experience psychosis can also experience posttraumatic growth, which can be a central component of the recovery paradigm.

They helped me function for a while, but the debilitating side effects of antidepressants held me prisoner. I'm still having a hard time understanding how this could have happened. It's been suggested to me by a therapist that what I'm going through now is another kind of PTSD: the ongoing trauma of realizing what antidepressants did to me for 30 years.

Dr. Gail Hornstein, author of Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness, discusses the importance of personal narratives and service-user activism in the context of the global mental health movement.

Contemporary empirical research explores new ways to conceptualize and heal racial trauma through anticolonial and sociohistorical lenses.

A new study found that prazosin was associated with increased insomnia and nightmares, and did not reduce suicidal thoughts.

Trauma-informed approaches have the potential to promote recovery but must involve survivors and service-users to prevent the experience of retraumatization within psychiatric and mental health services.

Researchers examine the transformation of work, life, and identity in India as a result of Western corporate and psychological culture.

New study finds that intensive prolonged exposure is a promising treatment option for individuals with multiple trauma experiences.

If a person recognizes the “alien” parts of themselves as being parts of themselves, they are likely to be seen as having PTSD or a dissociative disorder. If they see the “alien” parts of themselves as being literally aliens, or demons, they will likely be diagnosed as psychotic. But these experiences are really on a spectrum.

Report presents new body-based therapeutic approach for shock and complex developmental trauma.

Researchers recommend a ‘politically-informed focus', including activism, when assessing children and designing interventions in areas of chronic political violence.

Increasing the minimum wage - even modestly - can lead to less cases of child abuse in the home.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Writing Therapy both reduce PTSD symptoms in children who experienced a single traumatic event.

In a new report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr. Dainius Pūras, calls for a move away from the biomedical model and “excessive use of psychotropic medicines.”

Meta-analytic study finds that psychodynamic therapy outcomes are equivalent to those of CBT and other empirically supported treatments.

Swedish study suggests experiencing adversity in childhood is linked to dying by suicide as an adolescent or young adult.

Recommendations on how to provide trauma-informed, short-term counseling to college students who have experienced sexual assault and interpersonal violence.

Researchers found that veterans with both conditions had higher odds of being prescribed second-generation antipsychotics than those presenting with just PTSD.

The American Psychological Association (APA) recently published a study finding that patients assigned to drug-only treatments were more likely to refuse treatment, and more likely to drop out before treatment completion, than patients assigned to psychotherapy only.

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