PTSD

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.

In this piece for The Atlantic, Brooke King reflects on how her trauma currently affects and may continue to affect her children, as well as...

Canada's CBC Radio has produced a one-hour documentary for its "Ideas" program exploring the science, therapeutics and ethics of our burgeoning capability to erase...

“Suicide rates in the United States have been rising, especially among veterans and members of the armed forces. Traditional assumptions about why people kill themselves have not led to effective strategies for suicide prevention,” psychologist Craig Bryan tells Science News. “So in recent years, psychologists and others have been reconsidering basic beliefs about why people carry out the ultimate act of self-destruction.”

From The Daily Beast: A newly released Government Accountability Office report found that 62 percent of military servicemembers who were discharged for misconduct between 2011...

“Service members suffering from PTSD often feel like they’re wearing a mask,” Samantha Allen writes in Invisible Wounds. Melissa Walker, an art therapist, asks them to make one. “The results are stirring. One mask, striped in red and black with hollow chrome-colored eyes, is wrapped in razor wire with a lock where its mouth should be.”

A study published in this month’s issue of the Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology found that perceived discrimination related to minority status may precede...

In this four-part series on drug abuse and trauma, Parents Opposed to Pot provides an overview of the impact of adverse childhood experiences, how they persist, and...

In this episode of ABC Radio National's All In The Mind, Lynne Malcolm interviews three experts about the impact of trauma on our memory and mental health. One guest,...

From The New York Times: Months after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the island is experiencing a severe mental health crisis. Public health officials say...

When I looked through my mountains of medical records, I saw that the providers who listed my race as black applied diagnoses like major depressive disorder and PTSD. The providers who saw me as white preferred diagnoses of panic disorder and borderline personality disorder. Of course, my experiences are just anecdotal. But if racial bias due to subjective experiences of practitioners can play such a large role in mental health diagnostics, how is this even considered a scientific discipline?

In The Conversation, two psychologists discuss the research evidence into providing early intervention mental health services to the public shortly after large-scale tragedies. They advise that doing nothing is often much better and safer for people.

Though attention tends to be drawn to physical forms of violence, it may actually be the more invisible forms of violence - abuse and...

-An Australian legal researcher discusses the different ways in which courts have handled cases involving war veterans.

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 ABC News, Farz Edraki and Lucy Fahey present five stories of people who have recovered from traumatic events through various means,...

From Aeon: While psychiatric drugs are often ineffective and can have serious side effects, there are many psychedelics and other illicit substances that have proven...

The results of the cross-sectional study show that U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) owned hospitals perform worst on most measures.

Fifteen years ago this month we were sitting together in the basement of Peter’s house. We had felt a sense of despair at the widespread misinformation and atrocious stereotypes that were dominating media coverage of mental health at the time. We felt that our profession had a responsibility to challenge these stereotypes, and that as psychologists we had something unique to contribute. That was the time when research into the psychology of psychosis was beginning to burgeon, and many of our findings challenged not only the stereotypes but – perhaps more significantly - much ‘accepted wisdom’ within mental health services as well.

Research in Translational Psychiatry finds that childhood maltreatment and trauma predict a greater likelihood of developing chronic depression, and a reduced likelihood of responding to treatment...

Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk explores his field's long, complex, and stubborn history with trauma. Dr. van der Kolk explains how psychiatry as a...

From Bustle: Natural disasters often inflict psychological harm on those who experience them, increasing the likelihood of PTSD in survivors. In addition to repairing physical...

From Healio: A recent review indicated that virtual reality-based treatment may be effective for a variety of mental health concerns including phobias, social anxiety, PTSD,...

“Therapists and other people who help victims of trauma can become traumatized themselves.” Aaron Reuben writes in The Atlantic. “Hearing stories of suffering, in other words, can generate more suffering.”

No one has been tracking whether or not US veterans have been benefiting in any way from over $3.2 billion annually in mental health...