Substance Abuse/Addiction

The use of antidepressants has increased substantially in recent years, yet relatively few studies have asked patients about their experiences with these drugs. A...

During a period of self-doubt, I chose to see a psychiatrist because I was engulfed in negative thoughts and couldn't find a direction in life. The slightest joys came only when I was high. Though my weed addiction was likely causing all of my symptoms, my psychiatrist’s response was to prescribe antipsychotics.

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.”

While a great deal of the excitement about advances in psychological treatments comes from the potential for research in neuroscience to unlock the secrets of the brain, many mental health experts would like to temper this enthusiasm. A special issue of the Behavior Therapist released this month calls into question the predominant conception of mental illnesses as brain disorders.

Researchers find that support and self-care were helpful for users during discontinuation, but that mental health professionals were not very helpful.

Part 1 of this series examined how the disease model of addiction intersects with the genetically based “mental illness” theory and practice of Biological Psychiatry. Part 2 analyzed the serious limitations and sometimes harmful effects of the domination of addiction treatment by the Twelve Step (disease model), and how Biological Psychiatry has both seized upon and expanded the culture of addiction in this country. What follows will be a presentation of some alternative methods for overcoming addiction problems.

A new study explores feelings of belongingness as a protective factor for childhood trauma and adult mental health outcomes.

Instead of hope and enthusiasm for their futures, too many children now grow up believing they are inherently defective, and controlled by bad genes and biochemical imbalances. They are shackled by the idea that they have ADHD and then subdued by the drugs that inevitably go along with the diagnosis. Unless something intervenes, many of them will go on to pass their days on Earth in a drug-impaired, demoralized state.

As a trauma survivor growing up in various adolescent mental health systems, I never learned any useful self-care tools or practices. I was taught that my current coping skills (self-injury, suicidal behavior, illicit drug use) were unacceptable, but not given any ideas as to what to replace them with. No one seemed to want to know much about the early childhood traumas that were driving these behaviors. Instead, I collected an assortment of diagnoses. I was told that I would be forever dependent on mediated relationships with professionals, and an ever-changing combination of pills. The message was that my troubles were chemical in nature and largely beyond my control.

A new article explores how psychiatric diagnoses are differentially applied to people of different racial and class backgrounds.

Correcting unnecessary long-term antidepressant use is difficult and met with apprehension by providers and service-users.

Could the statistical phenomenon of regression to the mean be responsible for the dramatic effects of placebo—as well as the supposed effectiveness of some psychiatric drugs?

From STAT: Gabapentin, a drug that acts as a sedative and is also used to treat conditions including nerve pain, epilepsy, restless leg syndrome, and...

Meta-analytic study detects upsurge in patterns of perfectionism in young adults and explores how neoliberalism contributes to this trend.

Researchers recommend that healthcare professionals be vigilant regarding the signs of respiratory failure among patients with COPD who are receiving antipsychotics, especially during the initial treatment phase.

A new study suggests that epigenetic changes that have been associated with trauma may actually be due to environmental toxins.

Researchers interviewed doctors about the barriers that prevent them from being able to decrease excess medications.

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...

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

A new study suggests that most people diagnosed with depressive, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders recover without treatment within a year of diagnosis. “This...

We are told a story about illness, and that story serves a mindset that underlies the darkness that we feel all around us and within us. The mindset is that we are flesh robots, floating on a dead rock, in the middle of nowhere. But we are in the midst of a paradigm shift.

Researchers Identify risk factors for long-term benzodiazepine use to prevent harmful effects.

The recent research scandals out of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Psychiatry may be alarming, but they are not new. Back in the 1990s, when the university was working its way towards a crippling probation by the National Institutes of Health (for yet another episode of misconduct (this time in the Department of Surgery), the Department of Psychiatry hosted two spectacular cases of research wrongdoing, both of which resulted in faculty members being disqualified from conducting research by the FDA.

A new article, just published online in the journal Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, presents research suggesting that the diagnosis of ADHD is philosophically inadequate.

A meta-analysis of mindfulness-based interventions shows efficacy for treating depression, physical pain, smoking, and addictive disorders.