Children and Adolescents

A new study conducted by Jeffrey Vittengl at Truman University has found that taking antidepressant medications resulted in more severe depression symptoms after nine years.

In this blog post for Quick Thoughts, James Coyne debunks a recent study in Lancet Psychiatry claiming that teens accessing mental health services experience a greater decrease in...

Reanalysis of the original primary outcome measure in the STAR*D study suggests STAR*D findings inflate improvement on antidepressant medication and exclusion criteria in conventional clinical trials results in overestimation of antidepressant efficacy.

A new study suggests that depressive symptoms in older adults can be improved with non-invasive behavioral activation techniques. These approaches appear to have a preventative effect, serving to prevent further depressive symptoms from developing.

When I was locked in a psychiatric hospital, I wasn't able to have much of a conversation with my parents about what was going on. Phone calls were tense and filled with silence, and as I stood at the ward payphone I was so confused and frozen in fear that each call just confirmed to them how lost I was. Every day as a patient centered around the various prescriptions I was on, and like so many people suffering in a psychosis, helping me became a wait to "find the right combination of medications."

Researchers at Harvard Medical School highlight the need for mental health clinicians to explore the meaning of physical symptoms and pain

Professionals across the Western world, from a range of disciplines, earn their livings by offering services to reduce the misery and suffering of the people who seek their help. Do these paid helpers represent a fundamental force for healing, facilitating the recovery journeys of people with mental health problems, or are they a substantial part of the problem by maintaining our modestly effective and often damaging system?

At the University of Minnesota, the answer is apparently $1,446. If harmless clerical errors were to blame for oddities like this, that fact should be easy to clarify simply by looking at the relevant documents.  But if there are systematic issues with the administration of clinical trials that makes it possible to bill for a visit with a dead subject, those issues would be important for other universities and private trial sites as well. 

Researchers from the University of Toronto departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology, publishing in Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, propose that various forms of stress,...

Former DSM-IV task force chair Allen Frances takes aim at the “massive overuse of psychotropic medication in children” in an article for the Psychiatric Times. He shares a checklist of questions for doctors to consider before prescribing medication to children. Frances warns: “We simply don’t know what will be the long-term impact of bathing a child’s immature brain with powerful chemicals.”

-Psychiatrist Jose Andres Saez Fonseca disposes with the language of the diagnostic manuals, and tries to grapple with different ways of seeing.

In this piece for USA Today, Candy Grande offers 12 non-drug approaches for helping kids cope with school-related anxiety, such as having a discussion about...

Research from Australia asks the question noted above, and answers "subtle, but diverse, structural brain alterations, altered electrophysiological functioning and sleep patterns, minor physical...

From World Economic Forum: A recent study found that children aged 4-6 maintained better focus and were less easily distracted while performing boring tasks when dressed...

Study questions how international psychiatric treatment of street children in Cairo could be reinforcing their marginality and vulnerability.

The Atlantic investigates the brutal "training" and "therapy" regimes and chronic abuses still going on at psychological and physical boot camps for "troubled teens"...

Lancet Psychiatry, a UK-based medical journal, recently published a study that concluded brain scans showed that individuals diagnosed with ADHD had smaller brains. That conclusion is belied by the study data. The journal needs to retract this study. UPDATE: Lancet Psychiatry (online) has published letters critical of the study, and the authors' response, and a correction.

The brains of adolescents diagnosed with bipolar disorder develop differently than the brains of teens without the disorder, according to a study in Biological...

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...

In his Alternatives Conference 2012 Address, Will Hall called attention to the ongoing phenomena of “medicalizing poverty and calling it mental illness.” Mental health systems and practitioners often tend to perceive and identify the myriad ways that impoverished people cope and adapt to adverse environments (such as food and housing insecurity) as pathological indicators of mental illness. A poor child who does not pay attention to the day’s lessons at school may be diagnosed with ADHD, yet focuses intense attention on how he will return home safely, take care of his siblings and get a meal. A young woman may be labeled as Oppositional/Defiant who bravely copes with an erratic mother and her abusive boyfriend. Behaviors that can make sense in one context (home, neighborhood), are flagged as dysfunctional and impaired in another (school & work).

A new study on the depression symptoms of over three-thousand patients challenges the criteria used for diagnosing major depression with the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5). Current diagnostic systems are based on an assumption that the symptoms of depression point to a common underlying “illness," but research suggests that this framework may be outdated and oversimplified.

Jim Gottstein’s presentation March 29, 2012 at the APA’s Humanistic Division. Mr. Gottstein talks about the the legal and moral issues of the massive number...

Industry-funded continuing medical education (CME) influences physicians to prescribe more opioids, focus less on the consequences.

Imagine being a parent at a meeting with educators to discuss Johnny's academics or behavior. Suddenly, your child’s teacher is telling you that he needs to see a doctor for an assessment of a suspected “mental disorder,” which usually leads to a prescription for medication. Warned of “the risks against failing to intervene,” you will likely acquiesce.

Findings from a survey of 6,082 individuals, designed to explore racial and ethnic differences in mental disorders, reinforce the relationship between social support and...