Children and Adolescents

From The New York Times: Michelle Carter, a 20-year-old woman, is currently being tried for urging her boyfriend to kill himself via text message. According to...

Healthline reports that as five second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) lose patent protection, Medicaid expenditures for antipsychotics are projected to be cut in half over the next five years. But some worry that the decrease in spending may lead policymakers to lift existing restrictions on antipsychotics at a time when most SGAs are prescribed to children for off-label reasons.

Researcher Zel Dolinsky once taught at medical school and worked as a medical writer in the pharmaceutical industry. In his last emails, he told of how the adverse effects of psychiatric drugs led him to choose to end his life.

A new BBC documentary, "Health," investigates the deals struck between health professionals and pharmaceutical companies. The documentary includes an interview with Dr. James Davies, co-founder of the...

Authors of a 1999 paper that promoted medication over behavioral therapy for A.D.H.D.,  in fact dismissing behavioral therapy as unnecessary in light of the apparent...

The Washington Post says "The latest numbers from the Center for Disease Control showing a steep rise in the number of children with autism...

A new study suggests digital media use among adolescents has a smaller negative effect on well-being than bullying or smoking marijuana.

-Children's ways of thinking and feeling are being strongly shaped and delimited, as early as the age of five, through the imposition of social categories and stereotypes.

On this episode of America's Lawyer, Mike Papantonio discusses the numerous lawsuits pending involving the anti-psychotic drug Abilify, which has caused plaintiffs to develop serious...

The Marine Corps Times writes of a dramatic increase in prescriptions of psychiatric medication for children of active-duty military personnell during their parents' deployment...

Eleanor Morgan writes in the Guardian opinions that the long waiting times for talk therapy and the increasing use of drugs in the UK...

ITV features and article and video today about the widespread problem of addiction and withdrawal from benzodiazepine drugs used to treat anxiety, including Ativan, Librium, Diazepam and Temazepam. Mother of three Sandra Minshull shares her story and discusses how Ativan “robbed her of her life.”

The researchers conclude that industry funding appears to bias studies towards pharmacotherapy over psychotherapy for the treatment of depression.

The people that my son and I continued to consult with over the years didn't talk of mental illness as a brain disease, a chemical imbalance, or a problem with one's genes. Depending on the therapy, they spoke in terms of restoring life force energy, changing cellular vibration, learning to listen and understand, and building a self.

Researchers from Columbia University and other New York institutions found a dramatically increasing use of antipsychotics to treat ADHD and other behavioral problems in...

An article in the Wall Street Journal today explores the phenomenon of children growing up on antidepressants. Article → 

"Terrorism researchers are trying to understand how young people in Europe become radicalized, by looking for clues in the life histories of those who have committed or planned terrorist acts in recent years, left the continent to join ISIS, or are suspected of wanting to become jihadists. A mixture of sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and psychologists, such researchers are drawing on information generated by police, judicial inquiries and the media, and, in some cases, on interviews. They also study factors at play in prisons and socially-deprived areas. Some of their insights are summarized here.”

Sir Robin Murray, a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience in London, states that he ignored social factors that contribute to ‘schizophrenia’ for too long. He also reports that he neglected the negative effects antipsychotic medication has on the brain.

From UPI: A team of researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found that the serotonin 2c receptor is responsible for weight gain...

Last Wednesday, Sesame Street added a new character, Julia, to its roster of characters. In an online story, Julia, who has autism, meets Elmo and Abby and Elmo explains why Julia might sometimes do things a little bit differently. The story was written by Leslie Kimmerman, who has a child with autism, and the entire series will be developed in collaboration with parents, advocates, and people with autism.

New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, relates the story of Andrew Francesco, a boy who began taking Ritalin at age five and died from complications with Seroquel when he was fifteen. His father, a former pharmaceutical industry executive, reveals the industry’s greed in his memoir “Overmedicated and Undertreated.” Now the industry is pushing for a first-amendment right to market its drugs for off-label uses.

A team in the Netherlands is currently investigating the effects of tapering off of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) during pregnancy....

Researchers question the overstated results of a large antidepressant meta-analysis and point to cultural pressures to turn to these drugs for a quick fix.

Antipsychotics appear to be too often prescribed to curb aggressive impulses in children and youth, rather than to treat psychosis or any other clinically indicated conditions.

“Underscoring the incredible momentum to legalize marijuana is the misconception that the drug can’t hurt anybody,” Dr. Sushrut Jangi writes in the Boston Globe. “It can, especially young people.” He suggests that the biochemistry of marijuana effects "systems ordinarily involved in healthy behaviors like eating, learning and forming relationships” and “throws the finely tuned system off balance.”