Children and Adolescents

The BBC reports that the number of people in Scotland taking antidepressants has increased by 5% in the past year with most of the patients being women and those in the poorest parts of the country. “We are now looking at the flabbergasting statistic of more than one in seven people in Scotland being prescribed antidepressants this year,” Conservative health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said. “We urgently have to look at better alternatives than simply parking people on medication in the hope things don't get any worse, with no aspiration for complete recovery."

The Toronto Star's investigation of ADHD meds has revealed 600 cases so far of Canadian children "suffering serious, sometimes fatal side effects suspected to...

A team of American pediatric physicians has published an article in the journal Pediatrics examining the many ways in which medical overdiagnosis may be...

Writing in The Atlantic, James Hamblin reports that research continues to show that physical exercise is integral to “childhood cognition and brain health,” especially for children who exhibit symptoms associated with ADHD. These findings, Hamblin comments, have been discussed with a “phenomenal degree of reservation compared to the haste with which millions of kids have been introduced to amphetamines and other stimulants to address said ADHD.”

From The Concordian: On October 30th, Dr. Joel Paris, a professor of psychiatry at McGill University, gave a lecture about the dangers and consequences of...

From The New York Times: New research suggests that Instagram users who have been diagnosed with depression tend to post darker, bluer, and grayer photos...

-A debate between one of the co-authors of the Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia report, and two authors whose meta-analysis of cognitive behavioral therapy was cited in that report.

From AP News: In response to research showing the long-term health impact of adverse childhood experiences, pediatricians, mental health specialists, educators and community leaders are...

From Scientific American: Although "normal" technically means average or typical, both researchers and the general public often view normality as a standard we should all...

Psychologist William Copeland writes for Mental Health Recovery that “bullying can occur at any age and the effects of which remain harmful long after the behavior has been endured.” “We, as a society, are just beginning to understand and come to terms with the havoc that bullying wreaks on the emotional lives of its victims.

The New York Times returns to the question of whether the explosion of ADHD diagnosis reflects a previously undetected population that was pathologically hyperactive,...

Two companies have committed to FDA review for video games that they claim can be used to treat “ADHD,” but many scientists remain skeptical. “At the annual meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry on Wednesday, Akili Interactive Labs presented data from a pilot study of its video game, Project: EVO, that showed some positive results in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).”

From CNN: From 1999 to 2015, 1,309 children ages 5 to 12 died by suicide in the U.S. That means that on average, one child under...

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...

After seven suicides in two years, students have come together to develop community building interventions including a texting hotline, artificial light boxes, and conversation...

In this short audio clip, psychologist Sheldon Solomon discusses what research on our unconscious fears about death can tell us about terrorism, intolerance, and radicalism. “In the wake of the Paris attacks, we examine the worm that some people think is eating away at our core — our fear of death.”

Maternal antenatal depression is highly correlated with a history of the mother having been mistreated in childhood, and these two facts significantly increase the...

For The Influence, addiction expert Stanton Peele criticizes our current genetic and biological “brain disease” approaches to addiction and mental health. Article →

The November/December issue of the Psychotherapy Networker is called "Depression Unmasked: Exposing a Hidden Epidemic." It includes articles such as, "Can Mood Science Save...

A controversial move by the Australian Federal Government plans to screen 3 year olds for early signs of mental illness as part of routine...

Gianna Kali reviews the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, "one of the largest investigations ever conducted to assess associations between childhood maltreatment and later-life...

From From Insults to Respect: It is commonly assumed that antidepressants increase the risk of suicide in children and young adults, but not in adults...

The humor newspaper The Onion satirizes the conversion of transient human emotions into lifelong illnesses, reporting that "Shortly after losing grip of a helium-filled...

The Boston Globe reports on the discovery of a newly recognized neurological disease, anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. The disease is believed to be caused when the body’s immune system attacks proteins in the brain associated with the communication of neurons.

A sample of 276 youth recruited from 2 juvenile detention centers found that the association between trauma exposure and callous-unemotional traits was mediated by...