Over-diagnosis

New research emphasizes the impact of school connectedness and community engagement interventions on students' mental health.

I believe that the American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization should follow the lead of several countries that have already retired the term "schizophrenia" from their vocabularies. The time is now to drop this stigmatizing, hope-disabling, scientifically controversial term.

An anthropological look at the Global Mental Health (GMH) movement suggests several ethical problems and contradictions in its mission.

Psychiatry’s harms extend far beyond those people it ‘treats’ — they are undermining our society’s entire foundation. In just thirty years in America, the medical model's widespread acceptance has largely undone the huge adaptive potential that millions of years of brain evolution had provided.

Stimulant medications like Ritalin and Adderall, often prescribed to treat children diagnosed with ADHD, are known to cause hallucinations and psychotic symptoms. Until recently these adverse effects were considered to be rare. A new study to be published in the January issue of Pediatrics challenges this belief, however, and finds that many more children may be experiencing psychotic symptoms as a result of these drugs than previously acknowledged.

Are diagnoses of mental disorders among children and adolescents in developed countries disproportionate to disease prevalence trends?

In 2004, the FDA added a black-box warning to SSRI antidepressants on the increased risk of suicide among children taking these drugs. A new study suggests that this warning has increased the proportion of children who begin an antidepressant on a low dose, but the majority are still receiving higher than recommended doses.

A new study, published in BMJ Open-Access this week, found a significant link between the level of air pollution in a community and the mental health of the children living there. After controlling for socio-economic status and other potential variables, researchers in Sweden discovered a strong association between the concentration of air pollution in a neighborhood and the amount of ‘antipsychotic’ and psychiatric drugs prescribed to children. The link remained strong even at pollution levels well below half of what is considered acceptable by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Researchers offer a critical take on the inclusion of the Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder in the DSM-V.

An article published this month in the journal BMC Psychiatry suggests that there is a lack of efficacy for SSRIs and that they significantly increase the risk of serious side effects.

A new study systematically explores critical reactions to the DSM-5 and identifies unifying themes.

Two new articles find that rates of ADHD diagnosis and stimulant prescription continue to rise all over the world.

The dramatic rise in ADHD spreading from the United States to the rest of the world is more an "economic and cultural plague" than...

There is a substantial body of evidence suggesting that not getting enough omega-3 fatty acids in your diet may be connected to a diverse array of psychiatric symptoms. In a new study published this month, psychiatrist Robert McNamara and Erik Messamore provide an overview of the evidence and call for screening of omega-3 deficiency in people experiencing symptoms associated with ADHD, depression, mood disorders, and psychosis.

The type of diagnostic assessment used in research settings, either fully structured or semi-structured interview, may affect which participants in receive a diagnosis of major depression.

Research reveals that rates of antipsychotic prescribing to the elderly in the UK have not dropped despite national recommendations.

Findings suggest that treatment not only fails to reduce the severity of “ADHD” symptoms in adulthood but is associated with decreased height.

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs have gained popularity in U.S. schools in recent years. A new study examines the nature and longevity of their impact on students.

Throughout the ages, convulsions, contortions of the body and face, including the tongue, super-human strength, catatonic periods, long periods of wakefulness or sleep, insensitivity to pain, speaking in tongues, and a predilection for self-injurious behaviours have all been offered as physical evidence of possession. The modern day interpretation, however, comes with a plot twist befitting a media spectacle. There is growing consensus in the medical community that many prior accounts of “demonic possession” may have represented original accounts of what is now broadly known as autoimmune encephalitis.

Researcher Dr. Silke Schwarz highlights how Western psychology’s construction of individual resilience deflects emphasized individual pathology and deflects efforts at structural change.

According to psychologists, “mental illness is largely caused by social crises such as unemployment or childhood abuse.” If this is so, why are we...

In this month’s issue of the journal Brain a new study investigates whether the drugs prescribed to control seizures can increase the risk of...

Findings show that participants with lower levels of education and SES suffer from more chronic pain.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently issued a controversial recommendation that all adolescent and adult patients undergo depression screening in primary care. The...

False beliefs about biological differences between races are associated with a failure to provide recommended pain treatments to Black people.