Discrimination Impacts Mental Health: Especially Among the Educated
A cross-sectional study of 1,994 individuals in a deprived area of Japan found that perceived discrimination was significantly associated with depressive symptoms and a...
Over 1/2 of Autistic Children take Psychotropics
"... Absence of clear practice guidelines for psychotropic medication use in children with ASD" leads to a range of drugs for depression, anxiety, psychosis...
Anxiety and the Severity of Mania
Researchers from Spain, noting that "anxiety has scarcely been studied in acute mania," analyzed data from 242 patients admitted for a diagnosis of acute...
11% of U.S. on Antidepressants: Less than 1/2 See a Mental Health Professional
Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (2005-2008) show that 11% of Americans 12 and over take antidepressants. 60% of those have...
Psychotropic Drugs and Children
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Psychotropic Drugs and Children
June 15, 2010
Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic, discusses the disturbing effects of psychotropic drugs...
Bipolar, AKA Unipolar Mania
Teens may have mania without depression, making their bipolar illness harder to classify, according to a new NIMH study. Interviews with 10,213 teens found...
Senate Amendment Filed to Fight Inappropriate Antipsychotics in Nursing Homes
Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut filed an amendment to the Food and Drug Administration Safety...
Emotional Numbing Links Trauma and Callousness
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...
Flat Affect Fluctuates, but Predicts Poor Outcomes
Researchers in Norway and Denmark found that in a sample of 186 first-episode psychosis patients followed for 10 years, flat affect was more "fluctuant"...
Family-Level Intervention for Schizophrenia
Scores of daily function, employment, living situation, marital status and Global Assessment Scale in 979 persons diagnosed with schizophrenia and 1,509 of their relatives...
Ritalin Causes Long-Lasting Change in Prefrontal Neurons
Drexel University researchers found that methylphenidate (Ritalin) administered to juvenile rats produced significant depressive effects on pyramidal neurons. The authors conclude that "the juvenile...
Negative Symptoms Predict Quality of Life
Researchers assessed 55 first-episode drug-naive people with schizophrenia diagnoses in New Delhi, India for the predictive value of symptoms on quality of life (QOL)....
Review of Dietary Supplements for Depression
A review of dietary drug supplements for depression in the May issue of the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services finds that...
Mental Illness is the Leading Cause of Military Hospitalizations
Since 2001 almost $2 billion have been spent on drugs to treat mental illness and PTSD in soldiers, but mental illness is still the...
Dissociative Experiences Mediate Childhood Trauma/Auditory Hallucinations
Researchers in Spain assessed 71 patients diagnosed with psychoses for dissociative experiences, trauma, delusions and hallucinations. Childhood trauma was positively associated with dissociation (r =...
Judge Allows Zoloft Defense in CA Rape Case
A former southern California police detective and Iraq war veteran charged with rape will be allowed to argue that an over-prescription of antidepressants for...
Consumer Reports: Long-Term Benefits of ADHD Drugs Uncertain
Consumer Reports, looking at an analysis of more than 400 studies of ADHD medications, concludes that the apparent benefits of the drugs wear off...
Behavioral Therapy (Including Parents) More Effective for ADHD than Drugs
Stimulant medication does not improve the academic performance or test scores of the 9% of all children in the U.S. diagnosed with ADHD, according to...
Cognitive Remediation with Functional Skills Training Effective in Schizophrenia
Researchers from Canada and the U.S. report, in findings published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, that cognitive remediation robustly improved neurocognition after 12...
DSM-5 Adds “Behavior” to List of Addictions
The APA convention last week included a debate about the addition of "Behavioral Addiction - Not Otherwise Specificed" to the new edition of the...
Pain Predicts Psychopathology
Researchers from Italy, Hungary, and the U.S. investigated the extent that the subjective experience of pain in 575 psychiatric outpatients (without comorbid physical diagnoses)...
Is Psychiatry “Salvageable”?
A reader in the commentary here asked me if I think “psychiatry is salvageable.” This is a timely question that requires careful consideration.
First, I’ll...
Lowering the Threshold for Bipolar: “More Harm Than Good”
Researchers publishing in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry argue that broadening the diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder would result in a greater increase in...
Mad Pride and Spiritual Community: Thoughts on The Spiritual Gift of Madness
Let our Mad Pride movement be grounded in humility and kindness for each other in our diversity of life experiences, a recognition that social movements need good communicators and organizers more than charismatic leaders and messianic visions, and that the beautiful language we use to describe ourselves is only as powerful as the grounded actions we take to back up our words.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder Does Not Meet Criteria for a Disorder
Researchers in Italy found that of 105 subjects who met criteria for the DSM diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), only 18 had no...
