Disorders

In 2014, then National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) director, Thomas Insel, speculated that ketamine “might be the most important breakthrough in antidepressant treatment in decades.” A recent review of the research suggests that while ketamine may produce a rapid short-term improvement in depression, the effect is short-lived and the potential for addiction and dependence warrants considerable caution.

Severe infections requiring hospitalizations increased the risk of hospital contacts due to mental disorders by 84% and the risk of psychotropic medication use by 42%.

From The Atlantic: A new movement called Authentic Relating is hosting events across the country where people participate in exercises and games to learn the...

From BESE: While several recent articles and blogs have argued that social media can have a negative impact on our mental health, many members of the...

In this piece for Good Housekeeping, one woman shares how "thinking positive" and making gratitude lists worsened her depression, and how acknowledging her pain and...

In the first study of its kind, researchers from Finland found the “most definitive evidence to date” that smoking during pregnancy is associated with the eventual diagnosis of schizophrenia in offspring. After controlling for other potential variables, the study, published ahead of print in The American Journal of Psychiatry, revealed a 38% increased odds of developing symptoms diagnosed as schizophrenia in young adults who were exposed to high levels of nicotine in utero.

In early 2009, antipsychotic fraud was making headlines.  Eli Lilly had announced in January that it would plead guilty to charges that it had...

There are a lot of publication and reporting biases in studies of the efficacy of second-generation antidepressants for the treatment of anxiety.

While Sylvia Plath and Ernest Hemingway received extensive medical treatment for depression but tragically committed suicide, other famously depressed people—including Abraham Lincoln, William James, Georgia O’Keeffe, Sigmund Freud, William Tecumseh Sherman, Franz Kafka, and the Buddha—have taken different paths. Did those luminaries who took alternative paths and recovered really have the symptoms of major depression, and did their antidotes really work?

In this piece for Medium, Karen Kilbane discusses the ways that contemporary psychological theories, diagnoses, and behavior modification programs are harming the mental health and emotional...

Author and clinical psychologist Bruce Levine discusses society's relationship to drugs, psychiatry's increasing credibility issue, and the cultural response to incidents of mass violence.

“Pharmaceutical industry influence can harm the social and moral character of medical students. In medicine, the traditional virtues of benevolence, compassion, integrity, respectfulness, honesty...

In this piece for Beyond Meds, Chris Cole examines the intersection of racism and oppression against people labeled "mentally ill." "This is where social justice becomes...

“Children from poorer families are more likely to experience changes in brain connectivity that put them at higher risk of depression, compared with children from more affluent families,” according to new research covered by Medical News Today. "Poverty doesn't put a child on a predetermined trajectory, but it behooves us to remember that adverse experiences early in life are influencing the development and function of the brain. And if we hope to intervene, we need to do it early so that we can help shift children onto the best possible developmental trajectories."

In a study of 86 individuals experiencing at least mild depressive symptoms, a person's willingness to seek support from a friend was not related...

From Alternet: Applications that provide online counseling, such as BetterHelp and Talkspace, are increasing in popularity. While some studies support the effectiveness of virtual therapy,...

-There's rising use of "cognitive enhancement" and energy-increasing psychiatric drugs among stressed workers and ambitious executives.

In the light of the much trumpeted claims that recent research has identified genes for schizophrenia, it is important to review the track record of this type of endeavor. Despite thousands of studies costing millions of dollars, and endless predictions that the genetics of schizophrenia would shortly be revealed, the field has so far failed to identify any genes that substantially increase the risk of developing schizophrenia.

-A commentary suggests that the evidence to support the use of cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis is tenuous, in part because CBT itself is so variable.

A new study in the journal Translational Psychiatry, an influential journal in biological psychiatry published by Nature, challenges the state of the research on antipsychotic drugs.

According to the Wall Street Journal's, story on a June study of 4000 Qubequois students, "a growing body of research finds that in the...

Large cohort studies of people with a first-episode psychosis provide a unique opportunity for finding out why so many young people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders die at a young age. However, it seems that those psychiatrists who have access to the mortality data generally do not want the facts to come out.

"It's no secret that stimulant medications such as Adderall that are prescribed to treat symptoms of ADHD are sometimes used as 'study drugs' aimed...

Psychiatrist outlines varying roles in Open Dialogue model, fostering service-user and family agency through meaningful conversations with a team of providers.

Ritalin reduced impulsive responses and increased the amount of time willing to stay on task of Rhesus monkeys in a study from the University...