Branding Diseases—How Drug Companies Market Psychiatric Conditions: An Interview with Ray Moynihan
MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Ray Moynihan about the marketing of disorders, broadening of diagnoses, and harmful treatments.
When Psychology Speaks for You, Without You: Sunil Bhatia on Decolonizing Psychology
MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Sunil Bhatia about decolonizing psychology, confronting the field’s racist past, colonial foundations, and neoliberal present.
Responsibility Without Blame in Therapeutic Communities: Interview with Philosopher Hanna Pickard
Hanna Pickard on the elusive middle ground between personal responsibility and systemic factors in our understandings of addiction.
Lexapro for Children: Drug With No Meaningful Benefit and Increased Suicidality Gets FDA Approval
Response and remission rates were the same in the drug versus placebo groups, and Lexapro increased suicidality sixfold.
Antidepressant Use in Pregnancy Harms Child Development, Untreated Maternal Depression Shows Benefit
In this new study, exposure to maternal anxiety in utero also harmed child development.
What Is the Risk of Permanent Sexual Dysfunction from Antidepressants?
Males taking antidepressants were at 100 times the risk of erectile dysfunction compared with the healthy population and more than three times the risk even after controlling for other variables.
ADHD Drugs Linked to Cardiovascular Disease
Service users taking drugs to treat ADHD may be at increased risk for hypertension and arterial disease
Antipsychotics Lead to Worse Outcomes in First-Episode Psychosis
Those who did not get antipsychotics in the first month were almost twice as likely to be in recovery after five years.
Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal
A new study finds that newborn babies experience antidepressant withdrawal after birth if their mothers take SSRIs when pregnant.
Psychiatric Drugs Do Not Improve Disease or Reduce Mortality
Nassir Ghaemi: “Most psychiatric medications are purely symptomatic, with no known or proven effect on the underlying disease. They are like 50 variations of aspirin, used for fever or headache, rather than drugs that treat the causes of fever or headache.”
Cancer Risk Higher for Those on Clozapine
The antipsychotic clozapine, considered the “gold-standard” treatment for psychosis, was found to increase the risk of blood and lymph system cancers.
Māori Approach to Mental Health Offers Empowering Alternative to Western Psychiatry
A new article explores Mahi a Atua, an affirming indigenous Māori healing practice which stands in contrast to the Western psychiatric methods typically promoted by the Movement for Global Mental Health.
Addressing the Roots of Racial Trauma: An Interview with Psychologist Lillian Comas-Díaz
MIA’s Hannah Emerson interviews Comas-Díaz on the need for culturally competent care in a medicalized and individualistic society.
New Research Questions Safety of Esketamine for Depression
An analysis of FDA adverse event reports related to esketamine shows the potential for negative effects such as suicidal and self-injurious ideation.
Adding Antipsychotics Worsens Outcomes in Psychotic Depression
Outcomes were worse for all, with young people on combination therapy twice as likely to experience rehospitalization or death by suicide than those on antidepressants alone.
Stop Using Antidepressants Except for “the Most Severe Depression,” Experts Say
Experts advocate limiting antidepressant use to only the most severe cases of depression, emphasizing the need for social and psychological interventions.
Therapy Beats Drugs for Depression for Long-Term Outcomes
Combining drugs and therapy also did not lead to better depression outcomes than therapy alone.
Antidepressant Use More Than Doubles Risk of Suicide Attempts
Throughout the past two decades, studies have warned of increased suicide rates in those taking antidepressants, especially in children and adolescents. Researchers also documented...
Antidepressants Still Linked to Increased Suicide Risk
Bias and financial conflicts in antidepressant trials “contribute to systematic underestimation of risk in the published literature.”
Bringing Integrative Community Therapy to Pittsburgh: An Interview with Alice and Kenneth Thompson
Father and daughter Ken and Alice Thompson run the Visible Hands Collaborative, bringing Integrative Community Therapy to the US.
The Failings of “Mental Health”: How a Seemingly Benign Concept Might be Dangerous
MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Bruce Cohen about dismissive psychiatrists, pervasive psychiatry, and the field's ties to neoliberal capitalism.
Risk of Depression Spikes When Kids Take Ritalin
Risk of depression increased when children were taking methylphenidate for ADHD, but once they stopped taking the drug, depression risk dropped to normal levels.
Fighting for the Meaning of Madness: An Interview with Dr. John Read
Akansha Vaswani interviews Dr. John Read about the influences on his work and his research on madness, psychosis, and the mental health industry.
Toward a Critical Self-Reflective Psychiatry: An Interview with Pat Bracken
MIA’s Justin Karter interviews critical psychiatrist and philosopher Pat Bracken about the necessity of challenging received wisdom.
Decontextualized Depression and PTSD Diagnoses Fail Indigenous Communities
A case analysis of an American Indian woman illustrates how the DSM diagnostic criteria misrepresent the lives of indigenous people.
