Is Long-term Use of Benzodiazepines a Risk for Cancer?
A large study of the population in Taiwan reveals that long-term use of benzodiazepine drugs, commonly prescribed for anxiety, significantly increases the risk for brain, colorectal, and lung cancers. The research, published open-access in the journal Medicine, also identifies the types of benzodiazepines that carry the greatest cancer risk.
Branding DiseasesâHow Drug Companies Market Psychiatric Conditions: An Interview with Ray Moynihan
MIAâs Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Ray Moynihan about the marketing of disorders, broadening of diagnoses, and harmful treatments.
Pets More Effective for Grief Support than Humans, Study Finds
A new study explores effective forms of grief support, finding that animals are more effective than humans in providing support.
Beyond Paternalism or Abandonment in Mental Health Care: An Interview with Neil Gong
Neil Gong exposes the false choice in mental health policy between tolerant containment for the poor and paternalistic surveillance for the rich.
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.
Remembering Bhargavi Davar: A Global Leader in the Struggle for Human Rights
Bhargavi Davar was a global leader in the struggle for human rights, with her work as a psychiatric survivor activist simply one aspect of that work.
Deprescribing Psychiatric Drugs to Reduce Harms and Empower Patients: Interview with Psychiatrist Swapnil Gupta
Ayurdhi Dhar interviews psychiatrist Swapnil Gupta on psychiatric drug discontinuation, drug cocktail risks, patient choice, and the need for trust and transparency.
Mental Health Professionals Critique the Biomedical Model of Psychological Problems
While a great deal of the excitement about advances in psychological treatments comes from the potential for research in neuroscience to unlock the secrets of the brain, many mental health experts would like to temper this enthusiasm. A special issue of the Behavior Therapist released this month calls into question the predominant conception of mental illnesses as brain disorders.
Psychiatric Drugs Do Not Improve Disease or Reduce Mortality
Nassir Ghaemi: âMost 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.â
How to Distinguish Antidepressant Withdrawal from Relapse
Mark Horowitz and David Taylor provide advice on how to tell the difference between antidepressant withdrawal and depression relapse.
Stimulants Donât Improve Academic Performance in Kids with ADHD
âEfforts to improve learning in children with ADHD should focus on obtaining effective academic instruction rather than stimulant medication.â
Psych Concepts Creep Into Our Everyday Experiences: An Interview with Nicholas Haslam
MIAâs Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Nicholas Haslam about how psychiatric terms get diluted and creep into everyday language, altering our experiences.
ADHD Drugs Linked to Psychosis and Mania
In one analysis, those on a high dose of prescription amphetamines were more than 13 times more likely to develop psychosis/mania.
The Failings of âMental Healthâ: How a Seemingly Benign Concept Might be Dangerous
MIAâs Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Bruce Cohen about dismissive psychiatrists, pervasive psychiatry, and the field's ties to neoliberal capitalism.
Toward a Critical Self-Reflective Psychiatry: An Interview with Pat Bracken
MIAâs Justin Karter interviews critical psychiatrist and philosopher Pat Bracken about the necessity of challenging received wisdom.
When Psychology Speaks for You, Without You: Sunil Bhatia on Decolonizing Psychology
MIAâs Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Sunil Bhatia about decolonizing psychology, confronting the fieldâs racist past, colonial foundations, and neoliberal present.
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.
MÄori Approach to Mental Health Offers Empowering Alternative to Western Psychiatry
A new article explores Mahi a Atua, an affirming indigenous MÄori healing practice which stands in contrast to the Western psychiatric methods typically promoted by the Movement for Global Mental Health.
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.
Kenneth Kendler: âImplausibleâ That Psychiatric Diagnoses Even âApproximately Trueâ
In JAMA Psychiatry, prominent psychiatrist Kenneth Kendler writes that psychiatric diagnoses are âworking hypotheses, subject to change.â
For People âAt Risk for Psychosis,â Antipsychotics Associated with Worse Outcomes
Researchers studied whether antipsychotics could prevent transition to full psychosis and found that the drugs worsened outcomes.
Stopping SSRI Antidepressants Can Cause Long, Intense Withdrawal Problems
In the first systematic review of withdrawal problems that patients experience when trying to get off SSRI antidepressant medications, researchers found that withdrawing from SSRIs was comparable to trying to quit addictive benzodiazepines.
The Faulty Reasoning That Turned ADHD Into a Disease
Leading ADHD researchers outline four mistakes that turned ADHD from a description of behavior into a medical disease.
Placebo EffectâNot AntidepressantsâResponsible for Depression Improvement
In adolescent depression treatment, those who received a placebo but thought they received Prozac improved more than those who received the drug and knew it.
Largest Survey of Antipsychotic Experiences Reveals Negative Results
A new survey exploring antipsychotic user experience finds that more than half of the participants report only negative experiences.
