SMILES Study: Depression and Nutrition
The question this study asked was: In adults with depression who eat a poor diet, does teaching them about nutrition have an impact on their mental health? At the end of the 12-week intervention, the answer was: Yes.
Patient Race Associated with Varied Psychiatric Treatment Experiences
Findings point to association between race and the mental health care experiences of African-American and White veterans.
Why I Resigned From The Mighty
The apprehensions I'd initially had about joining the team returned to my mind. I'd allowed my original cautious disposition to be overtaken by optimism when I had accepted a position of contributing editor with The Mighty, but my hopes were about to be dashed.
Trials Comparing Treatments for Depression Favor Pharmacotherapy when Statisticians Involved
A meta-analysis looks at the effects of researcher background on study findings for trials comparing pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy for depression.
“Active Minds” — What Conversation Are We Changing?
Active Minds allows college students to start conversations on some of the most difficult struggles we face in life, but I urge the organization to lead the conversation away from bad science and towards the common struggles that we endure as human beings.
New Medications Fail to Show Efficacy for Alzheimer’s Disease
Three phase III clinical trials assessing the efficacy of Lundbeck’s investigational drug idalopirdine for Alzheimer’s disease have failed
7 Years Off Psych Drugs: A Message to Those Labeled by Psychiatry (video)
Seven years ago, I completed a six-year process of withdrawing from six psychiatric drugs. That process was the impetus to start speaking up about what is happening in psychiatry with far too many of us being gravely harmed.
Trump and the Diagnosis Free-for-All
It would seem that who is 'mentally ill' is a movable target (much more so than, say, the cancer or diabetes to which it is often compared), sometimes based on convenience and strategy. If you hold enough power, you can decide who's sick, provided they don't have enough leverage to outdo you at your own game.
Southern Vapors: A Comeback Story Not Born of Chemistry
Imagine my excitement, the hope that relief from the sucking tar of misery that dogged too many of my days was within my reach. From that moment and for thirty years to follow, I was the willing guinea pig for any number of drugs. Nothing helped for long.
Vital Minds: Four Stories of Recovery
My patients have trashed themselves for decades, and after one month of dietary change, daily meditation, detox, and psychospiritual support, they are reborn. At a time when people are being euthanized for depression because they believe it to be a life sentence, it has never been more critical to spread the truth that healing is possible.
Intentional Peer Support: Creating Relationships, Creating Change
IPS is about creating a power-balanced, relational context in which we can begin to explore and even challenge the stories we have been taught. We can name our experiences, and challenge the meaning that we have constructed around those experiences. This fundamentally alters what we think of as “help,” but also challenges social and political constructs of disability.
Integrative Mental Health: 27 Non-drug Options that Work
Four years ago I dove into a deep and murky pond: the bottomless depths of medical databases that hold mental health research. After examining over 4000 studies, and hundreds of meta-analyses, I surfaced from my research and was hit with a startling “Aha” moment: non-drug approaches really work.
Sir Robin Murray and Our Collective Mea Culpa
Sir Robin Murray, a distinguished British professor of psychiatry, recently published a paper in Schizophrenia Bulletin titled, “Mistakes I Have Made in My Research Career.” I wonder what leads Robin Murray to acknowledge his mistakes when others seem to hunker down. I also wonder how I can know when I am misled in my assumptions.
Understanding Extreme States: An Interview with Lloyd Ross
In this interview, Lloyd Ross of ISEPP and I discuss how to help people experiencing delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, and other problems commonly associated with a diagnosis of “schizophrenia.” We discuss the problems with the biological model of “mental illness” as contrasted with a more psychosocial, contextual model of distress.
ISEPP Calling for Organizations to Join in Petition
Using an invalid diagnostic tool flies in the face of professional ethical guidelines. The International Society for Ethical Psychology & Psychiatry has drafted an open letter to the APA and other professional organizations, publicizing concerns with the DSM's lack of validity and asking for ethical guidance. ISEPP is soliciting other groups to join us in this effort.
The Outing of a Consumer
The problem with being a consumer is that we get consumed. I’ve been the bacon at far too many mental health picnics. Someone’s salary gets paid, someone’s program gets funded, someone’s career gets enhanced, someone gets accolades for being so altruistic and such a great savior — and me, what do I get? Exposed, laid bare, and isolated.
Killing “Schizophrenics”: Contemporary U.S. Psychiatry Versus Nazi Psychiatry
In any society that prioritizes economic efficiency, productivity and order above life and all of life’s varieties, people experiencing altered and extreme emotional states will be seen as defective and as burdens—monkey wrenches that disturb the societal assembly line.
Neuroscience-based Treatment Program Proposed for Adolescent Depression
A study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience proposes a new model for the treatment of adolescents diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD).
Spoiling Split: Hollywood’s Latest Run at ‘Alternative Facts’
Will ‘Split’ lead directly to someone dying or being beaten up? No, probably not. But, is it a pretty outrageous piece of evidence illustrating cultural trends that regularly represent people with psychiatric diagnoses as frightening and volatile? Absolutely.
Venomagnosia
In Ordinarily Well: The Case for Antidepressants, Dr. Peter Kramer makes two arguments that I agree with. The trouble for me is that Kramer’s clinical vision seems strangely rose-tinted. He is an advocate of using antidepressants to treat depression, but he doesn’t seem to see any of the problems antidepressants cause.
Children with ‘ADHD’ Commonly Prescribed Antipsychotics
Despite little evidence for benefit, and substantial risk of harm, antipsychotics are commonly prescribed to children diagnosed with ADHD
Chemical or Psychological Psychotherapy?
Prolonged use of psychotropic drugs can cause permanent brain damage, which can make it impossible for the patient ever to return to normal, and also cause a return to the disease state the patient originally came from.
Preventing Suicide in the UK – a Policy and Practice Divide
The Place of Calm’s innovative Peer Support Approach means suicidal people can stay up to 24 hours in a safe place in the community and receive practical and emotional support from trained professionals who have their own lived experience of mental health challenges. Evidence suggests that it saves lives and is cost effective. Yet its funding is now due to be cut.
SAMHSA’s Rose-Colored Lens
SAMHSA should be commended for undertaking an important educational task with laudable goals. Unfortunately, I have to conclude that SAMHSA’s Recovery to Practice module on medications for psychiatrists is a very minimal and even misleading attempt at educating psychiatrists.
Researcher Acknowledges His Mistakes in Understanding Schizophrenia
Sir Robin Murray, a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience in London, states that he ignored social factors that contribute to ‘schizophrenia’ for too long. He also reports that he neglected the negative effects antipsychotic medication has on the brain.
