A Social Psychiatry Manifesto that Takes Social Context Seriously

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A re-visioned approach to social psychiatry aims to understand the broad influence of social life on mental health.
peer staff escaping coercive

Peer Specialists in the Mental Health Workforce: A Critical Reassessment

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It is time to seriously consider re-focusing our energy and resources away from placing peer staff in roles where they support the mental health system’s status quo, and toward the goal of making high-quality peer advocacy available to people faced with coercion by the mental health system.

Smartphones, Loneliness, and Depression in Teens

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New study finds that smartphone use may precede experiences of loneliness and depressive symptoms among older teens according to longitudinal analysis.
veterans antidepressants

Abandoned in VA Purgatory — Misdiagnosed, Overprescribed & Fighting for Answers

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Today I’ve recovered a semblance of my old life, and I, like millions of others, deserve answers. What have these drugs actually done to us? Everything I’ve learned thus far shows that antidepressants were poorly researched, and society, especially our military service members and veterans, were used as test subjects.

Reforming Schools to Prevent Mental Health Issues

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New research explores the use of broad-based school-integrated resiliency and mindfulness interventions to prevent mental health concerns before they occur.
sisyphus

The Sisyphus Cycle: How Everyday Stress Leads to Suicide

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If you wanted to capture my mindset at the peak of suicidal longings — crushing odds, repeated failures, futility of existence, huge obstacles weighing me down — the story of Sisyphus would be it. After one too many trips around this block, enter suicide: the fail-safe tactic for escaping unbearable pain and suffering.

New Review Finds Lancet Global Mental Health Report Misguided

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A new critical review of the latest Lancet global mental health report finds that while the movement claims to take a public health approach in its rhetoric it continues to focus on culturally inappropriate individual-level interventions.

Deep Brain Stimulation and Depression

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A new paper is touted as showing that deep brain stimulation "provides a robust antidepressant effect." Among the 28 patients in the study, 56 serious adverse events were reported, including infection, hemorrhage of the cortex and post-operative seizure. Yet the authors conclude that the results "support the long-term safety and sustained efficacy" of DBS.

UN Expert Calls for Major Shift in Suicide Prevention Efforts on World Mental Health...

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On World Mental Health Day, UN expert Dainius Pūras calls for a shift away from medical solutions toward a rights-based approach to make life “more liveable.” He calls for states to address societal determinants of mental health, promoting autonomy and resilience.

Discrimination Leads to Mental Distress for Gender Diverse People

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Researchers seek to identify adaptive coping responses to discrimination for the transgender and gender diverse community.
riding into battle against unjustified commitment

Fighting Unjustified Commitment in Wisconsin: Leslie’s Story

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Leslie was not experiencing any depression, psychosis, or suicidal or homicidal ideation. She was not a danger to herself or others. Yet she had been picked up by police, placed in handcuffs, and brought to the hospital, and her social worker intended to have her placed in a group home.

Non-Gender Affirmative Treatment Detrimental to Mental Health

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Gender identity conversion efforts impact psychological distress and lifetime suicidality in transgender people.

Loneliness Increases Risk of Severe ‘Common Mental Disorders’

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Loneliness was found to both predict and be reinforced by severe common mental disorders.

Humanizing Mental Healthcare by Reducing Coercive Practices

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A review of the literature demonstrates that coercive practices lack empirical support and violate human rights.
trapped in mental health services

Mental Health Services Turned My Daughter’s Crisis into a Way of Life

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My world turned upside down when my daughter nearly died from a serious suicide attempt. After several years as her caretaker I began to wonder: What can we do to change the way our mental health services are organized so they won't turn a crisis into a way of life for already distressed and vulnerable people?
ritalin use in france

Countervailing Forces Against Ritalin Use in France

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A new study in the journal Social Science and Medicine explores why French children take stimulants far less than children in the United States. The study looks at how particular forces in society, in concert with government agencies, became an effective check on stimulant marketing for kids in France.

Steven C. Hayes – A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters

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An interview with Dr. Steven C. Hayes about his recently released book, A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters, which uses the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy to help readers overcome negative thoughts and feelings, turn pain into purpose, and build a meaningful life.

Climate Change, Mental Health and Collective Action: An Interview with Jennifer Freeman

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In an interview with MIA's Akansha Vaswani, narrative therapist Jennifer Freeman calls for a shift away from individualistic approaches to 'eco-anxiety' and toward responses that connect us all to a counter-tsunami of action for the planet.
mental health maze

Functional Medicine: My Path Out of Psychiatry

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My blood work indicated a host of issues that had been lurking under the surface of my “psychiatric diagnoses” for years. I’d seen various mental health professionals and none had recommended these types of tests, or stopped to think about any underlying factors, aside from the well-known “serotonin myth.”

Clinical Trials Show Antidepressants “Not Beneficial in the Long Term”

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Clinical trials also consistently fail to measure and report long-term harmful effects.
mental hospital

Memories of a Childhood in a Mental Hospital

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My stay at the hospital had no impact on the problem that led to my admission. But it did exacerbate other problems and change me in fundamental ways. I am a deformed product of that ‘cutting-edge facility’ and the ‘treatments’ I received there — social isolation, pills and shots, ice bath and ECT.

Clinical Guidelines for Depression Need Urgent Revision

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A coalition of 35 health organizations expressed serious concerns that the NICE guideline for adult depression may cause clinical harm—they demand “full and proper” revisions.

Researchers: “Antidepressants Should Not be Used for Adults with Major Depressive Disorder”

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A new review, published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, concludes that antidepressants should not be used as the risks outweigh evidence for benefits.
treatment advocacy center cherry-picks data

Forced-Treatment Advocacy Group Cherry-Picks Data to Support Agenda (Again)

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Did the Treatment Advocacy Center actually uncover research proving that poor psychiatric medication adherence plays a "significant" role in whether people diagnosed with schizophrenia become violent? If such research does exist, is it as compelling as TAC described?

A Biopsychosocial Model Beyond the Mind-Body Split

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Can a renewed biopsychosocial approach, grounded in an updated philosophy, foster person-centered medicine, and psychiatry?