Debate Ensues Over Rights-Based Approach to Mental Health
Debate ensues as scholars and policymakers discuss how to bring a rights-based approach to mental health policy.
Ambushed by Antidepressants for 30 Years
They helped me function for a while, but the debilitating side effects of antidepressants held me prisoner. I'm still having a hard time understanding how this could have happened. It's been suggested to me by a therapist that what I'm going through now is another kind of PTSD: the ongoing trauma of realizing what antidepressants did to me for 30 years.
A Faux Test for a Faux Disease Promoted by Real Psychiatrists
Influential psychiatrists recently called on the NHS to make a faux schizophrenia test available to patients and their families. What is most astounding about this is the complete lack of pretense. "We are so certain of our power and righteousness that we are going to tell you to your face that we are lying, and yet, we will still get our way."
There is More to Mindfulness than the Brain
According to Lifshitz and Thompson, mindfulness is best understood as “complex orchestration of cognitive skills embodied in a particular social context.”
“Breakthrough” Treatment for Postpartum Depression: Game Changer or Misguided Magic Bullet?
Ultimately, the FDA Advisory Committee recommended approval of brexanolone by a 17-1 member vote. I was the only NO vote. I voted NO because as the sole Consumer Representative on the committee I didn’t believe the company had demonstrated that the potential benefits outweighed the potential for harm.
When Does it Help to Have Background Information in Child-Centered Play Therapy?
Knowing the client’s history can help foster genuine empathic responding, a key component to child-centered play therapy.
Introducing Multi-Lens Therapy
How can we restore something as essential to the healing and helping process as knowing what is going on? If your client has an actual biological problem, he needs one sort of help. If he hates his job, he needs another sort of help. It is absurd (and not okay) that a helper would look only at putative “symptoms” and not at what’s going on.
Adderall Use Associated with Increased Risk of Psychosis
Twice as many teenagers with ADHD experienced severe psychosis when taking Adderall, as compared to Ritalin, according to a new study.
Combining Mirtazapine with Existing SSRI or SNRI Does Not Improve Depressive Symptoms
Study finds combining mirtazapine with an SSRI or SNRI is not clinically effective for improving depression in primary care patients who remained depressed after taking an SSRI or SNRI.
I Believe There’s a Gene for Psychosis… And We All Have It!
Without a capacity for delusional thinking, official religions likely couldn’t have thrived, and civilizations couldn’t have developed and flourished. So I conclude that the formula of two parts rationality plus one part delusionality was essential in helping man to ultimately outcompete all other species.
Postpartum Depression: Is Brexanolone the Answer?
After three randomized trials inclusive of only 247 women, and with side effects that include loss of consciousness, brexanolone has been approved for the treatment of postpartum depression. Because of the drug’s risk profile, women must receive the 60-hour infusion under medical supervision and “cannot function as her child(ren)’s primary caregiver.”
Lee Coleman – The Reign of Error
An interview with Doctor Lee Coleman, psychiatrist and author of the 1984 book Reign of Error. Now retired, Lee devotes his time to public education that exposes the individual and public harms from today’s “mental health” industry.
Where Can Families Turn for Help?
Watching my son be subjected to continuous harm by the drugs, how can I pretend that it's okay to maintain this abusive system of care? Who will push for accountability? As a mother, I want to share a meaningful connection with my son. I want to witness him happy, healthy and living the life he chooses.
Does Active Placebo Response Explain Antidepressant Results?
A new study investigated whether participants guessing if they have an antidepressant or placebo affects response rates.
Green Space in Childhood May Protect Against Adult Mental Health Issues
A new study suggests proximity to green space as a child is linked to lower rates of mental health issues in adulthood.
“Page Not Found” Ends Up “Telling All” About Psychiatry
Psychiatric censorship tries to hide the damaging effects of psychiatric drugs from everyone, including psychiatrists who happen to go looking for useful information. Just for fun, let's take a look at how far psychiatry will go when a bit of truth escapes from one of its own publications and must be deleted in clumsy desperation.
Peer-Support Groups Were Right, Guidelines Were Wrong: Dr. Mark Horowitz on Tapering Off Antidepressants
In an interview with MIA, Dr. Horowitz discusses his recent article on why tapering off antidepressants can take months or even years.
Increasing Prevalence of Mood Disorders Among Teens and Young Adults
Depression, serious psychological distress, and suicide attempts have risen substantially since the early 2000s among young adults – what’s changed?
It is Time to Abandon the Candidate-Gene Approach to Depression
The candidate-gene approach to depression goes unsupported and is likely based on bad science, new research finds.
Recovery Porn: Tell Me Your Story, I’ll Tell You Your Value
There is little denying the power of story… until our own stories get taken from us, positioned against us, and used to determine our value as some sort of human commodity. We deserve to have our stories heard and to hear the stories of others, but on our own terms, without being fetishized or controlled, and without competition for paltry awards and recognition.
Together for Sustainable Change: The Launch of Mad in Sweden
It is with great pleasure that I announce that Mad in Sweden launches today. The number of people receiving a psychiatric diagnosis in Sweden has increased dramatically in recent years, and the need for alternative perspectives to today’s biomedical and pharmacologically oriented paradigm of mental health has never been greater.
Real, Not Sham, Mental Health Coverage
Ruling on a class action lawsuit brought against the nation’s largest health insurer, Judge Spero concluded that it had adopted treatment guidelines focused on saving costs through limiting coverage to the management of acute mental health episodes. How much psychotherapy does a person need to achieve meaningful and lasting change in their emotional outlook?
Saving Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy could, and really ought to, promote itself as the best investigative tool around for understanding emotional health and problems in living. That would change its footing, putting it on much more solid ground. I’m calling this redefined version of psychotherapy multi-lens therapy, to put the emphasis on where it ought to have been put all along: investigating.
The Role of Context, Language, and Meaning in Hearing Voices
Sociocultural context, language, and sense-making process are among concepts that can help hearers and providers better understand the phenomenon of hearing voices
First-Person Accounts of Madness and Global Mental Health: An Interview with Dr. Gail Hornstein
Dr. Gail Hornstein, author of Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness, discusses the importance of personal narratives and service-user activism in the context of the global mental health movement.
