Non-Medical Treatments for PTSD Effective, Study Suggests
Group-based MBSR and PCGT therapies effective as a complementary treatment for PTSD.
There Is No Such Thing as a Side Effect
There is no such thing as a side effect. There are only the real effects — plain and simple. If you’ve been through what I’ve been through, shuffling through life in a drug-induced haze for eight years — well, you don’t want to hear about “side effects” anymore, or anything about how they’re “secondary.”
People Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at Increased Risk for Parkinson’s
Increased Parkinson's risk could be related to lithium, antipsychotic, and antiepileptic drug use.
A Blueprint for an ‘Ecosocial’ Person-Centered Psychiatry
New article pushes for a shift from a psychiatry centered on brain circuitry toward an 'ecosocial' view of mind, brain, and culture.
NICE Guideline Update Acknowledges Severe Antidepressant Withdrawal
A new update to the NICE guideline for depression suggests providers discuss long-term, severe antidepressant withdrawal symptoms.
Building a Culture of Mental Well-Being
We used to turn to family, community, and religious/philosophical teachings to ease our despair. Now, one is expected to turn to psychiatrists and therapists. With depression rates rising throughout the world, modern society must find a way to enhance the individual’s capacity to build a meaningful, satisfying, and self-actualized life.
When Mad Voices Are Locked Out of Academia
The “inclusion” of the consumer/survivor voice in research has been gradually increasing, albeit with significant resistance, tokenism and co-option. Our recent experience of attempting to publish with Australasian Psychiatry highlights the barriers that still exist.
When Healing Looks Like Justice: An Interview with Harvard Psychologist Joseph Gone
MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Joseph Gone about how a history of dispossession, conquest, and colonization shapes mental health outcomes in Native American communities.
Hereditary Madness? The Genain Sisters’ Tragic Story
The story of the Genain quadruplets has long been cited as evidence proving something about the supposed hereditary nature of schizophrenia. But who wouldn’t fall apart after surviving a childhood like theirs? The doctors attributed their problems to menstrual difficulties or excessive masturbation — anything except abuse.
A Social Psychiatry Manifesto that Takes Social Context Seriously
A re-visioned approach to social psychiatry aims to understand the broad influence of social life on mental health.
Peer Specialists in the Mental Health Workforce: A Critical Reassessment
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
New study finds that smartphone use may precede experiences of loneliness and depressive symptoms among older teens according to longitudinal analysis.
Abandoned in VA Purgatory — Misdiagnosed, Overprescribed & Fighting for Answers
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
New research explores the use of broad-based school-integrated resiliency and mindfulness interventions to prevent mental health concerns before they occur.
The Sisyphus Cycle: How Everyday Stress Leads to Suicide
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
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
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...
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
Researchers seek to identify adaptive coping responses to discrimination for the transgender and gender diverse community.
Fighting Unjustified Commitment in Wisconsin: Leslie’s Story
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
Gender identity conversion efforts impact psychological distress and lifetime suicidality in transgender people.
Loneliness Increases Risk of Severe ‘Common Mental Disorders’
Loneliness was found to both predict and be reinforced by severe common mental disorders.
Humanizing Mental Healthcare by Reducing Coercive Practices
A review of the literature demonstrates that coercive practices lack empirical support and violate human rights.
Mental Health Services Turned My Daughter’s Crisis into a Way of Life
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?
Countervailing Forces Against Ritalin Use in France
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.
