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The type of diagnostic assessment used in research settings, either fully structured or semi-structured interview, may affect which participants in receive a diagnosis of major depression.

An interview with Dr Peter Gordon who describes himself as a gardener with an interest in medicine. He trained in both medicine and architecture before specialising in psychiatry. In addition, he is an activist and campaigner and has a range of creative interests including filmmaking, photography, writing and poetry.

A new study investigates the relationships between early-home environmental factors and later-life physiological response to psychosocial stressors.

Giving a diagnosis of ADHD can profoundly disempower students and lead to what psychologists call “learned helplessness.” Isn’t it time for those of us in education to reclaim our profession? Who are the teaching and learning experts? Doctors? Drug companies? We are! And if we don’t stand up—for our students—against disempowering diagnoses and harmful drugs, who will?

Experiencing moderate to severe pain, or having at least moderate life interference from pain, doubles risk for anxiety or depression.

New understandings of medication and withdrawal experiences warrant rethinking conceptualizations of health and “madness."

If a person recognizes the “alien” parts of themselves as being parts of themselves, they are likely to be seen as having PTSD or a dissociative disorder. If they see the “alien” parts of themselves as being literally aliens, or demons, they will likely be diagnosed as psychotic. But these experiences are really on a spectrum.

Anthropologists analyze discourse surrounding anthropological engagement with the neurosciences in an editorial recently published in Medical Anthropology.

Many have asked: “Why doesn’t my doctor/provider know what is happening to me?” Benzodiazepine tolerance and withdrawal are not new. So, why isn’t it simple to diagnose and treat? As both a health care provider and a withdrawal sufferer, I’d like to offer an inside and outside perspective on this question.

Researchers at the University of Zurich, led by Michael Hengartner, recently reported that antidepressant use was associated with worse outcomes in patients followed over 30 years. Here Hengartner provides more information about the study methodology and their findings.

Paper outlines recommendations for more thorough informed consent process in psychotherapy, which authors proclaim is an “ethical imperative."

"Mental Illness" is nothing but a label for coping styles that disrupt society. Hence its flip side "mental wellness" is just a label for coping styles that contribute to society. So "happiness businesses" can't really "heal" people — they merely convert their coping tools to socially productive ones.

Researchers argue for plurality and diversity among psychotherapy approaches and question the perceived superiority of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

A quiet revolution has just happened—a formidable piece of counter-hegemony. We now have antipsychiatry scholarships ensconced at all three universities in a major international city. And with this, antipsychiatry has made sizeable inroads into academia, laying down infrastructure and altering the discourse.

People show greater trust in studies with neuroscience language, graphs, and especially brain images.

Who were these people whose brains were used in Gandal et al.’s research? How did they live and die? How did the researchers gain permission to open their skulls and extract brain tissue for research purposes? For information on the samples, you have to take a look at every single study. Which is what I did.

In a recently published study, researchers concluded that first-episode schizophrenia patients who take antipsychotics continuously have lower mortality and lower risk of being rehospitalized than those who discontinue the drugs. Joanna Moncrieff and Sandy Steingard investigate the findings.

The authors conclude that the risk of treatment failure or relapse after discontinuation of antipsychotics does not decrease during the first eight years of illness, and that long-term antipsychotic treatment is associated with increased survival. This is a sobering finding and the paper warrants careful review.

After a number of years with a steadily increasing sales curve, the number of children and adolescents in treatment with depression pills decreased by 41% in Denmark. Despite this welcome development, pharmaceutical companies and psychiatry professors continue to deceive the population and deny the facts about these drugs.

A meta-analysis of mindfulness-based interventions shows efficacy for treating depression, physical pain, smoking, and addictive disorders.

An interview with Laura Delano, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Inner Compass Initiative and The Withdrawal Project, which aim to create safe spaces for people to connect and the opportunity to learn about and be guided through the process of getting beyond the mental health system and off psychiatric drugs.

The report has succeeded in being supremely ambitious in its breadth, whilst remaining disappointingly cautious in its goals. The emphasis is on smaller changes in the immediate future, and kicking more progressive reform into the long grass. It alludes to but does not enshrine a rights-based approach.

A new study explores how people manage to discontinue antipsychotic medication and examines how social supports may improve outcomes.

Many of us have drawn attention over the years to the problems and shortcomings of psychiatric "diagnoses." The Power Threat Meaning document draws together the various threads in this debate and blends them into a coherent, cogent, and highly readable account.

A new review, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, examines the perspectives of clinicians and service-users on psychiatric diagnosis.