Connections Between Climate Change Concerns, Mental Health, and Pro-Environmental Actions
Concerns about the impact of climate change on animals and nature results in more effective coping to reduce hopelessness about climate change and promotes pro-environmental behaviors.
Opening Doors in the Borderlands: An Interview with Liberation Psychologist Mary Watkins
MIA’s Micah Ingle interviews Mary Watkins about reorienting psychology toward liberation and social justice.
Series on Anti-Psychiatry and Critical Theory for World Mental Health Day
To coincide with World Mental Health Day on October 10th, 2015, Verso Books, the largest independent and radical publishing house released a series of blogs on mental health and critical and antipsychiatry. The posts include pieces on R.D. Laing, colonialism, women’s oppression, delusions and art, “The Happiness Industry,” and social and institutional oppression.
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.
Bringing Structural Competency to Global Mental Health
Structural competency is put forth as a framework that addresses social and structural determinants in global mental health.
Using Participatory Action in Bioethics Research
Participatory action approaches in bioethics research used to decrease coercion and seclusion in psychiatric treatment.
Psychology Needs New Concepts and Healing Models for Racial Trauma
Contemporary empirical research explores new ways to conceptualize and heal racial trauma through anticolonial and sociohistorical lenses.
The Psychological Effects of the Zero-Tolerance Immigration Policy
Journal releases a compilation of articles detailing how zero-tolerance policy may impact mental health.
“Bernie Sanders Attacks the 21st Century Cures Act and Pharmaceutical Industry ‘Greed’”
“At a time when Americans pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, this bill provides absolutely no relief for...
“Maybe Companies Should Chill on Employee-Happiness Programs”
Will Davies, author of The Happiness Industry, does a Q&A on the ways companies are misusing psychological research on happiness. “I think that one thing that often gets lost in lots of the discussions of happiness (especially in the business world) is the possibility that happy work may mean less work.”
“Pharmaceutical Prosthesis and White Racial Rescue in the Prescription Opioid ‘Epidemic’”
Critical psychiatry researcher, anthropologist and NYU professor Helena Hansen writes: “Opioid maintenance acts as a kind of pharmaceutical prosthesis which promises to return white ‘addicts’ to regaining their status as full human persons and middle-class consumers. Meanwhile, black and brown users are not deemed as persons to be rescued, but rather dangerous subjects to be pharmaceutically contained within the public discipline of the state.”
Study Calls for Consensus on Overdiagnosis Across Medical Disciplines
Lack of overdiagnosis parameters stifles communication across fields seeking to mitigate its potential harm.
“Feds Charge Former Valeant and Philidor Execs with Fraud”
“The executive who once ran the specialty pharmacy at the heart of the Valeant Pharmaceutical accounting scandal was arrested Thursday morning, along with a...
Mediterranean Diet Improves Mental Health, Study Finds
A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and fish has repeatedly been found to improve mental health.
Ethical Failings in Experimental Drug Safety Trials
Leading human subjects ethics researcher questions exploitation of uninsured minorities in experimental drug trials.
Medical Interventions Are Overused Worldwide
Lack of “right care” causes physical, psychological and financial harm to patients
Exporting Psychological Concepts Associated With Gender May Have Unintended Consequences
New qualitative research finds a shift in the meaning of gender as it enters the local lexicon of people in rural Malawi, in turn having negative ramifications for those it is meant to help.
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.
Disease Theory of ‘Mental Illness’ Tied To Pessimism About Recovery
Researchers recently completed a first of its kind, large-scale international survey of attitudes about mental health and they were surprised by the results. According to their analysis published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders, people in developed countries, like the United States, are more likely to assume that ‘mental illnesses’ are similar to physical illnesses and biological or genetic in origin, but they are also much less likely to think that individuals can overcome these challenges and recover
Psychology in the Metacolony
From Mail & Guardian: Colonialism today is more entrenched in our society than it ever has been in the past, and traditional psychology and mental...
It is Time for Global Mental Health to Acknowledge Sociostructural Determinants of Distress
Researchers call for action to address social challenges and inequalities that obstruct mental health and well-being globally.
Psychology Must Become a Sanctuary Discipline to Heal Racial Trauma
Researchers explore pathways of healing racial trauma in Latinx immigrant communities.
“Making a Choice: APA Reform or Business as Usual?”
Former president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), Roy Eidelson discusses efforts to undermine the Hoffman report which revealed the American Psychologica Association’s collusion in torture. "First, from a familiar playbook, we have the obligatory attack on the patriotism of Hoffman and those who have criticized psychologists’ participation in abusive detention and interrogation operations,” he writes. “The most outrageous example comes from two retired military officers, David Bolgiano and John Taylor. In a recent piece they described the Hoffman Report as a ‘classic attack of cowards’ and also stated, ‘By the publication and release of this report, the APA becomes a willing co-conspirator to the likes of al Qaeda and ISIS.’”
Training Health Workers in Therapy Leads to Improvements and Less Medication Use
A Nigerian study finds that more than three-quarters of patients improved, even when only 13% were prescribed medication.
“The Psychology of Terrorism: Q&A with John Horgan”
The Scientific American reprints their interview with psychologist and terrorism expert John Horgan following the attacks in Paris on November 13th. “An issue I find problematic right now is the idea that to prevent terrorism, we have to first prevent radicalization… There are far more people who hold "radical" views than will ever become involved in terrorism, and there are plenty of terrorists (who are already small in number – a point we tend to forget) who don’t initially hold radical views but drift into terrorism regardless.”