Suicide in a Culture of Mandated Happiness – Who’s to Blame?
We live in a culture of mandated positivity and compulsory happiness, which somehow remains untouched by the current political, social, ecological and economic realities of the world. If you’re distressed, it must either be your bad attitude (which is a choice) or your broken brain (which is not a choice); god forbid we look anywhere outside the self.
Germanwings Pilot Saw Psychiatrist Three Times, Doubled Antidepressant Before Crash
The man who deliberately crashed a Germanwings commercial airliner with 150 passengers aboard was actively in psychiatric treatment at the time, reported the New...
Waiting for Gravity
Of course one wishes for an easy answer, but the things that conspire to drive a person over the edge are too numerous and varied ever to point and say, it was this one; one can never really be so certain. No one can say it wasn’t that one, or that it wasn’t really all of those together, or that, when it came my own turn for “insanity,” I wasn’t standing halfway over the edge already, waiting for gravity to kick in and for me to fall.
Smoking Restrictions Linked to Reduced Suicide Rates
Smoking laws and cigarette taxes have strong links to suicide rates, according to psychiatrists from Washington University in St. Louis. Previous studies have presumed...
Rise in Suicides Baffles Military
The New York Times reports that the "baffling" rise in suicide rates in the U.S. military is not correlated to deployment, as is often...
40,000 Suicides Annually and America Still Shrugs
In my last two posts, Back in the Dark House Again: The Recurrent Nature of Clinical Depression and Am I Having a Breakdown or Breakthrough? Further Reflections on a Depressive Relapse, I have shared my recent relapse into depression. Although it has been tough, when I wake up each morning I am grateful for one thing — I am not suicidal. Others are not as fortunate.
New Book Deconstructs Ideology of Cognitive Therapy
CBT forwards a hyper-rational perspective of human suffering that complements a managerialist culture of efficiency and institutionalization in the Western world.
What Does Social Justice Really Mean for Psychologists?
Without clarity and consensus around what social justice means, psychologists risk perpetuating injustices that undermine their stated mission.
Does Psychotherapy Reproduce or Disrupt Neoliberal Capitalism?
Researchers explore neoliberal influences on interactions in psychotherapy and question whether the radical potential of psychotherapy can counter prevailing social systems.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy Reduces Self-Harm and Suicide Attempts
A new meta-analysis finds that DBT reduces self-harm, suicide attempts, and reduces the frequency of psychiatric crisis service utilization.
Young Transgender Women Burdened with High Rates of Psychiatric Diagnoses
New research published in JAMA Pediatrics reveals that transgender women have more than double the prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses than the general US population. The study found that the women, who had been assigned male at birth and now identified as female, had a high prevalence of suicidality, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, generalized anxiety and major depressive disorder.
ASIST Suicide Prevention Training: “Safe” for Who?
Ever since the cops and CPS were called on me by someone at an ASIST Suicide Prevention training, I've been trying to see it all as a gift. What better proof to counter those who claim it's "safe" to tell than what happened to me? What better evidence that our system responses are seriously off track? It wasn't safe. Not for me.
Rigorous Study Finds Antidepressants Worsen Long-Term Outcomes
A new study conducted by Jeffrey Vittengl at Truman University has found that taking antidepressant medications resulted in more severe depression symptoms after nine years.
Mortification of the Self: The Impact of Stigma on Identity
This is how the vicious cycle continues: the more one internalizes stigma, the more she will distance herself from her social surroundings; the more she distances herself, the more she will experience proliferation of symptoms; and the more symptoms are present, the more others will stigmatize and "force" the person into further isolation.
Does a Psychiatric Diagnosis Have the Impact of a Medical Curse?
Over and over I've seen the aftermath of that ritual of receiving and internalizing a lifelong, pathologizing diagnosis. I don't think we can underestimate the uncanny power of receiving such proclamations about our personhood by people sanctioned by our culture to serve as arbiters of truth.
United Nations Report Calls for Revolution in Mental Health Care
In a new report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr. Dainius Pūras, calls for a move away from the biomedical model and “excessive use of psychotropic medicines.”
Doctor O’s Adventures in Wonderland
I am a female physician who survived my own suicide attempt. I had managed to fly under the radar as a very progressive family MD for twenty years. And when I stumbled and bled, the sharks were there ready to devour the carcass. Do I believe that racism and sexism influenced charges being filed against me? I certainly do.
Antipsychotics Prescribed Off-Label for Challenging Behaviors
Antipsychotics are being prescribed to people who may have challenging behaviors but no mental disorder, according to new research published in this month’s issue of BMJ. “Excessive use of psychotropic drugs has individual and systemic implications,” the researchers write. “Antipsychotics, in particular, are associated with several adverse side effects that can impair quality of life and lead to deleterious health outcomes.”
The Temptation of Certainty: David Foster Wallace, Suicide and Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal
While increasing numbers of Americans are being prescribed antidepressants, the Centers for Disease Control reports that suicide rates increased 28% from 1999 to 2010. Trained professionals remain unable to predict who is at risk. Their guess is as good as chance.
“Mind Your Own Business”
Barbara Ehrenreich weighs in on mass-market mindfulness, Silicon Valley, Buddhism- sliced up and commodified.
Study Finds Heavy Metal Music Beneficial to Mental Health
A new study highlights the role heavy metal music plays in the mental health of adolescents facing adversity.
Anatomy of a Suicide: Stress and the Human Condition
The Defense Cascade is a survival framework that evolutionary researchers are exploring as an explanation for extreme states that many people experience. It can help explain why chronic stress can make us feel like ending our life is the only reasonable way out.
Dear Self-Proclaimed Progressives, Liberals and Humanitarians: You’ve Really Messed This One Up
When it comes to psychiatric diagnosis, I can be almost certain that anyone outside of my immediate field of work just won’t ‘get it,’ no matter where they stand on anything else. And not only won’t they get it; they will often actively be one of the unwitting oppressive masses, either through their inaction or worse.
Interview: Researchers Deconstruct Ghostwritten Industry Trial for Antidepressant
Researchers, Jon Jureidini, Jay Amsterdam and Leemon McHenry, have taken a closer look at the data from a randomized control trial of citalopram (Celexa) that was ghostwritten and then used by the manufacturers to support claims of the drug’s efficacy and safety in the treatment of child and adolescent depression. To get the background on this story, we connected with Dr. Leemon McHenry, an investigator in this study and a lecturer in philosophy at California State University, Northridge.
Antipsychotics Increase Mortality Risk in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease
A new study in JAMA Neurology finds that the use of antipsychotic drugs more than doubled the risk of death in patients with Parkinson’s...
