Why Mandating Mental Health Education in Schools is a Band-Aid on a Gaping Wound
I care deeply about the mental and physical health of children, including my own son’s. I don’t want students to suffer in silence and shame. But I am very concerned about just how this topic will be taught in schools. Adults need to get honest about the harm our systems and institutions cause to students every day, often in the name of “help.”
“Was Sexism Really Responsible for the FDA’s Hesitancy to Sign Off on Flibanserin?”
“The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of pharmaceutical treatment for low sexual desire in women has launched a heated debate over the dangers and benefits of medicalizing sex,” Maya Dusenbery writes in the Pacific Standard. Is “female Viagra” a feminist victory or a product of clever faux-feminist marketing by Big Pharma?
One in Five Truck Drivers Experience Mental Health Issues
From ABC News: According to the Transport Workers' Union, one in five truck drivers report having experienced mental health issues due to the economic pressures...
Medical Students’ Racial Biases Lead to Failure to Adequately Treat Patients
False beliefs about biological differences between races are associated with a failure to provide recommended pain treatments to Black people.
Sociologist Questions Effectiveness and Ethics of Mental Health Services
Medical sociologist David Pilgrim argues that mental health care is neither effective nor “kindly,” as it often relies on flawed research and ineffective treatments.
“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.”
How Therapists Can Grow Beyond Cultural Competence
From GoodTherapy.org: Cultural competence is the standard set by the mental health profession that deems therapists capable of providing services to clients from diverse backgrounds. However,...
Rising Rates of Suicide: Are Pills the Problem?
If you’ve read recent reports that state “US suicide rates surge to a 30 year high,” you might first justify the reality with the fact that things feel very wrong in our world today. On a personal, national, and planetary level, people are suffering to survive and the distress is coming from all sides – medical to economic to existential. But you probably also wonder why more people are choosing this permanent and self-destructive path, and feel compelled to submit to seemingly logical appeals to provide these individuals more help and greater access to treatment. Surprise: that may be the last thing our population of hopeless and helpless needs. Life’s inevitable challenges are not the problem. It’s the drugs we use that are fueling suicide.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Halves the Risk of Repeated Suicide Attempts
A new study suggests that cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) may halve the likelihood of re-attempting suicide, for those who have attempted in the past.
Baltimore is Burning: Who Defines ‘Violence’?
The person living on the streets with whom no one will make eye contact, or who the police hassle for requesting spare change from passersby. The individual who has learned to cut themselves to manage emotional pain, and so is punished by emergency room staff who sew them up without anesthetic (both physical and emotional pain disregarded), or confuse their efforts for suicide and contain them against their will. The person of color who some might cross the street to avoid, or who is arrested for lashing out when another is murdered at the hands of those employed to ‘serve and protect.’ Each is only looking for a way to survive, but instead finds themselves ignored or blamed.