Issues

During the past twenty years, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and American psychiatry have adopted a "medicalized" approach to preventing suicide, claiming that antidepressants are protective against suicide. Yet, the suicide rate in the United States has increased 30% since 2000, a time of rising usage of antidepressants. A review of studies of the effects of mental health treatment and antidepressants on suicide reveals why this medicalized approach has not only failed, but pushed suicide rates higher.

Researchers detect discrepancies between the language used to describe lived experiences of mental health and the language used in modern screening tools.

A new review highlights the effects that psychiatric diagnosis has on children and adolescents’ social relationships and views of self.

A new study finds that mental health apps promote a one-dimensional view of mental health.

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.”

A new study claims that quantitative research in psychology is “worryingly imprecise” and that generalizations may be flawed and misleading.

Researchers investigate the first-person experiences of people who disagreed with their psychiatric diagnosis of psychosis.

Researchers parse out factors within urbanicity that leads to risk for psychotic experiences.

A new study suggests needing to appear perfect to others leads to mental health stigma and a higher risk of untreated psychological distress.

Researcher and former service-user Diana Rose utilizes a participatory research process to examine experiences on inpatient wards.

Individualist psychological models of poverty pathologize poor communities, decolonial approaches that emphasize context and interdependence may be more sustainable.

Scholars contend that stigma functions as a mechanism of power in analysis of UK Heads Together mental health campaign.

New research provides evidence that police killings of unarmed Black Americans impact the mental health of Black Americans.

Members of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Psychiatry Products division go on the defensive in a new article, responding to concerns about the agency’s approval of digital aripiprazole.

A new study examines the effects of midlife exercise on depression and cardiovascular health later in life.

Study uncovers some of the intergenerational consequences of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

Are philosophical misunderstandings behind the failure of neuroscience to provide useful clinical research?

A new special edition positions psychological science as offering valuable contributions to the study of contemporary racism.

Upon my release I was dumped at a motel with no ID, no money or method of payment, and not even a cell phone to call friends or family for help. My belongings were still locked in a safe back at the hospital. Where are the real advocates for more low-income housing, and where the hell have they been for those who are incarcerated, whether it be in jails and prisons or mental facilities?

The US/Canadian Pharmaceutical Policy Reform Working Group proposes universal drug coverage and ambitious reforms to the pharmaceutical system.

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.

Results from two meta-analyses reveal shortcomings with the growth mindset theory as applied in schools.

Nev Jones and a team of researchers examine how sex, sexuality, and gender-related content are underexplored in contemporary research on psychosis.

Scapegoating a purported unseen "illness" may provide temporary comfort from acknowledging the horrors and injustice of the world, but it is a delusion — and one with fatal consequences for many. When 45,000 people a year would rather die than live in this world any longer, it might behoove us all to consider what is happening in the world to cause this.

High job demands, low job control, and high job strain are associated with the development of a mental health issue at age 50.