Privacy & Surveillance

Ethnographic research sheds light on extensive psychopharmaceutical use by soldiers in post 9/11 U.S. wars.

Today, Hillary Clinton’s campaign released their plan for addressing mental health care in the United States. The plan calls for a full integration of...

-Thomas Moore of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices asks, "What has been learned about electronic health data as a primary data source for regulatory decisions regarding the harms of drugs?"

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.’”

The use of machine learning algorithms (known as artificial intelligence) in the medical field raises a slew of ethical concerns.

The rate of incarceration for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals is roughly three times that of the general population and they experience significantly higher rates of victimization and mistreatment in prison.

For Vice, Hannah Ewens explores how employers react to depression and anxiety in their employees. “In a fair world, employers wouldn't judge you for...

Concerns have been raised about inconsistent and unreliable results, which may lead to injustices in sentencing or even wrongful convictions.

Only months after the American Psychological Association voted to ban psychologists from “advanced interrogation” facilities like Guantánamo Bay prison the Pentagon is asking them to...

Dr. Dainius Pūras argues that the status quo in mental health treatment is no longer acceptable and demands political action to promote human rights.

-The iPhone is becoming a diagnostic tool drawing medical and mental health data from millions of potential customers.

From Slate: The death of Charleena Lyles, who was shot by the police after she called them to report a burglary, serves as a reminder...

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.”

Psychologist Roy Eidelson comments on the Society for Military Psychology’s criticism of the Hoffman report, which exposed the collusion between the APA and the CIA’s torture program. He writes, “the leaders of APA’s military psychology division have offered a very dark vision for the profession of psychology – a vision that we must reject, both individually and institutionally.”

"A nationalist lawmaker suggests making politicians disclose their psychiatric problems to the public and punish those who try to hide them by removing them...

As the UK debates whether to ban smoking inside and outside of mental health hospitals, the BMJ has solicited opinion pieces on the debate for an upcoming issue. However, psychiatric survivors have come forward alleging that the BMJ refused to print their pieces unless they removed descriptions of forced treatment and coercive care.

The Economist reports on "Ellie," a programmed, virtual psychologist designed by researchers at the Institute for Creative Technologies in Los Angeles, who has a...

From Forbes: Facebook is now using algorithms to monitor users' online activity for warning signs of suicidal ideation or self-harm. Article →­

After 25 years of chronic emergency, 22 mental hospitalizations, a stint at a “community mental health center,” 13 years in a "board & care," repeated withdrawals from addictions to legal drugs, and a 12-year marriage, I plan to live every last breath out as a survivor, an advocate, and an artist.

How we think about health, happiness, and self-fulfillment, how they are linked with flawed systems of government has been assigned to the domain of social scientists. The most influential of those are the psychiatrists who have been given the government-mandated power to diagnose, incarcerate and forcibly drug those who are perceived to have a form of mental illness. I believe that such power is arbitrary, unjust and frequently harmful.

From MIT Technology Review: A new app, Triggr, is using smartphone data to track the behavior of people struggling with substance use and addiction, with...

From The Nation: In two new books, Foucault: The Birth of Power and Foucault's Last Decade, Stuart Elden investigates some of the unexplored aspects of Michel Foucault's...

“When the federal government takes the rare step of fining medical providers for violating the privacy and security of patients’ medical information, it issues...

-New Scientist discusses the reasons that eight US professional health organizations "collectively took a stand against a law that on the face of it, seems like plain common sense."

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