Privacy & Surveillance

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.’”

“At a time when Americans pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, this bill provides absolutely no relief for...

...but how realistic is it to expect that the biological skew of Western psychiatry can be sustainably changed one small step at a time?

From Yahoo! Finance: Google is launching a new search feature that will help check whether users are depressed. People who make depression-related queries will now...

From The New Inquiry: Civil libertarians and liberal privacy advocates often frame government surveillance as a universal threat. But two new books show that surveillance...

For The Boston Globe, Michael Rezendes writes about the dehumanizing conditions for mental health patients and the Bridgewater State Hospital. While previous exposés have...

In JAMA, several Texas medical doctors and health information experts discuss the rapidly expanding number of "medical scribes" being hired by physicians to enter medical information into electronic health records (EHRs). Many doctors are finding electronic health records to be inefficient and unhelpful, they write, yet governments continue to mandate them.

New study examines how increased screen time and social media may be contributing to depressive symptoms and suicide risk in teens

Leading human subjects ethics researcher questions exploitation of uninsured minorities in experimental drug trials.

-"I knew my psychiatric practice was forever changed the day a patient arrived with a manila folder stuffed with printouts and announced that it contained the contents of a Google search that he had done on me."

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

How people are treated after being hospitalized can either help them to overcome the traumatic effects of coercion or make them worse.

The results of the cross-sectional study show that U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) owned hospitals perform worst on most measures.

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.

Researchers examine links between police victimization and psychotic symptoms in a topical new study.

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.

“We Americans are living through a dread-inducing age,” Jessica Stern writes in the ‘Times, and our feelings of vulnerability have psychological and political consequences. Terror Management Theory, “which suggests that much of human behavior is motivated by an unconscious terror of death,” provides an explanation for the xenophobia and culture wars that often follow the dread of an attack.

Part one of a two-part Mad In America investigation into the expansion of psychological screening and electronic surveillance of children and youth. A new government-funded mental health training program for British Columbia family physicians and school staff promotes screening for mental disorders in all children and youth. Critics say the program omits key scientific evidence, seems more like drug promotion than medical education, and downplays serious potential harms. Nevertheless, programs like it are rolling out across Canada and the US.

People who are more likely to believe that others’ views will change to match their own over time are less likely to engage in actions to facilitate that change

Facebook altered the news feeds of 689,003 users as part of a massive experiment in "emotional contagion," according to a study published in the...

-The director of the Office for Civil Rights discusses the latest wave of data breaches of American citizens' health information.

From The Daily Dot: Last week, Facebook announced a global rollout of their new suicide prevention algorithm, which aims to identify users deemed at risk...

The FDA approved the prescribing and sale of a new hi-tech compliance-monitoring “antipsychotic” drug this week. A new chapter in human darkness has descended — one that is applauded by the alliance of control addicts that made it happen.

Researchers recommend a ‘politically-informed focus', including activism, when assessing children and designing interventions in areas of chronic political violence.

-Scientific American discusses a new $215-million initiative to create a massive database of the personal health information of one million people.