Leah Harris and Tim Murphy Talk “Mental Illness and the Law”

2
Today on Radio Times,Ā U.S. Representative Tim Murphy (R-PA), Mark Salzer, professor and chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences at Temple University, and Leah...

ā€œSuicide, Mental Illness Risks Increase During Recessionsā€

2
The latest economic recession led to a spike in diagnoses for mental illnesses, suicide attempts, and suicide, according to report out of the University...

The Psychology of Torture

1
ā€œAn ordinary person becomes a torturer with surprising ease. The hard part comes when it’s time to be human again,ā€ neuroscientist Shane O’Mara writes...

ā€œPowerful Pill is Called Toxic Fuel for Fighters in Syrian Warā€

0
Peter Holley reports for the Washington Post that a powerfuland highly addictive amphetamine drug known as fenethylline or Captagon is being used to fuel ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq. ā€œCaptagon has been around in the West since the 1960s, when it was given to people suffering from hyperactivity, narcolepsy, and depression.ā€

ā€œWe Need REAL Change in Mental Health Policy, Not the Illusion of Reformā€

0
David Shern, from Johns Hopkins University, writes that the latest mental health ā€œMurphy billā€ in Congress is ā€œan expansion of the approaches that got us into our current difficulties.ā€ ā€œEarly intervention and prevention, assessable and patient-focused services with a rehabilitation orientation and increased funding for the community supports needed for successful recovery are the tickets to system improvement.ā€

ā€œThe Psychology of Terrorism: Q&A with John Horganā€

0
The Scientific American reprints their interview with psychologist and terrorism expert John Horgan following the attacks in Paris on November 13th. ā€œAn 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.ā€

ā€œHow the Science of Human Behavior is Beginning to Reshape the US Governmentā€

0
President Obama has made it a point of his administration to attempt to integrate the science of human behavior into smarter government policies. For example, understanding how we might act irrationally can inform policies about decisions made on the free market.

ā€œNew ‘Smart’ Drugs Tell Doctor You’re Not Taking Themā€

4
The Washington Examiner reports that the manufacturer of the antipsychotic Abilify is seeking FDA approval for new digitized pills that would alert doctors if patients fail to take their drugs on schedule.

ā€œSaving Congressman Murphy from Fraudulent Informationā€

0
Dennis Embry, a clinical psychologist and government consultant on mental health, shares a letter he sent to congressman Murphy warning him about how he may have been misled concerning his mental health bill. ā€œI am specifically writing you about erroneous, false information you’ve been given about the National Registry of Evidence Base Programs and Practices. That erroneous information is likely to cause serious problems, which have been withheld from you.ā€

Psychiatric Survivors Left Out Of UK Smoking Ban Debate

2
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.

ā€œWould Washington’s FDA Fix Cure the Patients or the Drug Industry?ā€

0
Legislation is being advanced that would speed up the FDA’s approval process for new drugs and medical devices, according to a report by the Pacific Standard. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies have been lobbying heavily to reduce regulations and are winning over bipartisan support by attaching these measures to increased mental health funding.

ā€œGoogle’s Latest Health Hire Wants to Create Wearables That Can Measure Your Moodā€

0
Dr. Thomas Insel worked as the director of the NIMH for thirteen years, and now he is moving on to Google where he hopes to help develop technology to monitor our mental health.

ā€œGoogle’s Latest Hire Has a Creepy Plan to Track Your Mental Healthā€

3
Google has hired the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Thomas Insel, with plans to create ā€œa wearable sensor to measure mood, cognition and anxiety.ā€ Gizmodo points out the problems with this idea:ā€œOne can easily imagine a message popping up on some poor desk jockey’s monitor: ā€˜You’re not in the right mood today. Please take a day of unpaid leave.’ Or, worse: ā€˜We’ve detected signs of mental instability, based on how you’ve been talking and sleeping. Please report to a doctor immediately.ā€™ā€

ā€œWhen Students Become Patients, Privacy Suffersā€

5
ProPublica explains why a university mental health center contacted the estranged parents of a student over eighteen without her consent, and why another student’s personal counseling records were used against her in a sexual-assault investigation.

ā€œMaking a Choice: APA Reform or Business as Usual?ā€

3
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,ā€ he writes. ā€œThe 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 ā€˜classic attack of cowards’ and also stated, ā€˜By the publication and release of this report, the APA becomes a willing co-conspirator to the likes of al Qaeda and ISIS.ā€™ā€

ā€œJason Dias: Here’s The Real Reason Behind All These Shootingsā€

2
Existential therapist and writer, Jason Dias, claims that there is something deeper and more pervasive than guns, drugs, or mental illness at the bottom of the United States’ mass shooting problem. On aNewDomain he writes: ā€œWe have to acknowledge that people who are despairing right now, they’re the sane ones, the normal ones. It makes sense to despair when you’re looked down on, tormented, bullied. When you feel different and you’re alienated. When your culture is alienated. When violence is glorified not by movies and games and television, but by the government, by the news. When violence is fetishized by political parties.ā€

ā€œFormer U.S. Detainees Sue Psychologists Responsible For CIA Torture Programā€

1
On Tuesday morning, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of three former detainees against the psychologists who collaborated with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to oversee the torture program. According to the Intercept, psychologists James Mitchell and John ā€œBruceā€ Jessen and their employees collected over $85 million dollars for designing and implementing techniques, based off of the work of Martin Seligman, that combatted torture-resistance techniques by creating a state of ā€œlearned helplessness.ā€ There is, however, no evidence that these techniques gleaned any useful intelligence.

Psychologists for Social Responsibility Oppose APA CEO Search

0
Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), one of the groups that led the push for changes to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) collusion in the CIA torture program (as detailed in the Hoffman report), is again calling on the APA for a change in policies.

FDA to Review ā€œDigital Pillā€ to Monitor Patients on Antipsychotic

11
Last Thursday, the FDA agreed to review a ā€œdigital pill,ā€ combining a sensor with the antipsychotic Abilify, in order to track patients’ compliance with drug treatment. Patients taking the tracker pill would also wear a patch, which would receive information and relay it to a mobile device, according to a brief report by BioPharmaDIVE.

Gallup: ā€œAmericans’ Views of Pharmaceutical Industry Take a Tumbleā€

6
ā€œIn Gallup's annual measure of 25 major U.S. business sectors, the percentage of Americans with a positive view of the pharmaceutical industry dropped from 40% in 2014 to 35% this year, while the percentage with a negative view rose from 36% to 43%.ā€

ā€œMental Illness and Gun Violence: Stigmatizing People Isn’t the Answer”

3
In an opinion piece for care2, Katie Medlock discusses how ā€œmental illnessā€ awareness campaigns have shifted, dangerously, ā€œand ended up insinuating that people with mental illness could turn on ā€˜us’ at any time and should be feared.ā€

ā€œThe Devil is in the Details: How Patients’ Mental Health Data is at...

6
The Intercept illustrates the growing insecurity of our medical and mental health data in an age of privacy breaches. Individual stories detail instances of electronic therapy notes being shared between all doctors in a practice, employees being fired after mental health information is disclosed through workplace wellness programs, and police data on past suicide attempts being used to prevent Canadian citizens from crossing the US border.

“Electronic Health Data for Postmarket Surveillance: A Vision Not Realized”

1
-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?"

A Declaration of Interdependence for the Era of the Murphy Bill

9
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.

“Do You Google Your Shrink?”

5
-"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."