Privacy & Surveillance

"HHS said it took pains to avoid any change to gun check reporting that would weaken physician–patient confidentiality and deter individuals from voluntarily seeking...

Washington Post columnist Steven Petrow gets a friend recommendation from Facebook, and it turns out to be his current psychotherapist, who isn't using any...

Medical News Today provides an overview of the research on the effects of shift work on the physical and mental well-being of employees. "Although...

-Motherboard reports on an implantable chip that can hold hundreds of doses of drugs and be activated by remote control.

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 “Bruce” 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 “learned helplessness.” There is, however, no evidence that these techniques gleaned any useful intelligence.

"Disappointing" and "tragedy" are some of the descriptives everyday doctors are using to describe the expanding use of electronic medical records, according to The...

David Shern, from Johns Hopkins University, writes that the latest mental health “Murphy bill” in Congress is “an expansion of the approaches that got us into our current difficulties.” “Early 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.”

The president and president-elect of the American Psychological Association penned a letter to the New York Times calling on “Congress and other policy makers to address these factors with interventions supported by evidence rather than avoiding them by scapegoating the mentally ill.”

What does the psychology of terror mean for America’s future? Social psychologist Daniel Kort weighs in on what the science of terror management theory, behavioral economics, and political polarization can tell us about where we’re headed.

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

In Gigaom, privacy and security journalist David Meyer discusses the release of a new app from the UK Samaritans called "Radar." The app monitors...

High-tech surveillance could help improve people's mental health cost-effectively, according to a commentary in The Guardian. "any existing capacities of tablets, smartphones and even...

In an opinion piece for care2, Katie Medlock discusses how “mental illness” awareness campaigns have shifted, dangerously, “and ended up insinuating that people with mental illness could turn on ‘us’ at any time and should be feared.”

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.

-The industry of mobile apps that diagnose users' physical and mental ailments is already worth some $4 billion.

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. “I 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.”

-Facebook has made it easier for users to report posts from people who seem to be in psychological distress, but not everyone likes the plan.

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.

Since many more Americans now have mental health coverage as a result of the US Affordable Care Act, mental health services will soon begin...

-Nine out of ten health-related web visits result in personal health information being leaked to third parties.

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

-Attorney Charles Kels analyzes recent legislation requiring health care providers to disclose mental health information about patients to government.

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

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