Stigma & Bigotry

From Routledge: In his recent book Jung and Sex, Edward Santana explores the role that therapists can play in illuminating and deepening human complexities as well as addressing the...

When I looked through my mountains of medical records, I saw that the providers who listed my race as black applied diagnoses like major depressive disorder and PTSD. The providers who saw me as white preferred diagnoses of panic disorder and borderline personality disorder. Of course, my experiences are just anecdotal. But if racial bias due to subjective experiences of practitioners can play such a large role in mental health diagnostics, how is this even considered a scientific discipline?

Emotional support, religion, and searching for meaning are positively correlated with posttraumatic growth among prisoners.

From The New York Times: The number of college students with mental health concerns is rapidly increasing, straining many universities' mental health and counseling centers. Colleges...

From Harvard Public Health: Weight stigma, or prejudice toward people of size, can have a significant impact on both mental and physical health. On the other...

From The New York Times: Although the official diagnosis of Asperger's disorder has recently been dropped from the DSM, it is still included in the...

A new NIH-funded study suggests that children from low-income environments are more likely to have neurological impairments. The researchers claim that these neurodevelopmental issues are “distinct from the risk of cognitive and emotional delays known to accompany early-life poverty.”

From The Guardian: People often claim to experience mental health problems only to excuse their unpleasant or hurtful behaviors. This can exacerbate prejudice toward those...

An anthropological look at the Global Mental Health (GMH) movement suggests several ethical problems and contradictions in its mission.

The results of the prospective cohort study that analyzed data from almost 3,400 individuals show that individuals who experience long-term poverty perform worse on cognitive tasks than their peers who have never experienced poverty.

Last week, the FDA gave permission for ecstasy to move into Phase 3 clinical trials for the treatment of PTSD. “If they can keep...

In this blog, Phil Wilshire, Principal Social Worker for Avon and Wiltshire NHS Partnership Trust, shares how the new Power Threat Meaning Framework aligns...

In The New Yorker, Rachel Aviv discusses an apparently common practice among some US universities to expel students who attempt suicide -- even when...

In this interview for HuffPost Canada, Uppala Chandraesekera, the director of public policy at the Canadian Mental Health Association Toronto and the first mental health expert...

"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...

From Scientific American: The current medical consensus is that addiction is a chronic and relapsing brain disease in which drug use becomes involuntary despite its...

From The Atlantic: Over the past decade, there has been a quiet acknowledgement that suicide is widespread within the wildland firefighting community. Both the trauma...

In this interview for Vox, Yale psychologist Paul Bloom provides a critical perspective on empathy and explains why empathy may be harmful in the long run. "My beef...

The National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery is calling upon all people of like minds, who care about individuals who need mental health services, to ACT. It is urgent. Please call your representative in the House of Representatives to vigorously oppose HR 2646 on Tuesday, July 5, 2016. And, call your Senator to insist that the Senate reject any amendments or changes to mental health legislation from the House by Friday, July 8, 2016. For more information about this Call to Action, please click here.

This is how the vicious cycle continues: the more one internalizes stigma, the more she will distance herself from her social surroundings; the more she distances herself, the more she will experience proliferation of symptoms; and the more symptoms are present, the more others will stigmatize and "force" the person into further isolation.

-In a Canadian survey, 42% of psychiatrists said that if they developed a mental disorder, they would not disclose it to family or friends.

Despite little evidence for benefit, and substantial risk of harm, antipsychotics are commonly prescribed to children diagnosed with ADHD

From STAT: President Trump has nominated Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, a proponent of increased psychiatric treatment for those diagnosed with serious mental illness, to run the Substance...

From Vice: The importance placed on self-sufficiency, extreme individualism, and competitive self-interest in our society has contributed to widespread loneliness among millennials. Article →­

-Psychiatrist Allen Frances discusses his mixed feelings about many commonly used but misleading psychiatric terms.