“Under Gun Rules, F.B.I. Will Receive Health Data”

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“We are concerned about the implications of this rule,” said Jennifer Mathis, a lawyer at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, an advocacy group for patients. “It points a finger inappropriately at people with mental illness as a source of gun violence. It’s a bad precedent to start creating exceptions to the privacy law for people with mental illness, who are responsible for about 4 percent of incidents of gun violence.”

“When the Hospital Fires the Bullet”

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Reporting from Elizabeth Rosenthal at the New York Times reveals that more and more hospital guards are now carrying weapons. For patients in mental...

United Nations Rep Brings Attention to Human Rights Violations in Psychiatry

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

“An Accused Murderer Is Trying to Use a Brain Scan as Evidence He Couldn’t...

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Philip Chism, who at 14-years-old brutally assaulted and murdered his teacher at Danvers high school in Massachusetts, has attempted to mount an insanity defense by producing brain scans that his expert witnesses have connected to schizophrenia. The judge has dismissed this evidence, however. “The inference the jury was asked to draw was that the volumetric value of the brain [is] consistent with schizophrenia is that the defendant has schizophrenia,” he said. “That is simply an impermissible inference for the jury to draw.”

“Ontario Justice System ‘Punishes’ Mental Illness”

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The Toronto Star reports on a 40-page analysis of the criminalization of mental illness released by the John Howard Society of Ontario last week. The crime and justice non-profit claims that “jails have replaced asylums as repositories for people who don’t have adequate resources to cope with community living,” with the unintended consequence that people in need of treatment “are forced to navigate a system that was never intended to be therapeutic.”

“Mental Health Bill Caters to Big Pharma and Would Expand Coercive Treatments”

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Oryx Cohen at TruthOut explains why the "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (HR 2646) - commonly known as the 'Murphy Bill' - appears to cater more closely to the desires of pharmaceutical companies than to the actual needs of people in psychological distress, perhaps because of Murphy's connections to key lobbyists." "If the Murphy Bill is passed, psychiatric hospitals and pharmaceutical companies will reap huge financial benefits as a result of increased hospitalization and forced treatment."

Psychotropic Medications Serve as Powerful Tools for U.S. Military, Imperialism

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

“Obama Gun Regs Ease Mental Health Reporting to FBI”

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"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...

Michael Brown and the ‘Peer’ Movement

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I’ve been arguing against calling this movement that I’m a part of a ‘peer’ movement for a long time. What has happened with Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri has helped me to crystallize that point. If we do not see what happens to some of us in the psychiatric system as connected to what happens to others because they are black or because they are transgender or because they love someone else of the same expressed gender (or because they live in poverty, etc. etc.), then I’m not sure any of us really, fully understands what it is we are trying to accomplish at all.

5 Ways to Address a Mental Health Crisis Without Calling 911

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From The Body Is Not An Apology: For many people, calling the police during a mental health emergency can result in brutality. Here are five...

John Oliver on Mental Health

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On his weekly HBO show, Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver argues that the tendency to discuss mental health in the wake of a mass shooting is "deeply misleading."

Interview With Black Lives Matter Cofounder Patrisse Khan-Cullors

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In this interview for Vice, Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Khan-Cullors discusses her efforts to fight for the civil rights of marginalized communities and to speak...

“Mass Shootings’ Most Invisible Victims: The Severely Mentally Ill. We are not the Villains”

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On her blog, A Disordered World, psychiatric survivor Jeanene Harlick writes that “prejudicial rhetoric about the mentally ill, following mass shootings, is exacerbating the already-overwhelming stigma, discrimination and oppression we experience as an unrecognized and disadvantaged minority group.”

When Calling the Police Results in Harm, Not Help

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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 FDA Is Hiding Reports Linking Psych Drugs to Homicides

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In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined being drawn into a story of intrigue involving my own government’s efforts to hide, from the public, reports of psychiatric drugs associated with cases of murder, including homicides committed by youth on the drugs. But that is precisely the intrigue I now find myself enmeshed in.

New York Times Hosts Debate on Psychiatric Institutionalization

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In the Room for Debate section of this weekend's New York Times, specialists in ethics, psychiatry, social work, addiction, and human rights hash out their...

Lawmakers Override Bevin’s Veto of Mental Health Law

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From The Courier-Journal: Last week, Kentucky's General Assembly voted to overturn Governor Matt Bevin's veto of Tim's Law, a mental health law that allows a...

Racism is Wreaking Havoc on Our Mental Health

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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...

Multisystemic Therapy No More Effective than Standard Care for Antisocial Behavior

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Study counters previous evidence supporting multisystemic therapy, finding adolescents are just as likely to have out-of-home placements when receiving multisystemic therapy versus management as usual.

“How to Improve Interactions Between Police and the Mentally Ill”

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-Two psychiatrists critically analyze training programs for police officers.

“Why San Bernardino Polarized America and What It Means for Our Political Future”

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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.

Health Researchers Question Police Claims of Mental Health “Crisis”

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-Are police exaggerating community mental health crises in order to get more funding as crime declines?

Criticism of Coercion and Forced Treatment in Psychiatry

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A recent editorial, published in BMJ, argues there is an increase in coercive measures in psychiatry that are damaging to individuals diagnosed with mental illness.

Psychology Must Become a Sanctuary Discipline to Heal Racial Trauma

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Researchers explore pathways of healing racial trauma in Latinx immigrant communities.

Viewing Addiction as a Brain Disease Promotes Social Injustice

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From Nature: There is virtually no scientific evidence indicating that addiction is a disease of the brain. Yet, the disease model of addiction is used...