The Surprising Mental Health Benefits of Volunteering

12
A program offers psychotherapy in exchange for voluntary service in the community. But the act of volunteering itself can have mental health benefits of its own.
A white brain surrounded by a pile of red and white pills

Depression: Psychiatry’s Discredited Theories and Drugs Versus a Sane Model and Approach

80
Psychiatry’s depression outcomes are poor because its bio-chemical-electrical treatments are based on a depression model that science has flushed down the toilet.
Photo of a girl surrounded by bullies holding cell phones

ā€œA Dangerous Substanceā€: The Impact of Social Media on Youth Mental Health

10
This is what social media does, she says. It draws people in. It hurts people. In the worst cases, it kills people.

The Fight Against Involuntary Commitment: Are Protection & Advocacy Organizations Fulfilling Their Mission?

9
Protection and Advocacy organizations were designed as ground-breaking tools for fighting involuntary commitment and protecting patients’ rights. Are they fulfilling their promise? And will they survive Trump?
Stock photo. Man in lab coat appears to scream in anger.

Criticisms That Establishment Psychiatry Can and Cannot Tolerate

79
Criticism that uniquely applies to establishment psychiatry but not to medicine in general threatens its existential legitimacy, and is not tolerated.
Woman holding a smartphone and touching the screen, she is using mobile apps, vintage style collage

Therapy by App: A Clinical Psychologist Tries BetterHelp

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Revealing concerns about BetterHelp’s ability to provide quality, secure treatment—and the unresolved tensions in the science of psychotherapy that services like BetterHelp exploit.

The False Memory Syndrome at 30: How Flawed Science Turned into Conventional Wisdom ...

171
Soon after states finally began providing adults who remembered childhood abuse with the legal standing to sue, the FMSF began waging a PR campaign to discredit their memories—in both courtrooms and in the public mind.

Exploding Myths About Schizophrenia: An Interview with Courtenay Harding

23
The Vermont Longitudinal Study, led by Courtenay Harding, belied conventional beliefs about schizophrenia by showing remarkably good outcomes for patients discharged in the 1950s and '60s.

Summing up the STAR*D Scandal: The Public was Betrayed, Millions were Harmed, and the...

76
American psychiatry, the NIMH, the larger medical community, and mainstream media have betrayed the American public by failing to make this scandal known.

The Failure of ā€œSpit For Scienceā€: No Genetic or Neurological Pathways for Substance Abuse

11
Despite finding no meaningful correlation between genes and substance use, high-profile geneticists misleadingly conveyed optimistic results.

Muzzled by Psychiatry in a Time of Crisis

266
The American Psychiatric Association and its former president, Jeffrey Lieberman, have used the Goldwater Rule to try to silence Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee and colleagues who warned, in a collection of essays, about why President Trump is "dangerous." Why would a guild choose to do this?

The Door to a Revolution in Psychiatry Cracks Open

137
The Ministry of Health in Norway has ordered its four regional health authorities to offer medicine-free treatment in psychiatric hospitals. A six-bed ward in Tromso, which is in the far north of Norway, is now providing such care.

Anatomy of an Industry: Commerce, Payments to Psychiatrists and Betrayal of the Public Good

69
Pharmaceutical companies paid psychiatrists $340 million from 2014 through 2020, corrupting every aspect of the testing and marketing of new psychiatric drugs.

Faith Healing in India: An Ancient Way of Tending to Madness

13
In contrast to the colonial legacy of medical psychiatry in India, indigenous and faith healing methods emphasize the interconnectedness of the mind, body, and spirit, using rituals, storytelling, and communal support to create a holistic healing environment.

“War Cry For Change”: Veterans Launch Campaign for Informed Consent and Safe Deprescribing at...

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Derek Blumke and Timothy Jensen: The Grunt Style Foundation leads a new phase in the movement to combat psychiatric drug harm.

Suicide in the Age of Prozac

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During the past twenty years, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and American psychiatry have adopted a "medicalized" approach to preventing suicide, claiming that antidepressants are protective against suicide. Yet, the suicide rate in the United States has increased 30% since 2000, a time of rising usage of antidepressants. A review of studies of the effects of mental health treatment and antidepressants on suicide reveals why this medicalized approach has not only failed, but pushed suicide rates higher.
Illustration of a headstone reading "IN MEMORY OF PSYCHOTHERAPY AND PSYCHOSOMATICS 1992-2024"

The Editorial Demise of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Is Bad News For Us All

28
Karger’s decision to replace the editorial leadership without consultation is extraordinary, abruptly ending decades of success and accumulated expertise.

Medication-Free Treatment in Norway: A Private Hospital Takes Center Stage

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At the HurdalsjĆøen Recovery Center in Norway, patients with a long history of psychiatric hospitalizations are tapering from their medications and, in a therapeutic environment that emphasizes a good diet, exercise, and asking patients "what do they want in life," are leaving their old lives as chronic patients behind.
adverse childhood experiences

Adverse Childhood Experiences: When Will the Lessons of the ACE Study Inform Societal Care?

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The ACE study tells of how adverse childhood experiences increase the risk of psychological and physical problems in adulthood. When will we start incorporating these findings into public health policy and medical care?

The Dying of the Light: Norway’s “Medication-Free” Services for Psychotic Patients Are Fading Away

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Despite their successful outcomes, Norwegian non-coercive and medication-free programs are being threatened with closure.
Two photos. On the left, a woman cries while holding a phone to her ear. On the right, two police officers peer into the glass door of a home.

Roll-out of 988 Threatens Anonymity of Crisis Hotlines

23
Even after their own advisory committee criticized call tracing, leaders of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline have been lobbying government for cutting-edge mass surveillance and tracking technology. Privacy experts are raising concerns.

The Nurtured Heart Approach Goes Mainstream: Research and Experience Support ā€œCelebrating Greatness in Every...

23
The Nurtured Heart Approach represents a massive shift in thinking—about schooling, about children and how to raise them, about how we regard those with intensity, and about the medical model pathologizing them.
Illustration of a magnet pulling the glowing word "data" out of a laptop computer

ā€œConfidentialā€ 988 Conversation Records Shared with Corporations

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Recordings of 988 callers’ voice, text, and chat conversations are being shared with researchers, AI developers, and corporations without consent.

Suicide Hotlines Bill Themselves as Confidential—Even as Some Trace Your Call

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Every year suicide hotline centers covertly trace tens of thousands of confidential calls, and police come to homes, schools, and workplaces to forcibly take callers to psychiatric hospitals.

Dramatic Rise in Police Interventions on 988 Callers

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New data reveals that four times as many callers to 988 as previously publicly claimed are getting visited by police or emergency medical services.