MH Services in England Are Being ‘Uberised’ – That’s Bad for Patients & Therapists
From The Conversation: A standardized and digitalized model of therapy called Increased Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) - England's largest NHS program - is causing therapist depression, anxiety and burnout.
By Tracing Addiction (and More) to Childhood Trauma, Can We Find Compassion?
From YES! Magazine: "Trauma is an overwhelming threat that you don’t know how to deal with," says Dr. Gabor Maté. "Our job, as human beings, is to learn from our suffering."
He Cheered on Britney Spears—While Fighting a Guardianship Battle of His Own
From The Washington Post: The aftershocks of #FreeBritney could continue to rattle the American legal system long after Spears’s victory.
Emotional CPR: Heart-Centered Peer Support
Two National Empowerment Center leaders discuss eCPR, a process for helping youth—or anyone—through an emotional crisis using three simple steps.
Psychotherapy Has an Enduring Effect on Depression—in Contrast to Depression Pills
A meta-analysis published last month showed that psychotherapy has an enduring effect on depression—in contrast to depression pills.
NHS to Give Therapy for Depression Before Medication Under New Guidelines
From The Guardian: Draft guidance says a "menu of treatment options" including CBT, exercise and mindfulness should be offered in less severe cases.
NC Pays Psychiatric Units That Break Rules Millions to ‘Care’ for Youth
Around the Web: A newspaper investigation discovered that the state continued to pay psychiatric residential treatment facilities millions when they repeatedly broke rules meant to ensure children's safety and well-being.
Punching, Predators, Neglect: Traumatized NC Children Suffer Inside Dismal Psychiatric Centers
From The Fayetteville Observer: "We are ruining people’s lives, and we’re doing it in the most expensive way possible," said State Rep. Verla Insko. "It’s inhumane and irresponsible. It is a government failure."
A Peer-Run Center in North Carolina Offers Alternative for Psychiatric Care
From NBC: At Retreat @ the Plaza, guests use their experiences with 'mental illness,' homelessness and domestic violence to help one another regain their footing.
ADHD as Cargo Cult Science
Barkley’s theory on ADHD was akin to what Richard Feynman called “Cargo Cult Science,” only more misleading and dangerous. In contrast, there is no evidence of brain abnormality in ADHD. The airplanes have not landed, nor are they likely to.
Family Deeds: Constellation Therapy & Generations of Trauma
From Psychology Today: Family and ancestral constellation is a therapeutic tool that allows the invisible influences from the present and past to be made visible, acknowledged, and whole.
Tower of Babel: The Meaning and Purpose of Voicehearing and Psychosis
A bottomless well of ideas and stories and seeming fantasies emerges from the mouths of voicehearers, psychotics, and schizophrenics. Is anyone taking the time to actually listen?
The DSM Files: Investigating the Incoherence of Psychiatry’s Bible
A critical view of the way the DSM categorizes internal suffering and makes sense (or sometimes nonsense) of it—full of inconsistencies and bad logic.
Top ‘ADHD Experts’ All Take Drug Company Money
From ADHD is BS: All of the world's ten most influential 'ADHD experts' take funds from multiple ADHD drug manufacturers. Topping the list is American psychologist Prof Stephen V. Faraone who has commercial ties to 21 ADHD drug companies.
How Western Psychology Can Rip Indigenous Families Apart: An Interview with Elisa Lacerda-Vandenborn
An interview with Elisa Lacerda-Vandenborn about the consequences \psychology and mental health treatment can have for indigenous children.
Emotional Contagion Spreads Madness—What Can We Do About It?
In my opinion, emotional contagion is the strongest power known to humankind. Emotions move and flow among people and groups. We absorb others’ emotions.
“For Life”: New Opera Tells the Stories of Those Harmed by Psychiatric Drugs
Dawn Sonntag and Kermit Cole have collaborated on a new opera, "For Life," that tells the stories of those harmed by psychiatric drugs.
Researchers Push to End Placebo Run-in Periods in Antidepressant Studies
Meta-analysis finds that the placebo run-in methodology reduces the placebo effect and finds antidepressants to be less useful.
How CBT Harmed Me: The Interview That the New York Times Erased
From Disability Visibility Project: CBT as a modality is based around gaslighting. It's about telling a patient that the world is safe, bad feelings are temporary, and that pain is a 'faulty or unhelpful' distortion of thinking.
‘At the Forefront of Medicine’: My UChicago Involuntary Hospitalization
From The Chicago Maroon: A neuroscience student reflects on the psychiatric system’s failure to care for its patients--and how it can often make matters worse.
Art, Music, Exercise, and More: What Are the Recommended Doses for Improving Mental Health?
Researchers have calculated the dose-response benefits of ordinary hobbies, habits, and lifestyle practices that are available without any trip to a doctor or a drug store.
What Is Climate Distress—And What Can Therapists Do About It?
Therapists who encounter climate distress should reject the false burden borne by individuals and embrace a spirit of shared vulnerability, solidarity, collective action, and demands for justice.
How Emotional Blindness Is Created – 21 Points by Alice Miller
From alice-miller.com: The renowned Swiss psychotherapist summarized the way repressed early maltreatment leads to chronic emotional disconnectivity.
Renee Schuls-Jacobson – Psychiatrized: Waking up After a Decade of Bad Medicine
We interview Renee Schuls-Jacobson about her book Psychiatrized: Waking up After a Decade of Bad Medicine which details Renee's experiences being prescribed the benzodiazepine clonazepam (Klonopin) for seven years.
Reason and Madness: How Psychiatry Marginalizes Those Who Contradict Western Norms
Psychiatry can be used as a tool by those in power as an arbiter of normality, but it also reflects the dominant attitudes, values, and beliefs of society.