out-of-body experience

Spiritual Emergency: Crisis or Transformation?

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A spiritual emergency is a crisis during which experiences are so intense that they temporarily disrupt the sense of self. Mislabeling them as pathological symptoms may be damaging to further spiritual development as well as to the individual's psychological and physiological well-being.

Building an Intersectional Psychology of Economic Class

Innovative research methods and interventions could address socioeconomic disparities in academic achievement.

How Does Mindfulness Work?

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A new study explores how mindfulness impacts self-compassion and meaning in life to increase mental health and wellbeing.

Hearing Veteran Narratives is Key to Suicide Prevention

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Current suicide assessment practices of the VA are reductive and do not allow for the individual’s narrative to be heard.

Can a Conceptual Competence Curriculum Bring Humility to Psychiatry?

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Training for conceptual competence in psychiatry provides a new way forward to address theoretical and philosophical issues in mental health research and practice.

How Dissenting Voices are Silenced in Medicine

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Researcher criticizes the many ways opposing viewpoints and dissenting voices are squashed in the field of medicine.

Reimagining Healthcare

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The conventional Western classification systems of health conditions are based on flawed science shaped by reductionist, hierarchical, and profit-driven ideologies. THEN wants to create a new paradigm built upon principles drawn from systems science, the life course perspective, developmental neurobiology, and other evidence-informed studies.

Nuanced History of Asylums Shows Context Matters

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A bottom-up approach to understanding the history of asylums allows us to learn from past successes and failures in the mental health system.

School Discipline is Racially Biased and Increases Misbehavior

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School discipline that punishes minor misbehavior may increase adolescents’ misconduct and lead to racial inequalities in school discipline.

Can Psychiatry Respond to Mad Activism?

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Psychiatrist Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed explores a way forward for psychiatry in responding to the Mad activism of service users.

Case Study of Liberation Approach to International Mental Health Care

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Study in Brazil demonstrates how the exploration of contextual determinants of distress in mental health care can inform therapeutic change.

Bringing Structural Competency to Global Mental Health

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Structural competency is put forth as a framework that addresses social and structural determinants in global mental health.

How to Change Psychology to Address Racial Health Disparities

Psychology can only deal with racial health disparities effectively by incorporating critical race theory and intervening at a structural level.

To Live and (Almost) Die in L.A.: A Survivor’s Tale

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After 25 years of chronic emergency, 22 mental hospitalizations, a stint at a “community mental health center,” 13 years in a "board & care," repeated withdrawals from addictions to legal drugs, and a 12-year marriage, I plan to live every last breath out as a survivor, an advocate, and an artist.

Making Peer Counseling Radically Accessible

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I imagined a world in which anyone can hit a button on their phone and be connected with a compassionate and empathetic listener, 24/7. So in 2019, I founded Peer Collective. Today, there are 30 peer counselors on the platform offering 30-minute counseling sessions for just $14.

Opening Doors in the Borderlands: An Interview with Liberation Psychologist Mary Watkins

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MIA’s Micah Ingle interviews Mary Watkins about reorienting psychology toward liberation and social justice.
love hope christmas cards

Cast Aside No One

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When I first presented my cards to the woman at Newport Hospital's front desk, I was greeted with a smile, but when I told her to whom I wanted them sent, her smile quickly faded. She sighed and asked me to consider handing out my cards to "the other patients" instead, as if the patients in the psychiatric unit didn't matter at all.

Experiences of Depression Connected to Declining Sense of Purpose

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In-depth interviews find that those who screened positive for depression did not explain their experience in terms of diagnostic symptoms.

How Western Psychiatry Harms Alternative Understandings of Mental Health

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

Initial Trial of Ayahuasca for Depression Shows Promising Results

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Ayahuasca found to be effective in treating moderate to severe depression in low-income population.

What is the Evidence for Empirically Supported Treatments in Psychology?

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New meta-scientific review questions the evidence for the gold standard psychotherapies and empirically supported treatments.

Growing Research Connects Nutrition and Mental Health

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A new article reviews studies in the field of nutritional psychiatry and how nutrition can prevent and treat mental health issues.

Blaming Climate Change Inaction on Psychological Barriers Misses the Point

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Researchers argue that blaming climate change inaction on psychological barriers ignores the effects of neoliberal capitalism and social structures.

Is Australia’s Psychiatric System Redeemable?

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We have reached the point where we have to ask: Is psychiatry doing anything useful for society, or has it degenerated to an insatiable, high-cost and self-sustaining rentier gorging on the public purse? The Australian Productivity Commission is holding an enquiry into mental health; it is to be hoped that this will assist in the process of uncovering the truth.

Why is the Field of Psychotherapy Still Fractured into Different Approaches?

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Psychotherapy is dominated by contradicting schools of thought, exhibits a gap between research and practice, and repackages old ideas rather than finding clinical consensus.