Economic Stress as a Driver of Global Depression and Suicide

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From Truthout: According to the World Health Organization, poverty and unemployment are leading causes of depression and suicide. Still, recommended solutions for depression tend to...

“Study Suggests Shift in Focus in Cognitive Behavior Therapy”

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A new research study examines the relationships that makes cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) successful.

Making Sense of Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs

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Website of Mind, U.K. Go to "Making Sense of Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs"                          ...

Despite Claims, EPA Supplement Does Not Improve ADHD Symptoms in Youth

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A new study reports that the supplement EPA improved ADHD symptoms but a closer look calls these results into question.

Madness Challenges Our Sense Of What It Is To Be Human

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In The Lancet, psychiatrist and MIA Blogger Andrew Scull discusses the themes in his book Madness In Civilization. "Mental illness haunts the human imagination,"...

The Ghost of Research Future

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Two facts about Robert Califf are beyond question. He is an expert on clinical trials, who is already seen as a leading architect of the future of medical research. And as the New York Times put it, he has “deeper ties to the pharmaceutical industry than any FDA commissioner in recent memory”. A lot of senior figures in medicine support Califf in spite of his ties to Pharma. The guy is just so bright, and understands the nuts and bolts of drug research so well! Surely a person like this is more useful than some outsider who offers only a squeaky-clean resume, they argue.

Married Individuals with Schizophrenia Show Better Outcomes, Study Finds

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14-year study of a rural sample in China shows those who were married had higher rates of remission from schizophrenia.

Is a Little Stigma Better Than None?

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An anti-anti-stigma campaign The whole anti-stigma campaign is something of a joke. Google the word “stigma,” see for yourself. Mental health labels are inherently stigmatizing,...

Classism in Disguise

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For everyone who goes on psychiatric drugs, the reason comes back to power imbalances in their personal life. Women who's husbands “make all of the money” and have an unequal share of the power, kids who's parents have power over them—frequently people who have less money and security, therefore less platform for authority than those around them. Mental illness is not in fact an illness but an unequal division of power and sense of security in a social group.

On Becoming Critical

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In order for you to understand where I am coming from, you probably need to know a bit about how I got here. Throughout my psychiatric training I had always, in the back of mind, this question: What is the difference between my suffering and those of my patients? How come they get all this treatment and I got none? Why do they have a ‘brain disease’ (there was a time when I tentatively believed in this sort of thing), whilst I, who was at times symptomatically severe enough to warrant medication, have no brain disease? The answer seems plain to me now. I had suffered exactly in the same way as many of the people I see every day do, but I had been lucky enough to avoid labeling and drugging.

Post-Prozac Nation: The Science and History of Treating Depression

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The Sunday New York Times Magazine traces the history and controversy around serotonin, "imbalance theory," deep-brain stimulation and more; including references to Irving Kirsch and placebos,...

We Are The Ones

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My public writing has brought my mother and I closer together than we’ve been in decades. There have been disagreements. But now, my almost ninety-year-old mother tells me she reads everything I write. She recently told me that she’s glad I see things so clearly.

Research Shows Mindfulness can Decrease Anxiety

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A new study explores the impact of a Mindfulness-Based intervention on stress-related biomarkers in individuals diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

“Mindfulness at Risk of Being ‘Turned into a Free Market Commodity’”

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The Guardian reports growing concerns from the Buddhist Society conference: “Jon Kabat-Zinn, who created the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine at the University of Massachusetts medical school, warned last week that some people feared a ‘sort of superficial ‘McMindfulness’ is taking over, which ignores the ethical foundations of the meditative practices and traditions from which mindfulness has emerged, and divorces it from its profoundly transformative potential.’”

Jeopardizing Your Wife to Prove a Point: Pellagra as an Example of Deficit

The relevance of pellagra to psychiatry is that it also can present with psychosis, obsessions, mania, depression and confusion. It involves the main organs of the brain, the gut and the skin – many referred to the 4 Ds: dementia, diarrhoea, dermatitis and death. Pellagra (meaning rough skin) was first described in 1735. At the time, the cause was unknown but it was associated with poverty. Although linked to the poor person’s diet (often consisting mainly of corn products), the going wisdom at that time was that it was contagious (Pellagrans, as they were called, tended to live in close proximity) and was perhaps hereditary (sound familiar?).

Researchers Challenge Popular Beliefs About Adolescent Risk Taking

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Adolescent risk taking is explored contextually, beyond models of brain imbalances and adverse consequences.

Trauma, Psychosis, and Dissociation

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Recent years have seen an influx of numerous studies providing an undeniable link between childhood/ chronic trauma and psychotic states. Although many researchers (i.e., Richard Bentall, Anthony Morrison, John Read) have been publishing and speaking at events around the world discussing the implications of this link, they are still largely ignored by mainstream practitioners, researchers, and even those with lived experience. While this may be partially due to an understandable (but not necessarily defensible) tendency to deny the existence of trauma, in general, there are also certainly many political, ideological, and financial reasons for this as well.

NIMH Funding Changes Threaten Psychotherapy Research

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The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is increasingly shifting its research emphasis toward attempting to uncover biomarkers for “mental diseases,” which may have dramatic consequences for research and training in clinical psychology. In an article to be published in next month’s Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Marvin Goldfried outlines how the shift in funding priorities for psychological research is tied to the needs of pharmaceutical companies and the biological model in psychiatry.

Benzodiazepines Linked to Treatment Resistant Depression

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Prior use of benzodiazepines, such as Xanax, Librium, or Ativan, may increase the risk of treatment-resistant depression (TRD), according to a new study published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.

“Respite from the Storm”

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-There's a resurgence in interest in small peer-run centers that help people who might otherwise land in psychiatric hospitals.

George Monbiot on the Politics of Belonging

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In this video for Verso Books, author George Monbiot explains how neoliberalism has destroyed our natural capacity for altruism. He proposes that we create a...

No Publication Bias in Meta-Analyses of Psychotherapy for Schizophrenia

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A review by German researchers of all meta-analyses (with sufficient data) of psychotherapeutic interventions for schizophrenia up to September, 2010 found evidence that psychosocial...

Mindfulness As (In)Effective as Antidepressants at Preventing Relapses?

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Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy worked as well -- and as poorly -- as antidepressants for preventing relapses in depressed people. Though the mindfulness participants may have been in acute withdrawal.

Adverse Childhood Events Contribute Significantly to Most Mental Health Problems

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John Read and Richard Bentall write in the British Journal of Psychiatry about the growing understanding and acceptance of the significant role adverse childhood...

The First Ever USA Olympic Gold Medal in Judo – and a Recovery Story

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This morning Kayla Harrison won the first ever Olympic gold medal in the history of USA Judo. Kayla has overcome many, many obstacles on...