Berlin Manifesto launch

Berlin Manifesto for Humane Psychiatry Released

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Changing the mental health and psychosocial support system in Germany requires public debate about the ways our society should help and support people in mental crisis and with chronic mental health problems. We believe the driving force behind all help and support should be humanitarianism and respect for inalienable human rights.

Traditional South African Healers Use Connection in Suicide Prevention

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Study finds that traditional healers in South Africa, whose services are widely used by the country’s population, perform important suicide prevention work.

Study Finds Hearing Voices Groups Improve Social and Emotional Wellbeing

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Hearing Voices Network self-help groups are an important resource for coping with voice hearing, study finds.

Study Confirms Higher Suicide Risk for Sexual Minority Adolescents

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Researchers report that sexual minority adolescents have considered, planned, and attempted suicide substantially more than their heterosexual peers.
suicide silhouette

Deadly Serious: Talking Openly About Suicide

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The suicide crisis is real. The pain is real. The deaths are real. None of us can afford to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that this isn't happening. But the helplessness and confusion about what to do about it are also real. And that's why peer relationships and peer-developed modalities can be so helpful. Many of us have been there and are still alive to talk about it. We know what ways of relating gave us hope and helped us to continue on.

What Does Social Justice Really Mean for Psychologists?

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Without clarity and consensus around what social justice means, psychologists risk perpetuating injustices that undermine their stated mission.

The Effects of Practicing Psychotherapy on Therapists’ Personal Lives

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A new study, published in Psychotherapy Research, explores how having a career in psychotherapy affects therapists’ personal lives.

Victim Blaming: Childhood Trauma, Mental Illness & Diagnostic Distractions?

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Why, despite the fact that the vast majority of people diagnosed with a mental illness have suffered from some form of childhood trauma, is it still so difficult to talk about? Why, despite the enormous amount of research about the impact of trauma on the brain and subsequent effect on behaviour, does there seem to be such an extraordinary refusal for the implication of this research to change attitudes towards those who are mentally ill? Why, when our program and others like it have shown people can heal from the effects of trauma, are so many people left with the self-blame and the feeling they will never get better that my colleague writes about below?

New Book Deconstructs Ideology of Cognitive Therapy

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CBT forwards a hyper-rational perspective of human suffering that complements a managerialist culture of efficiency and institutionalization in the Western world.

Does Psychotherapy Reproduce or Disrupt Neoliberal Capitalism?

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Researchers explore neoliberal influences on interactions in psychotherapy and question whether the radical potential of psychotherapy can counter prevailing social systems.

Defeating Goliath: Mental Health is a Social Justice Issue, and People with Lived Experience...

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While I have lived just a few miles away from the Capitol for the last fifteen years, I have been unsure about getting involved in legislative advocacy. I’ve been intimidated by the complexity of the legislative process, and more inclined to leave it up to others who I perceive as having more experience than me. And honestly, I haven’t felt very hopeful about effecting change. My cynicism had turned to “learned helplessness.” And then along came a mental health bill so destructive, so regressive, that I had to step out of my uncomfortable comfort zone.

Psychologist Debunks Common Misconceptions of Maslow’s Hierarchy

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Utilizing Maslow’s published books and essays, psychologist William Compton delineates common myths and attempts to respond to them.

Neoliberalism Drives Increase in Perfectionism Among College Students

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Meta-analytic study detects upsurge in patterns of perfectionism in young adults and explores how neoliberalism contributes to this trend.

Paxil Progress

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Paxil Progress is a forum for people engaged in withdrawal from Paxil. It also offers adverse drug reaction reporting, FDA Warnings, published withdrawal studies,...

Traditional Healing and Psychosis vs. the Promises of Modern Science

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As noted in Anatomy of an Epidemic, the prognosis for someone experiencing psychosis is far better in developing countries than in industrialized countries. Robert Whitaker and others posit that this is due to the treatment models used in the developing world, as well as to debility and chronicity caused by psychiatric drugs themselves. I think it's also important to explore traditional tribal and village based models of helping people experiencing psychosis and examine why they may be effective. Do these traditional societies know something we don't?

Post-Election Considerations for Users and Survivors of Psychiatry

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A variety of scenarios of social and economic collapse have gone through many of our minds since Election Day. Insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies want to keep people on drugs, but what if there was no government subsidy for those who can’t pay?

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.

Do Family Interventions for Psychosis Translate in China?

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Researchers explore how family interventions for psychosis might be adapted to China’s emerging integrated mental health care landscape.

Crash Course in Urban Shamanism

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Shamans are the magician spirit healers in tribal, non-technological societies around the world. Anthropologists use the word “shamanism,” from the Tungus people of Siberia, to mean the commonalities between different traditions. Shamans find their calling through a life-threatening initiatory illness or crisis, go into visioning and trance to connect to other realities, shapeshift out of their regular identity to identify with animals, spirits, and even illnesses, and return to the ordinary world to share skills of healing and creativity. Living at the edge of society and defying conventional norms, conduct, and even gender, shamans are respected as a powerful community link to the divine.
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.

International Review of Psychiatry Focuses on Recovery

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The February International Review of Psychiatry focuses on recovery, from mental health "Trialogues" in Austria, to social equality in Canada, to policy shifts from...

Schizophrenia: Manifestations, Incidence and Course in Different Cultures

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Schizophrenia: Manifestations, Incidence and Course in Different Cultures.Jablensky, A. Psychological Medicine, supplement 20 (1992):1-95. The second WHO study was called the Determinants of Outcome of Severe...

Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia? What About Black People?

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In many respects it is difficult to fault the report Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia, recently published by the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP)[i]; indeed, as recent posts on Mad in America have observed, there is much to admire in it. Whilst not overtly attacking biomedical interpretations of psychosis, it rightly draws attention to the limitations and problems of this model, and points instead to the importance of contexts of adversity, oppression and abuse in understanding psychosis. But the report makes only scant, fleeting references to the role of cultural differences and the complex relationships that are apparent between such differences and individual experiences of psychosis.

Study Finds Heavy Metal Music Beneficial to Mental Health

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A new study highlights the role heavy metal music plays in the mental health of adolescents facing adversity.

Mental Health Service Users’ Perspectives on Family-Focused Recovery

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Study explores a multifaceted approach to promote family-focused recovery practice.