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Debate ensues as scholars and policymakers discuss how to bring a rights-based approach to mental health policy.

During the 1970s, the head of schizophrenia studies at the NIMH, Loren Mosher, conducted an experiment that compared treatment in a homelike environment (called...

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

Dr. Gail Hornstein, author of Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness, discusses the importance of personal narratives and service-user activism in the context of the global mental health movement.

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

Do the effects of trauma matter more, or a person's ACE score? I think this is unusable data that harms people when you gather it. Here's why.

Are White Americans’ poor mental health outcomes caused by Whiteness?

A new study examines the role parent borderline pathology plays in the perpetuation of childhood maltreatment.

A special issue explores the connection between poverty, mental health, and psychotherapy.

Depression, serious psychological distress, and suicide attempts have risen substantially since the early 2000s among young adults – what’s changed?

Researchers find that support and self-care were helpful for users during discontinuation, but that mental health professionals were not very helpful.

As an increasing amount of research seeks to address the epidemic of loneliness, conceptual clarity is needed.

Soteria-Alaska, a program modeled after the highly effective Soteria developed in the 1970s by the late Loren Mosher, M.D., opened its doors in 2009. It is also impossible to convey the actual simplicity which in fact is the crowning jewel of the Soteria approach. A conservative review of the effectiveness of the Soteria approach revealed that it is at least as effective as traditional hospital-based treatment — without the use of antipsychotic medication as the primary treatment. Considering that people treated in the conventional way die on average 25 years younger than the general population, this is a substantial finding.

Psychologists and people with experience of psychotic symptoms publish a report on new ways of understanding psychosis.

Following an extensive systematic review of treatments for major depression, the American College of Physicians (ACP) issued a recommendation to clinicians suggesting cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a first-line treatment for major depressive disorder along with second-generation antidepressants. The results of the review revealed that CBT and antidepressants have similar levels of effectiveness but that antidepressants present serious side-effects and higher relapse rates.

The first time I tried to kill myself, I was 14. I won’t go into the indignity of being involuntarily locked up, time after time, until I satisfactorily convinced the staff that I wouldn’t harm myself or attempt suicide again. (I was lying.) The system taught me to lie, to hide my suicidal feelings in order to escape yet another round of dehumanizing lock-ups and “treatments.”

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

In my last blog, I talked about how I was attempting to cope with a “mini-relapse” without using psychiatric drugs. One Sunday morning in the midst of this episode I awoke in a particularly dismal state. I didn’t have a structure planned for the day. And without something to look forward to, both my anxiety and depression increased.

A new study suggests that most people diagnosed with depressive, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders recover without treatment within a year of diagnosis. “This...

For five years, I and others worked to create a residential healing community in Brookline, Vermont, where people could recover from debilitating and traumatic life experiences, which often lead to addiction and mental health challenges, without the use of psychotropic medications. We welcomed our first six seekers to a yearlong, therapeutic and farm-based, day program last September, and we now can report on what we have learned during this time.

Race often determines whether school punishment or therapy and drugs will be used to address children’s problem behaviors.

Practitioners and public leaders identify methods and barriers for integrating those diagnosed with mental health issues into community life.

A randomized control trial finds that receiving peer support from individuals with similar lived experiences reduces one’s risk of readmission to an acute crisis unit.

Researchers evaluate the impact of a school-based prevention program on anxious and depressive symptoms.

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.