Community

After seven suicides in two years, students have come together to develop community building interventions including a texting hotline, artificial light boxes, and conversation...

The September/October issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry reviews the biological and therapeutic research findings for the role of oxytocin in attachment, and...

Earth Day 2013 is a good time to reflect on how problems in our mental health system reflect deep flaws in “normal” conceptions of what it means to be a human being. These flawed conceptions then contribute in a critical way to the climate crisis that threatens us all.

In a study of 90 new mothers in Nova Scotia, five hours per day of skin-to-skin contact (SSC) reduced mothers' depression scores in their...

Results from a pilot study called Imagining Autism suggests that drama workshops help children with autism-spectrum disorders. Drama Helps Kids with Autism Communicate Better (New Scientist)

In a study of 86 individuals experiencing at least mild depressive symptoms, a person's willingness to seek support from a friend was not related...

-Hannah Giorgis describes how she felt even more "crazy" when her mental health professionals denied the existence of racism against black people in Britain.

Writing on his 1 Boring Old Man blog, Dr. Mickey Nardo reflects on the media frenzy around the RAISE study and asks why the prescription data has not been released. He adds skepticism about the political motives of the potentially overblown results, which he sees as a clear push for increased mental health funding.

In a meta-analysis funded by the World Health Organization and published in The Lancet, studies of 21,500 disabled individuals from Australia, Canada, New Zealand,...

I recently joined BHbusiness Mastering Essential Business Operations as a convener.  The plan is to recruit 15-20 peer organizations to participate in a peer provider learning community.  I decided to create an all peer - or at least a 95 percent peer - learner community with meaningful programs, innovation, and plenty of ideas that may not necessarily be easy to implement. How can we disarm trauma in the midst of creating sustainable communities? We must love ourselves a little harder, love our peers just a little bit stronger and bring our adversaries closer to our hearts.

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

I think it is time to reclaim the word disability. Disability needs to be appreciated. To the extent we value community over isolation, anything anyone cannot do, or needs help with, builds community. There are infinite examples in every career and walk of life of how necessary “disability” (since we're calling it that) is for connection, service and meaning in life. Without it we'd have absolutely no need for each other. And the fastest way to despair is to feel unnecessary.

Minn Post did a feature story last week on Vail Place, an alternative mental health treatment center run on a community “clubhouse” model where the nearly 900 members and staff work side by side to run the center’s activities. Vail Place was founded in Hopkins, Minnesota in the early eighties by mental health activists and family members as a community for psychosocial rehabilitation. “The work isn’t therapy,” a member explains. “It’s growth. It’s ‘I cans’ rather than ‘I can'ts.’ And that’s important for mental health and survival.”

Do you think youth prevention programs, sports, arts programs, or spiritual approaches can help people through emotional distress? We've been calling for this dialogue for years and now it's time to get out in your city and participate in it. In four days in Kansas City we'll have the first ever large scale public forum that includes information about medical harm and the full range of entrepreneurial solutions.

U.K. based website focussing on benzodiazepine addiction, withdrawal & recovery.

Researchers in Brazil followed sixteen individuals after a first-episode psychotic experience to understand their subjective experience of recovery.  They found that the participants described...

If you haven't been labeled mentally ill by the American Psychiatric Association, you have to ask yourself what's wrong. Perhaps you were ahead of the game: you knew not to reveal yourself to them, you knew how to avoid them, you found other social support, and if so, a big congratulations. If not, what's wrong? Why have you conformed?

It’s been the kind of contemplative, hibernating winter that’s left us ready for an action-packed spring. Jacks and I spent two months living in a little house in the woods finishing our first solo books and revising the classic Icarus text Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness...

Comingoff.com is a website that "...aims to give you up to date information about psychiatric medication, how it functions and the withdrawal process. It is...

In 1980, my father started the Can Collector’s Club (CCC). I was 2 years old. As the story goes, it was my mother’s brainchild, but dad quickly took ahold of the idea with his entrepreneurial spirit. Some people thought he had lost his mind. Some still do. But the purpose of the CCC was simple. Convince family and friends to turn aluminum cans into him so that he could use the money from recycling to support our college fund. And clean up the environment.

When we share our stories publicly, whether in speaking, writing, or another art form, we acknowledge we are part of something bigger. We are aware we aren't the only ones who have been abused or witnessed abuse, or who are scared to let go of our ancestral shame and fear. We are, rather, part of an entire generation, an entire society that is moving away from silence, blame and abuse. In sharing our stories, we instantly recover from a big hunk of loneliness, loneliness that might not be so easily resolved sitting in a room across from a professional, with a few non-offensive art pieces on the walls. We acknowledge that every single one of us who experiences physical or emotional symptoms is holding onto things for others, in our bodies, and together, word by word, we can break free.

If there is one downside to the field of mental health, declares an editorial in The Lancet Psychiatry, "it is the failure of pleasant,...

"The holiday season can be a very stressful time, so think about giving directions, asking someone if they need help, or holding that elevator...

Will Hall's Harm Reduction Guide, published by the Icarus Project and Freedom Center.

CBC News reports of the "growing demand" for "Hearing Voices That Are Distressing" workshops in Winnipeg. Article →