Community

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.

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

We need to burn through some darkness before we collectively see the light. The light is a palpable shift toward reaching for human connection; toward opening our hearts and our minds and intentionally focusing on the positive future that wants to emerge.

We've been discussing a potential role for psychiatrists on this site, and I wanted some of the doctors to understand why many mental health...

Loneliness was found to both predict and be reinforced by severe common mental disorders.

Researchers present loneliness as a health threat facing a growing number of Americans.

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?

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.

Cross-cultural data suggest that happiness involves feeling the emotions one deems as right, in accordance with personal and cultural values.

A new study explores the interplay between social stress and quality of life for individuals self-identified with high-functioning autism.

Researchers explore how culturally responsive services can create greater equity in mental health care.

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

Research investigates clinicians’ perspectives on best care practices and the complicated realities of providing care in the face of agency limitations and mechanized interventions.

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.

The authors of the report expand upon the traumatic and sociopolitical factors underlying presentations of psychosis and “schizophrenia.”

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.”

The recent incident in the grounds of Washington Capitol, involving a young educated woman, brought shock to many people. It was another opportunity to blame a victim of mental illness and demand further restraint and medical attention for such individuals. Yes, we are lacking dignified, caring, discerning and attentive treatment for those whose spirits are broken. But we certainly don’t suffer from a lack of medical treatment for such individuals. It is time for policy-holders, and our scientific community to ask the 'heretical' question; “Could the drugs be the culprit behind the violence?”

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

Researchers argue that a structural competency and social determinants of health approach must be made central to psychiatry training.

New qualitative research finds a shift in the meaning of gender as it enters the local lexicon of people in rural Malawi, in turn having negative ramifications for those it is meant to help.

Findings show that despite increases in treatment availability, the prevalence of mental health issues has not decreased.

Recovery is adapting to how your brain works. You accept how it works, observing what makes it worse or better, and learn to navigate the triggers and symptoms you experience. As you do things differently, these 'corrective experiences' begin to undo the negative beliefs you have internalized.

Anthropologists study Parachute NYC to identify challenges and opportunities for implementing peer support and Open Dialogue practices.

A new article examines the usefulness of the ADHD diagnosis and suggests alternatives

In this piece for Wake Up World, Cortland Pfeffer shares 10 life lessons he learned from his experience as a psychiatric patient, a recovering...