Community

I've been working on starting a business that can use market forces to create benefit for our communities. This is called social entrepreneurship. Different models...

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 article suggests integrating physical activity throughout the day may help to address the mental health of students.

In a new study published in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Professor Sam Porter and co-authors, present the results of a music...

Black patients are almost twice as likely as their white counterparts to be diagnosed with schizophrenia while whites are significantly more likely to receive a diagnosis of anxiety or depression, according to a recent study published in the journal Psychiatric Services. The researchers also found that the likelihood of receiving psychotherapy for any diagnosis (34%), regardless of race or ethnicity, was much lower than the likelihood of receiving a psychotropic medication (73%).

Researchers explore pathways of healing racial trauma in Latinx immigrant communities.

A new study suggests that depressive symptoms in older adults can be improved with non-invasive behavioral activation techniques. These approaches appear to have a preventative effect, serving to prevent further depressive symptoms from developing.

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.”

Katie Hafner, writing in the ‘Times, describes how loneliness has become a major public health issue. “The profound effects of loneliness on health and...

The ability of transgender youth to use their chosen name is connected to reduced depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts/behaviors.

Based on interviews with 7,461 adults randomly selected from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey in England, researchers found that interventions addressing maladaptive social cognition...

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.

Researchers examine links between police victimization and psychotic symptoms in a topical new study.

From The Atlantic: The existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, who has helped countless people grapple with their mortality and fear of death, is now coming to...

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

This week a commentary, written by members of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy and titled “Improving Long-term Psychiatric Care: Bring Back the Asylum” was published in JAMA Online. The authors recommend a return to asylum care, albeit not as a replacement for but as an addition to improved community services and only for those who have “severe and treatment-resistant psychotic disorders, who are too unstable or unsafe for community based treatment.” The authors seem to accept the notion of transinstitutionalization (TI) which suggests that people who in another generation would have lived in state hospitals are now incarcerated in jails and prisons. While I do not agree, I do find there is a need for a safe place for people to stay while they work through their crisis.

From The Mental Elf: Recent research confirms what many animal lovers already know - that pets can play a major role in improving people's mental...

Suicide needs to come 'out of the closet' as a public health issue. But this in turn requires a broad, ongoing community conversation rather than the current status quo of 'experts' talking about us without us. We also need to move beyond the excessive medicalisation of suicide that blames it on some notional 'mental illness'. This is my first post where I introduce myself, telling you a little of how I came to do a PhD in Suicidology. And an invitation to join me in a radically different conversation about suicide, here at Mad in America.

ADHD behaviors were linked to the presence of both high levels of pollutants and persistent economic deprivation at birth and through childhood.

The researchers suggest that developmental immaturity is mislabelled as a mental disorder and unnecessarily treated with stimulant medication

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.

Acknowledging that current depression treatments are failing many people, researchers from Michigan State and MIT have developed a new model for understanding how multiple psychological, biological, social and environmental factors contribute to depression.

I'd like to share some personal thoughts on the nature of the Hearing Voices group method, and the insights that this kind of support generates. Through these groups, a tradition of mutual healing is being created that honors subjective experiences, and sharing our stories with each other in this way propels this exciting movement forward.

The safety of our children is a sacred obligation we strive to preserve. Anything or anyone that harms them becomes the object of our...