Dialectical Behavior Therapy Reduces Self-Harm and Suicide Attempts
A new meta-analysis finds that DBT reduces self-harm, suicide attempts, and reduces the frequency of psychiatric crisis service utilization.
Traditional South African Healers Use Connection in Suicide Prevention
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
Hearing Voices Network self-help groups are an important resource for coping with voice hearing, study finds.
The Effects of Practicing Psychotherapy on Therapists’ Personal Lives
A new study, published in Psychotherapy Research, explores how having a career in psychotherapy affects therapists’ personal lives.
Does Psychotherapy Reproduce or Disrupt Neoliberal Capitalism?
Researchers explore neoliberal influences on interactions in psychotherapy and question whether the radical potential of psychotherapy can counter prevailing social systems.
Professionals Push Back on Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual, Propose Alternatives
Criticisms of the DSM-5 spark alternative proposals and calls to reform diagnostic systems in the mental health field.
Researchers Question “Gold Standard” Status of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Researchers argue for plurality and diversity among psychotherapy approaches and question the perceived superiority of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
First-Person Accounts of Madness and Global Mental Health: An Interview with Dr. Gail Hornstein
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.
New Study Investigates Negative Side Effects of Therapy
Researchers find that nearly half of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) patients experience treatment side effects.
United Nations Report Calls for Revolution in Mental Health Care
In a new report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr. Dainius Pūras, calls for a move away from the biomedical model and “excessive use of psychotropic medicines.”
Madness and the Family, Part III: Practical Methods for Transforming Troubled Family Systems
We are profoundly social beings living not as isolated individuals but as integral members of interdependent social systems—our nuclear family system, and the broader social systems of extended family, peers, our community and the broader society. Therefore, psychosis and other forms of human distress often deemed “mental illness” are best seen not so much as something intrinsically “wrong” or “diseased” within the particular individual who is most exhibiting that distress, but rather as systemic problems that are merely being channeled through this individual.
Psychodynamic Therapy Revealed to be as Efficacious as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Meta-analytic study finds that psychodynamic therapy outcomes are equivalent to those of CBT and other empirically supported treatments.
An Alternative Perspective on Psychotherapy: It is Not a ‘Cure’
Kev Harding argues against conceptualizations of therapy as a ‘cure’ to an ‘illness’ and instead offers alternative approaches.
How Helpers Empathize may Affect Their Personal Well-being
Researchers distinguish between two different forms of perspective taking and examine their impact on helpers’ wellbeing.
How to Promote Community Inclusion in Mental Health Practice
Practitioners and public leaders identify methods and barriers for integrating those diagnosed with mental health issues into community life.
Opening Doors in the Borderlands: An Interview with Liberation Psychologist Mary Watkins
MIA’s Micah Ingle interviews Mary Watkins about reorienting psychology toward liberation and social justice.
New Book Deconstructs Ideology of Cognitive Therapy
CBT forwards a hyper-rational perspective of human suffering that complements a managerialist culture of efficiency and institutionalization in the Western world.
Psychology Must Become a Sanctuary Discipline to Heal Racial Trauma
Researchers explore pathways of healing racial trauma in Latinx immigrant communities.
Psychiatrist Describes Role in Open Dialogue Model of Care
Psychiatrist outlines varying roles in Open Dialogue model, fostering service-user and family agency through meaningful conversations with a team of providers.
Therapist Empathy Predicts Success in Psychotherapy
An updated meta-analysis reveals that therapist empathy is a predictor of better psychotherapy outcomes.
Data Challenges Superiority of Manualized Psychotherapy
New data fails to support the promotion of manualized psychotherapy as superior to non-manualized forms of psychotherapy.
More to Happiness Than Feeling Good, Study Finds
Cross-cultural data suggest that happiness involves feeling the emotions one deems as right, in accordance with personal and cultural values.
Prominent Researcher and Psychotherapist Questions “Evidence-Based Therapy”
Dr. Johnathan Shedler recently published a paper critiquing how the term “evidence-based” is being used in the field of psychotherapy.
The Recovery After an Initial Schizophrenia Episode (RAISE) Study: Notes from the Trenches
I was a psychiatrist who participated in the Recovery After an Initial Schizophrenia Episode Early Treatment Program (RAISE ETP). Although I welcomed the positive headlines that heralded the study's results, the reports left me with mixed feelings. What happened to render the notion that talking to people about their experiences and helping them find jobs or go back to school is something novel?
A Conversation about Having Conversations about Psychiatry
In spite of constantly increasing opportunities to tell different stories to the canonical story of bio-psychiatry, it can be risky for academics to voice a different perspective than the mainstream model of mental illness. In this conversation, a communication professor and a psychology professor discuss their challenges and personal experiences with going against the grain, such as what it means to be labeled “anti-psychiatry” by colleagues and responding to students upset to learn their medications may not be all they thought they were.