Mindfulness Therapy Can Prevent Depression Relapse, Review Finds

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Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) may be more effective at reducing the risk of depressive relapse compared to current standard treatments with antidepressant drugs. A...

Massachusetts Launches New Strengths-Based Early Psychosis Program

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ServiceNet, a mental health and human service agency in western Massachusetts, received a three year, two million dollar grant to launch a program designed to support young adults who have recently experienced their first episode of psychosis. The Prevention and Recovery Early Psychosis (PREP) program is funded by the Massachusetts department of mental health and is designed to treat psychosis as a symptom, not an illness, resulting from other illnesses, substance abuse, trauma, or extreme stress.

Study Finds Hearing Voices Groups Improve Social and Emotional Wellbeing

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

Traditional South African Healers Use Connection in Suicide Prevention

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

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Reduces Self-Harm and Suicide Attempts

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A new meta-analysis finds that DBT reduces self-harm, suicide attempts, and reduces the frequency of psychiatric crisis service utilization.

Therapist Empathy Predicts Success in Psychotherapy

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An updated meta-analysis reveals that therapist empathy is a predictor of better psychotherapy outcomes.

The Conflicts That Result From Globalizing Euro-American Psychology in India

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Researchers examine the transformation of work, life, and identity in India as a result of Western corporate and psychological culture.

Psychodynamic Therapy Revealed to be as Efficacious as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

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Meta-analytic study finds that psychodynamic therapy outcomes are equivalent to those of CBT and other empirically supported treatments.

New Study Investigates Negative Side Effects of Therapy

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Researchers find that nearly half of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) patients experience treatment side effects.

New Book Deconstructs Ideology of Cognitive Therapy

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CBT forwards a hyper-rational perspective of human suffering that complements a managerialist culture of efficiency and institutionalization in the Western world.

Study Investigates Long-Term Effects of Social and Emotional Learning Programs

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Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs have gained popularity in U.S. schools in recent years. A new study examines the nature and longevity of their impact on students.

A Biopsychosocial Model Beyond the Mind-Body Split

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Can a renewed biopsychosocial approach, grounded in an updated philosophy, foster person-centered medicine, and psychiatry?

Do We Really Need Mental Health Professionals?

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Professionals across the Western world, from a range of disciplines, earn their livings by offering services to reduce the misery and suffering of the people who seek their help. Do these paid helpers represent a fundamental force for healing, facilitating the recovery journeys of people with mental health problems, or are they a substantial part of the problem by maintaining our modestly effective and often damaging system?

How Feedback Can Improve Psychotherapy Treatment

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Researcher examines the impact of client feedback and progress assessment on improvement in outcomes.

Does Psychotherapy Reproduce or Disrupt Neoliberal Capitalism?

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Researchers explore neoliberal influences on interactions in psychotherapy and question whether the radical potential of psychotherapy can counter prevailing social systems.

Experiences of Depression Connected to Declining Sense of Purpose

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In-depth interviews find that those who screened positive for depression did not explain their experience in terms of diagnostic symptoms.

The Effects of Practicing Psychotherapy on Therapists’ Personal Lives

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A new study, published in Psychotherapy Research, explores how having a career in psychotherapy affects therapists’ personal lives.

Researchers Identify 27 Categories of Emotion

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A new study finds that emotions may be represented by 27 categories, with each category relating to others in a more complex and continuous fashion than previously understood.

Psychotherapists Reflect on Lack of Improvement in Therapy

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Qualitative research examines the experiences of psychoanalytic therapists in their work with patients whose symptoms either failed to improve or worsened.

United Nations Report Calls for Revolution in Mental Health Care

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In a new report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr. Dainius PĆ«ras, calls for a move away from the biomedical model and “excessive use of psychotropic medicines.”

New Data on the Adverse Effects of Meditation and Mindfulness

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Study reports on the less-examined findings of difficult and painful meditation-related experiences.

First-Person Accounts of Madness and Global Mental Health: An Interview with Dr. Gail Hornstein

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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.

More to Happiness Than Feeling Good, Study Finds

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

Open Dialogue: Does the Current Research Data Support Further Investment?

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A leading US journal published an extensive literature review and analysis of currently available research on Open Dialogue. An accompanying commentary concludes, “The present data on Open Dialogue are insufficient to warrant calls for further research on the program other than those projects that are currently under way.”

An Alternative Perspective on Psychotherapy: It is Not a ‘Cure’

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Kev Harding argues against conceptualizations of therapy as a ‘cure’ to an ‘illness’ and instead offers alternative approaches.