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.

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.

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.

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.

Integrating Indigenous Healing Practices and Psychotherapy for Global Mental Health

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As the Global Mental Health Movement attempts to address cross-cultural mental health disparities, a new article encourages integrating traditional healing practices with psychotherapy.

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.

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.

Mental Health Recovery Narratives Play Central Role in Trauma-Informed Care

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New research synthesizes insights from 45 studies to construct a conceptual framework relating different elements of recovery narratives to trauma-informed approaches to care.

How Feedback Can Improve Psychotherapy Treatment

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

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.

How to Promote Community Inclusion in Mental Health Practice

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Practitioners and public leaders identify methods and barriers for integrating those diagnosed with mental health issues into community life.

German Psychologists Declare “the Drugs Don’t Work”

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JĂŒrgen Margraf and Silvia Schneider, both well-known psychologists at the University of Bochum in Germany, claim that psychotropic drugs are no solution to mental...

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.

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.

Prominent Researcher and Psychotherapist Questions “Evidence-Based Therapy”

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Dr. Johnathan Shedler recently published a paper critiquing how the term “evidence-based” is being used in the field of psychotherapy.

Opening Doors in the Borderlands: An Interview with Liberation Psychologist Mary Watkins

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MIA’s Micah Ingle interviews Mary Watkins about reorienting psychology toward liberation and social justice.

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.

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.

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.

Aliveness and Social Justice: Teaching the Principles and Practices of Open Dialogue

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Over the past seven years, I have been teaching open dialogue principles and practices in a variety of settings. This blog will focus on the development of a training program, now based in Manhattan, and what I’ve learned from running this program and teaching this approach in the US.

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?

Testifying in Vermont: Forced Drugs

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Vermont Governor Shumlin recently suggested a change to state law that would accelerate the process under which a person could be forced to take antipsychotic drugs against her will. The House Human Services Committee reviewed this proposal and I was asked to testify. What follows are my comments.

Data Challenges Superiority of Manualized Psychotherapy

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New data fails to support the promotion of manualized psychotherapy as superior to non-manualized forms of psychotherapy.

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.”

An Essay on Finnish Open Dialogue: A Five-Year Follow-Up

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It has been five years since I traveled to Western Lapland in Finland to film my documentary “Open Dialogue” on their Open Dialogue Project—the program, as I stated in the film, presently getting the best long-term statistical results in the world for the treatment of first-episode psychosis. My film came out four years ago, and since then I have been screening it around the world, giving lectures about Open Dialogue and my experience in Finland, participating in regular conferences and Q&A sessions about it, receiving daily emails, Facebook messages, blog and Youtube comments about it (as it’s now been free on Youtube for a year), and keeping in regular contact with some of the folks who work there. But I haven’t shared many of my updated opinions in writing, so I wish to do so now.