Lack of Face-to-Face Contact Doubles Depression Risk for Older Adults
New research suggests that more frequent in-person contact lessens the risk of depression in older adults. The study, published in this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, found that in Americans over fifty the more face-to-face contact they had with children, family and friends, the less likely they were to develop depressive symptoms.
Troubling Mental Health Nurse Education
Mental health nurse education in not sufficiently critical of institutional psychiatric practice. Its formal curricula in universities are often undermined by the informal curricula of practice environments. As an institution, mental health nursing pays insufficient attention to both these issues because it is an arguably un-reflexive and rule-following discipline.
“What Are Delusions – And How Best Can We Treat Them?”
For The Conversation, psychologist John Done, from the University of Hertfordshire, explains his approach to discussing delusions with his patients. Done recommends more qualitative...
Humanistic Counseling Effective in Schools, Study Finds
Pilot study finds school-based humanistic counseling reduces emotional symptoms in students.
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.
Call for Client Inclusion in Recovery-Focused Psychiatric Diagnosis
A new review, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, examines the perspectives of clinicians and service-users on psychiatric diagnosis.
Finding Clarity Through Clutter
For the last three years, I have been working with people, labeled "hoarders," who have become overwhelmed by their possessions in their homes. This has been some of the most interesting, challenging and thought-provoking work I have ever done. It is also an area that, I think, highlights all of the issues that challenge us in helping people who feel overwhelmed, for whatever reason.
Saved by the Book: Can Reading be More Effective than Medication or Therapy?
“Studies show that self-help books can resolve readers’ depressed moods, change ingrained thought patterns, and instill a renewed zest for life – as long as the advice within is scientifically sound,” Elizabeth Svoboda writes for Aeon. “The literature we choose to guide us should supply proven advice we can trust. But it should also, as Franz Kafka wrote, be ‘the axe for the frozen sea within us’, bludgeoning us in ways that awaken us to the extraordinary.”
Alternative Therapies for Adolescent Depression as Effective as CBT, Study Finds
Brief psychodynamic and psychosocial interventions help maintain reduced depressive symptoms
Psychologists Push For New Approaches to Psychosis: Part 1
Psychologists and people with experience of psychotic symptoms publish a report on new ways of understanding psychosis.
New Findings Suggest Masculinity is a Risk Factor for Suicidal Thinking
Men who report being self-reliant may be at greater risk of suicidal thinking.
“Therapy Wars: The Revenge of Freud”
Writing in The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman discusses the comeback of Freud’s psychoanalysis, along with humanistic therapy, interpersonal therapy, transpersonal therapy, and transactional analysis and...
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.
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.
“The Surprising Reason Psychotherapy Works”
For Psychology Today, David Elkins writes that “psychotherapy's power to heal lies mainly in its human and relational aspects,” rather than any specific techniques...
Do We Really Need Mental Health Professionals?
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?
Integrating Indigenous Healing Practices and Psychotherapy for Global Mental Health
As the Global Mental Health Movement attempts to address cross-cultural mental health disparities, a new article encourages integrating traditional healing practices with psychotherapy.
Tom Arnkil on “Unconditional Respect for the ‘Otherness’ of Other People”
Tom Arnkil on the book he co-authored with Jaakko Seikkula, and the necessity for the "Unconditional Respect for the 'Otherness' of Other People."
Third Time Lucky: Open Dialogue and Finding Meaning in My Inherited Trauma
A year after my twin’s death, I stood in a supermarket and felt my body disintegrating into a thousand pieces. My soul knew it needed the right teacher and helper. Fortunately, I found Open Dialogue. It helped me expose the real childhood trauma, and gradually rebuild my shattered, grief-stricken psyche.
Mindfulness Therapy May Be More Effective Without Antidepressants
While an estimated 74-percent of patients diagnosed with major depression receive a prescription for an antidepressant, new research reveals that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)...
“Can Madness Save the World?”
Writing for CounterPunch, Paris Williams writes that when an individual is experiencing what has been termed “psychosis,” it is important to recognize that this may also be the manifestation of a breakdown in their larger social groups, the family, society, and even the species.
Letters to the Editor: “The Treatment of Choice”
Readers respond to the New York Times article, “The Treatment of Choice,” about innovative programs for psychosis and schizophrenia that involve patients and their families in treatment decisions. “Narratives of success counter a drumbeat of faulty links of mental illness and violence, inaccuracies which serve only to further stigmatize and isolate individuals with psychiatric illness.”
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.
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).
Stigma May Increase Distress in Individuals Who Hear Voices
Review finds that stigma around voice hearing is connected to isolation, secrecy, and poorer functioning.