Holistic

Remediating dilapidated physical environments in urban settings can contribute to better mental health.

How the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (BPN) in outdoor education environments can peak student interest and boost intrinsic motivation.

From Big Think: Recent studies show that walking helps people think more creatively and originally. In three different studies, 81%, 88%, and 100% of participants...

Johann Hari, British journalist and author of the new book Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression—and the Unexpected Solutions, continues to speak out...

From STAT: Concerned about the potential adverse effects of ADHD medications, some parents are addressing their children's ADHD through nutrition-based approaches. Article →­

To this day I do not know how I found my way back. I think it might’ve had something to do with willpower, as I was NOT going to lose myself. I was NOT going to end up like those people who were living indefinitely in the hospital—those “chronic schizophrenics”, as they say. I was going to find my way back, back to myself.

The drugs combined with my desire to know how life worked and what made a human broke down all past social conditioning of my individual self. I realized I was God. So was everyone else and I shared with anyone who would listen, but found no one who could understand or navigate the territory. There was little internet to speak of then and no Google to find others who experienced life as I was, so I voyaged on my own as best I could.

Study in Brazil demonstrates how the exploration of contextual determinants of distress in mental health care can inform therapeutic change.

Researchers examine the relationship between vitamin D and clinical and cognitive symptoms in first-episode psychosis.

The “Mediterranean diet” has been associated with reduced risk of depressive symptoms, and a new study demonstrates that dietary changes may be an effective treatment intervention.

Researchers found acupuncture effective in the treatment of chronic pain and depression

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.

Group-based MBSR and PCGT therapies effective as a complementary treatment for PTSD.

The Guardian reports growing concerns from the Buddhist Society conference: “Jon Kabat-Zinn, who created the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine at the University of Massachusetts medical school, warned last week that some people feared a ‘sort of superficial ‘McMindfulness’ is taking over, which ignores the ethical foundations of the meditative practices and traditions from which mindfulness has emerged, and divorces it from its profoundly transformative potential.’”

For the last six years we, a group of researchers, social work students, peer experts, and social professionals associated with the Amsterdam University for Applied Sciences, have been studying and facilitating the development of self-managed programs in homelessness and mental health care in the Netherlands. With our research we want to contribute to the development of new and existing programs through critical reflection. With this blog, I hope to share some of our findings, to give back to the respites from which we learned so much.

The Pacific Standard covers a study out of Florence, finding that adolescents in mental health crisis who received animal-assisted therapy had better school attendance, higher global functioning, and spent less time in the hospital.

New research provides evidence that police killings of unarmed Black Americans impact the mental health of Black Americans.

The Society for International Psychology, Division 52 of the American Psychological Association, will host a webinar entitled “The Humanistic, Vigorous and Universal Approach of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.”

From Psychiatric Times: Patients are increasingly turning to the internet as a source of information and support for antidepressant and benzodiazepine withdrawal due to the psychiatric...

Study finds that individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression have diets that are more inflammatory and higher in calories.

The bidirectional relationship between diet and nutrition and social, emotional, and educational factors among European youth.

Minn Post did a feature story last week on Vail Place, an alternative mental health treatment center run on a community “clubhouse” model where the nearly 900 members and staff work side by side to run the center’s activities. Vail Place was founded in Hopkins, Minnesota in the early eighties by mental health activists and family members as a community for psychosocial rehabilitation. “The work isn’t therapy,” a member explains. “It’s growth. It’s ‘I cans’ rather than ‘I can'ts.’ And that’s important for mental health and survival.”

From Psychiatric Times: A recent study suggests that Kundalini yoga may be at least as effective as memory training in improving cognitive resilience in older adults with...

This is my story of forced psychiatric treatment as an eight-year-old girl, from my perspective as an adult mental health professional. Being held down kicking and screaming to be injected with a benzodiazepine is a human rights violation no child should endure for saying no to a pharmaceutical. In hindsight, when I reflect on that day, it feels like a form of child abuse.

In this piece for The Elephant Journal, Flavia Simas shares how meditation not only helped reduce her depression and anxiety but also improved her self-esteem. "It helps...