Integrative Mental Health

Popular addiction news outlet, the fix, interviews Dr. Gabor Maté on addiction, the holocaust, the "disease-prone personality" and the pathology of positive thinking. “Until...

In this piece for Elephant Journal, one man tells his story of being locked up and forcibly drugged in the psych ward, and how he...

Hugh Middleton, MD, Associate Professor at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, and NHS Consultant Psychiatrist, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust has written an interesting and worthwhile book, “Psychiatry Reconsidered, From Medical Treatment to Supportive Understanding.” Dr. Middleton is co-founder of the Critical Psychiatry Network and this book could serve as the foundational textbook for our field. As his academic appointment would suggest, he has a decidedly social perspective on the kinds of problems that bring many people to a psychiatrist’s attention, but in this book he offers eloquent discussions of many perspectives that inform our field. It is remarkable that in this 200 page text, he is able to cover so many topics – diagnosis, pharmacotherapy, schools of psychotherapy - with such clarity.

"The holiday season can be a very stressful time, so think about giving directions, asking someone if they need help, or holding that elevator...

Writing on his 1 Boring Old Man blog, Dr. Mickey Nardo reflects on the media frenzy around the RAISE study and asks why the prescription data has not been released. He adds skepticism about the political motives of the potentially overblown results, which he sees as a clear push for increased mental health funding.

Will Davies, author of The Happiness Industry, does a Q&A on the ways companies are misusing psychological research on happiness. “I think that one thing that often gets lost in lots of the discussions of happiness (especially in the business world) is the possibility that happy work may mean less work.”

From Elite Daily: Courtney Lorking, an 18-year-old online wellness coach and fitness enthusiast, is speaking out and sharing her story of how exercise helped her...

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 MinnPost: According to psychologist Hal Pickett, childhood anxiety is best reduced through self-care and common-sense therapies such as getting enough sleep, maintaining a balanced...

A New York Times Op-Ed by Cornell psychiatry professor George Makari connects the surprise over the results of the widely-covered RAISE study to American psychiatry’s shift toward pharmacology and the oversimplification of disorders as brain diseases.

Veterans with PTSD experience observable changes to the brain after mindfulness training, according to new research published in Depression and Anxiety. “The brain findings suggest...

From The New York Times: The mind and body are more connected than we often think — symptoms of anxiety and depression may result from...

Psychiatrists Richard Brown and Patricia Gerbarg will be giving a Breath~Body~Mind workshop live online August 16 and August 17, 2014. According to a press...

From The New York Times: Clinicians have long known that sleep schedules and levels of exposure to sunlight can have a significant impact on...

"What was going on inside Turning Point was an experiment: a community-based treatment center designed to serve low-income African-Americans. After a few bumpy early...

The Association for Advancement in Philosophy and Psychiatry is issuing a call for abstracts, with a particular interest in submissions from service users. The...

Tamsin Shaw, writing in the New York Review of Books, summarizes the most recent trends in psychology and moral judgement. From Skinner’s behaviorism to...

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.”

Joan Cook, professor of Psychology at Yale, writes than in her work with military veterans she realized that her psychotherapy techniques mattered much less than her training had indicated. Instead, what mattered was “the bond forged over years of therapy,” known as “the therapeutic alliance.”

“Doctors say one of the best anti-depressants isn't even a drug, it's exercise,” CNN reports. “Experts say many cases of depression can be treated effectively with, for example, a pair of running shoes.”

For the Critical Psychiatry blog, Duncan Double writes that psychological formulation and psychosocial assessment may provide a way forward to a “new psychiatry” that moves on from modern concepts of mental illness as chemical imbalance or some other abnormality of the brain.

Neuroskeptic weighs in on the controversy over the lack of antipsychotic dose data in the RAISE study and the misleading media coverage. He points out that one of the treatment interventions was a computerized medication management system called COMPASS, which recommends doctors use lower doses than they otherwise might.

A free recording of last week's webinar anchored to Phil Borges' Crazywise, a documentary exploring alternative approaches to mental health, is now available. Over 4,000 people...

Benedict Carey at the New York Times covers the push for new programs that emphasize supportive services, therapy, school and work assistance, and family education, rather than simply drug treatment.

From The New York Times: According to Dr. Andrew Weil, who is best known for popularizing the concept of integrative medicine, the problem of overmedication...