Non-drug Approaches

-Julie Holland believes women may be biologically more prone to experience the world more emotionally, but resists the pathologizing of that.

As I have various discussions about mental health and disability on the internet, I am disturbed at how many people continue to use the terms “high functioning” and “low functioning” when referring to people with psychiatric or other disabilities. I have heard people refer to their family members as “low functioning.” I have seen these terms used by advocates to bully and discredit other advocates who critique calls for increased levels of involuntary treatment as “high functioning” individuals who don’t know what they’re talking about.

-Counselor and artist Sara Nash asks whether its good that she rarely shares her own experiences of inner pain when she talks to college students about suicidal ideation.

Just this week, a report written by a task force advising on new dietary guidelines commissioned by the US departments of Health and Human Service and Agriculture recognized the importance of nutrition in mental health outcomes for the first time. Is the public ready to accept the importance of nutrition for mental health?

This is the first of a series of excerpts from Cracked Open, a book whose unintentional beginning came after I became addicted to Ativan in 2010. After a year of following my doctor’s orders for daily use to treat insomnia, my body began to fall apart. My story is much like the stories I’ve read on MIA.

-Matt Walsh insists that he's got ADHD as much as anyone has ADHD, and then makes the argument that ADHD doesn't exist.

-Tania Glyde discusses the difficulties that people who participate in alternative sexual practices have being understood by mental health professionals.

-Does psychology need to develop a fundamentally different scientific strategy?

There are no proven treatments of any kind for children or adolescents experiencing psychosis or schizophrenia, according to a meta-analysis of randomized comparison trials published in PLOS One.

-The International Guide to the World of Alternative Mental Health has released "Codex Alternus: A Research Collection of Alternative and Complementary Treatments for Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder and Associated Drug-induced Side Effects."

-A debate between one of the co-authors of the Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia report, and two authors whose meta-analysis of cognitive behavioral therapy was cited in that report.

-The New York Times posted the first in a series of articles about one woman's efforts to quit prescription medications for anxiety, depression and insomnia.

-An interview with a physicist from the UC Berkeley Brain Imaging Center about the strengths and weaknesses of brain imaging science.

Here’s a newsflash – the hope for a molecular-biochemical explanation for psychiatry is a false hope. Most of my field has come to expect and believe that we are on the verge of a new paradigm. This paradigm is based on the illusion that the workings of the brain on the molecular level has anything to do with psychiatric conditions. The proponents believe we are on the verge of proving that psychiatry is a brain disease no different from cancer or diabetes. But all that the research has come up with is - nothing.

Doctors who intentionally or unintentionally communicate to patients that they do not believe or understand them could be causing patients' symptoms to worsen.

Robert Whitaker extended one of his core arguments from Anatomy of an Epidemic in a blog post last week. His argument revolves around the claim that psychiatric drugs are the principal cause of increasing psychiatric disability, as measured by U.S. social security disability claims. But does this really explain the rise in recipients of these SSI & SSDI benefits?

I have had doubts about the current medication oriented approach to psychiatry for some time. I clearly see that medications can help some folks ease their burden and support a process of recovery. Sadly, far too often medications create problems and even limit recovery. Perhaps the greatest drawback of psychiatric medications is that we lose sight that we have to do more: more assessment, more treatment, more education, more encouragement. Medication currently forms the central and pivotal focus of psychiatric hospitalization in this country. This needs to change.

-There's a resurgence in interest in small peer-run centers that help people who might otherwise land in psychiatric hospitals.

-Clay Dillow tries a new electronic headset from neuroscience startup Thync.

-What evidence base is there to guide a patient switching from one type of psychotherapeutic treatment to another?

-On March 11, 2015, the NHS Foundation and three other Trusts are hosting a free conference to "take stock" after one year of Peer-supported Open Dialogue.

It's been five years today since I completed a six year withdrawal process from a large cocktail of psychiatric drugs. Today is also my 50th birthday which, frankly, seems much more remarkable to me at this point. Inside I am only aware of eternal youth. Upon having done an informal and small survey, it seems most people feel that way though it's not talked about much among the adults of our species. That which watches and experiences our lives in these bodies does not age. It's actually a wonderful thing. So I'm here wondering what comes next in this amazing trajectory which is the life being lived in this body that my parents called Monica.

-"I could not have written those six words 30 years ago, when panic episodes, anxiety disorders and Tourette's syndrome clouded my view," writes Jonathan Friesen.

The Toronto Star interviews the man "who brought neuroplasticity to the masses."

Amit Sood of the Mayo Clinic discusses his efforts to educate the public about building "mental health" through "creating intentionality" in one's thinking and attention.