Non-drug Approaches

-A radio show from inside a Buenos Aires psychiatric hospital.

On Madness Radio, Will Hall interviews psychotherapist and author Tim Dreby about his experiences with both external world and internal world encounters with secret...

It took coming off psychotropic drugs completely for me to become awake. I had the doctor I was seeing wean me off, though she didn’t want to (instead she suggested I take different drugs.) But here I am almost two years later and I am feeling all of my emotions and managing them well. I knew best what I needed, and I trusted myself. Life has shown me that I can endure many trials and tribulations without giving up, and I trust myself today to reach out for help if I need it.

In NPR's Cosmos & Culture blog, philosopher Alva Noë discusses how we see colors, and uses it as an introduction to the efforts of...

Mind Hacks looks at a number of unusual cases, such as a woman missing a cerebellum and a man who had a tapeworm eat its way through his brain over four years, and asks what these kinds of cases are telling us about what we do -- and don't -- know about the human brain.

In The Conversation, two psychologists discuss the research evidence into providing early intervention mental health services to the public shortly after large-scale tragedies. They advise that doing nothing is often much better and safer for people.

In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Helen Shen recounts the history of how neuroscientists first discovered that the human brain had right and left hemispheres with seemingly unique functions, and how that scientific view has since been superseded even as the general public has held on and oversimplified it.

In Mind the Brain on PLOS Blogs, James Coyne reviews some high-profile speakers' claims about the science of positive psychology, and examines more closely whether simply thinking positive thoughts or doing small, good things for yourself can significantly improve overall health, well-being and happiness.

In The Huffington Post, former DSM-IV task force chair, psychiatrist, and MIA Blogger Allen Frances offers his analysis of the recently published report from...

The November/December issue of the Psychotherapy Networker is called "Depression Unmasked: Exposing a Hidden Epidemic." It includes articles such as, "Can Mood Science Save...

Scientific American reports on a Canadian study that found people with breast cancer who practiced yoga and mindfulness meditation maintained the length of their...

In The Psychologist, Vaughan Bell of Mind Hacks and John Cromby debate how we ascribe meanings and values to the biological elements of psychological...

NPR Shots explores a nursing home where "residents can always find something to do," and where use of antipsychotic drugs has dropped dramatically. This Nursing...

BrainBlogger has an interview with Gary Greenberg, psychotherapist and author of The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry. "The (Diagnostic...

Humans aren't the only species to seek out and consume substances that they normally wouldn't eat, just to make themselves feel better, according to...

Psychiatrist Tom Stockman has been posting a series of articles on his blog Mandala, reflecting on the Open Dialogue method for intervening in psychiatric...

The British Psychological Society's Research Digest reviews "10 of The Most Counter-Intuitive Psychology Findings Ever Published." These include classics such as Self-help Mantras Can...

The Chicago Tribune revisits the issues raised in the 2007 study led by Martin Harrow which found that many people diagnosed with schizophrenia fare...

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 Lancet Psychiatry's December issue includes two letters commenting on Mary Boyle and Lucy Johnstone's article, "Alternatives to psychiatric diagnosis," along with a new...

In a call for submissions posted on the History of Madness in Canada website, the long-running OUR VOICE / NOTRE VOIX magazine, publisher of...

The Rutland Herald uses a recent study about online "mental illness peer support" as an opening to interview people in Vermont concerning what they...

Critical Psychiatry mentions the upcoming Sedgwick Conference, and links to a retrospective appraisal by two British academics of the central ideas in Peter Sedgwick's...

A plan from the British government to pay doctors for every diagnosis of dementia that they make is an act of "folly," writes physician...

Fifteen years ago this month we were sitting together in the basement of Peter’s house. We had felt a sense of despair at the widespread misinformation and atrocious stereotypes that were dominating media coverage of mental health at the time. We felt that our profession had a responsibility to challenge these stereotypes, and that as psychologists we had something unique to contribute. That was the time when research into the psychology of psychosis was beginning to burgeon, and many of our findings challenged not only the stereotypes but – perhaps more significantly - much ‘accepted wisdom’ within mental health services as well.