Victim Blaming: Childhood Trauma, Mental Illness & Diagnostic Distractions?
Why, despite the fact that the vast majority of people diagnosed with a mental illness have suffered from some form of childhood trauma, is it still so difficult to talk about? Why, despite the enormous amount of research about the impact of trauma on the brain and subsequent effect on behaviour, does there seem to be such an extraordinary refusal for the implication of this research to change attitudes towards those who are mentally ill? Why, when our program and others like it have shown people can heal from the effects of trauma, are so many people left with the self-blame and the feeling they will never get better that my colleague writes about below?
Making Peer Counseling Radically Accessible
I imagined a world in which anyone can hit a button on their phone and be connected with a compassionate and empathetic listener, 24/7. So in 2019, I founded Peer Collective. Today, there are 30 peer counselors on the platform offering 30-minute counseling sessions for just $14.
Suicidal Tendencies, Part III: So, When Do I Get to Call the Cops?
What if the key to saving someone is to admit you are powerless to save anyone at all? What would that beckon us to change? A few years ago, I spent a substantial amount of time talking with a man who entered my life because someone in the mental health system told him I might be the one who could save him (or at least, thatâs how he heard it). His name was David.
Einstein, Social Justice and The New Relativity
To create his theory of relativity, Einstein had to see things differently. He used imagination and empathy to come to know a new 'reality' of existence. In this essay, we delve deeply into the nature of human experiences that lead to public concern and discover ourselves in a whole new realm.
Berlin Manifesto for Humane Psychiatry Released
Changing the mental health and psychosocial support system in Germany requires public debate about the ways our society should help and support people in mental crisis and with chronic mental health problems. We believe the driving force behind all help and support should be humanitarianism and respect for inalienable human rights.
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.
Traditional South African Healers Use Connection in Suicide Prevention
Study finds that traditional healers in South Africa, whose services are widely used by the countryâs population, perform important suicide prevention work.
Deadly Serious: Talking Openly About Suicide
The suicide crisis is real. The pain is real. The deaths are real. None of us can afford to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that this isn't happening. But the helplessness and confusion about what to do about it are also real. And that's why peer relationships and peer-developed modalities can be so helpful. Many of us have been there and are still alive to talk about it. We know what ways of relating gave us hope and helped us to continue on.
Study Confirms Higher Suicide Risk for Sexual Minority Adolescents
Researchers report that sexual minority adolescents have considered, planned, and attempted suicide substantially more than their heterosexual peers.
Who Gets to Define âPeer Support?â
The definition of âpeer supportâ should be straightforward. But over the years, âpeer supportâ seems to have morphed into âpeer specialistâ â or, to put it more bluntly, psychiatric survivorsâ experiential knowledge has been co-opted by the system. How does peer-developed peer support differ from the peer staff model? And what can we do about this?
Therapist Empathy Predicts Success in Psychotherapy
An updated meta-analysis reveals that therapist empathy is a predictor of better psychotherapy outcomes.
Researchers Test Harms and Benefits of Long Term Antipsychotic Use
Researchers from the City College of New York and Columbia University published a study this month testing the hypothesis that people diagnosed with schizophrenia treated long-term with antipsychotic drugs have worse outcomes than patients with no exposure to these drugs. They concluded that there is not a sufficient evidence base for the standard practice of long-term use of antipsychotic medications.
Peer Support in Mental Health: Exploitive, Transformative, or Both?
The first time I tried to write about peer supportâthat emerging form of âservice deliveryâ in which one person in recovery from what is described in the field as a âserious mental illnessâ offers support to another person who is in distress or struggling with a mental health conditionâwas in 1994. The manuscript was summarily rejected from an academic journal as representing what one of the reviewers described as âunsubstantiated rot.â That same article was eventually published 5 years later, and used by the Presidentâs New Freedom Commission on Mental Health to support its recommendation that peer supports be implemented across the country. Now, more than a decade later and as peer support arrives at something of a crossroads, both of these reactions remain instructive.
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?
An Alternative Perspective on Psychotherapy: It is Not a âCureâ
Kev Harding argues against conceptualizations of therapy as a âcureâ to an âillnessâ and instead offers alternative approaches.
Study Finds Heavy Metal Music Beneficial to Mental Health
A new study highlights the role heavy metal music plays in the mental health of adolescents facing adversity.
First-Person Accounts of Madness and Global Mental Health: An Interview with Dr. Gail Hornstein
Dr. Gail Hornstein, author of Agnesâs Jacket: A Psychologistâs Search for the Meanings of Madness, discusses the importance of personal narratives and service-user activism in the context of the global mental health movement.
Constructing Alternatives to the DSM: An Interview with Dr. Jonathan Raskin
Dr. Raskin discusses psychotherapistsâ dissatisfaction with current psychiatric diagnostic systems and explores alternatives.
I Am “Pro-Healing”
Yoga helped me explore and reconnect with the body Iâd abandoned and abused for years. My pain and sadness had me living exclusively in my mind, my body nothing more than a battleground for my inner wars. Through yoga and meditation, I slowly began to love myself again, learning to treat myself with care and respect. I felt a greater sense of self-awareness, and a sense of connection to something greater. This was a drastic contrast to the days when I felt as if god had forgotten about me, or like I was a mistake not meant for this world.
Study of Online Antidepressant Forums Reveals Long Lasting Withdrawal Effects
Effects of discontinuing SSRIs and SNRIs reported on an online forum indicate significant and long-lasting withdrawal symptoms.
The Paradox of White Americansâ Mental Health
Are White Americansâ poor mental health outcomes caused by Whiteness?
Opening Doors in the Borderlands: An Interview with Liberation Psychologist Mary Watkins
MIAâs Micah Ingle interviews Mary Watkins about reorienting psychology toward liberation and social justice.
What is Contributory Injustice in Psychiatry?
An article on contributory injustice describes the clinical and ethical imperative that clinicians listen to service users experiences.
Hearing Voices Network Launches Family & Friends Support Group
One of the HVN's fundamental principles is that "the person having these experiences is in the best position to decide or discover what they mean" and thus each person must "not try to speak for" another. The challenge for a family group will likely be for members to move past speaking about our loved ones to find or imagine the space where we ourselves are liberated.
How to Promote Community Inclusion in Mental Health Practice
Practitioners and public leaders identify methods and barriers for integrating those diagnosed with mental health issues into community life.