Peer Support

Boston.com has published an article about the Mad In America Film Festival, running through this weekend in Medford, Massachusetts. "Making people rethink psychiatry —...

New research suggests that more frequent in-person contact lessens the risk of depression in older adults. The study, published in this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, found that in Americans over fifty the more face-to-face contact they had with children, family and friends, the less likely they were to develop depressive symptoms.

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

Individuals with long-term mental health conditions identify pets as valuable supports in their daily lives.

We need to burn through some darkness before we collectively see the light. The light is a palpable shift toward reaching for human connection; toward opening our hearts and our minds and intentionally focusing on the positive future that wants to emerge.

In this short audio clip, psychologist Sheldon Solomon discusses what research on our unconscious fears about death can tell us about terrorism, intolerance, and radicalism. “In the wake of the Paris attacks, we examine the worm that some people think is eating away at our core — our fear of death.”

Researchers explore how culturally responsive services can create greater equity in mental health care.

Practitioners and public leaders identify methods and barriers for integrating those diagnosed with mental health issues into community life.

From Alternet: The pharmaceutical industry has played a major role in causing the opioid crisis by downplaying the potentially addictive and fatal effects of narcotic pain...

People who are more likely to believe that others’ views will change to match their own over time are less likely to engage in actions to facilitate that change

MIA’s Micah Ingle interviews Mary Watkins about reorienting psychology toward liberation and social justice.

From The Times: In an age in which benzodiazepine dependence is increasingly becoming a global problem, online forums serve as a lifeline for numerous benzodiazepine...

A new article, published in The Arts in Psychotherapy, describes the ways art therapy and mindfulness have benefitted refugees and asylum seekers in Hong Kong.

Higher levels of sedentary behavior are associated with poorer cognitive functioning in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Dr. Sunny Aslam writes a brief report in Psychiatric Services about working alongside mental health peer support employees, based on feedback he obtained from...

The team that developed the Power Threat Meaning framework as a diagnostic alternative reflects on the response to the framework after one year.

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...

From The British Psychological Society: BBC Horizon's recent documentary "Why Did I Go Mad?" has been monumental in changing the biomedical paradigm of mental illness....

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?

I was a psychiatrist who participated in the Recovery After an Initial Schizophrenia Episode Early Treatment Program (RAISE ETP). Although I welcomed the positive headlines that heralded the study's results, the reports left me with mixed feelings. What happened to render the notion that talking to people about their experiences and helping them find jobs or go back to school is something novel?

In this piece for Wake Up World, Cortland Pfeffer shares 10 life lessons he learned from his experience as a psychiatric patient, a recovering...

A new study published Tuesday in PLOS Medicine may offer evidence for an intervention for people who have already been hospitalized for a suicide attempt.  The...

In this piece for The Independent, Rachel Waddingham describes her experience with hearing voices as well as learning to live with and understand her voices. "When...

From GoodTherapy.org: Research shows the tremendous impact we each have on one another's emotional and psychological health; our emotions, especially those that are negative, are...

New data on the effects of social support after early onset of psychosis suggests that patients with intense social support function better than those without such help, but than once supports are removed the effects diminish.