Peer Support

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...

Introductory arts courses at Open Arts Essex show improvements in mental well-being and social inclusion for individuals with mental health challenges.

Effects of discontinuing SSRIs and SNRIs reported on an online forum indicate significant and long-lasting withdrawal symptoms.

The definition of “peer support” should be straightforward. But over the years, “peer support” seems to have morphed into “peer specialist” — or, to put it more bluntly, psychiatric survivors’ 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?

From The New York Times: The potentially harmful impact of loneliness and isolation on our health and well-being have been well documented over the past...

Compared with standard care, results of a lay health worker intervention in Zimbabwe suggest that this is effective for reduction of common mental health symptoms

Last Tuesday, The New York Times and several other outlets (including Mad In America) reported on the highly-touted results of a study on psychosocial treatment for patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Now, claims made about the study, which the ‘Times called “the most rigorous trial to date,” are coming under increased scrutiny.

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.”

Writing for CounterPunch, Paris Williams writes that when an individual is experiencing what has been termed “psychosis,” it is important to recognize that this may also be the manifestation of a breakdown in their larger social groups, the family, society, and even the species.

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.

In this piece for the Feminist Current, Tove Happonen argues that the therapy model pathologizes women's responses to systemic injustice, aiming to change their emotional reactions...

This week we launched PeerRespite.net, a website dedicated to information and resources regarding peer respites in the U.S. As part of the initiative, recruitment is open for the 2015 Peer Respites Essential Features Survey.

Participatory action approaches in bioethics research used to decrease coercion and seclusion in psychiatric treatment.

After 25 years of chronic emergency, 22 mental hospitalizations, a stint at a “community mental health center,” 13 years in a "board & care," repeated withdrawals from addictions to legal drugs, and a 12-year marriage, I plan to live every last breath out as a survivor, an advocate, and an artist.

A new study explores how “psychosis” and “schizophrenia” are viewed within the Māori community in New Zealand.

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...

Hearing Voices Network self-help groups are an important resource for coping with voice hearing, study finds.

Are White Americans’ poor mental health outcomes caused by Whiteness?

In the New Yorker, Maria Konnikova delves into the research on why some people are able to adapt and overcome adversity, trauma, and poverty...

In this piece for Science of Us, Lee Daniel Kravetz discusses the impact of media exposure on the rise of bulimia and explores the social...

In this video for NowThis, Yana Jacobs critiques the mental health industry standard of prescribing drugs as the first-line treatment for "mental illness." She emphasizes...

From Openforwards: The biomedical model of mental illness does not reduce prejudice against those who are suffering from mental health concerns. Words like "illness" and...

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 written in honor of World Mental Health Day, Peter Kinderman emphasizes the importance of challenging the biomedical model of mental health and paying...

A new study examines the preventative effects of cultural engagement has on depression among older adults.