Peer Support

In this piece for Rest for Resistance, Dom Chatterjee discusses the white-centricism of mental health as well as the specific ways that the mental health system...

From Massive: The public generally conceptualizes alcoholism as a biological brain disease and rejects the notion that social and cultural factors may contribute to addiction....

Results of a large government-funded study call into question current drug heavy approaches to treating people diagnosed with schizophrenia. The study, which the New York Times called “by far the most rigorous trial to date conducted in the United States,” found that patients who received smaller doses of antipsychotic drugs with individual talk therapy, family training, and support for employment and education had a greater reduction in symptoms as well as increases in quality of life, and participation in work and school than those receiving the current standard of care.

From The New York Times: The number of college students with mental health concerns is rapidly increasing, straining many universities' mental health and counseling centers. Colleges...

I remember clearly thinking, “I’m done. I’m not putting myself through this again.” I wasn’t going to settle for the side effects of a marginally better than placebo treatment again. Here is a brief look into my rollercoaster journey of recovery, returning to work, having my trauma re-triggered, finding a way through, and finally living well.

The Chronicle of Education has called the soaring rates of anxiety and depression among college student an “Epidemic of Anguish.” PBS interviews Jennifer Ruark, the editor of the Chronicle series, and Micky Sharma, the director of counseling at Ohio State University. Ruark reports that about “1 in 4 students reporting to campus counseling centers now are already on some kind of psychotropic medication.” Sharma adds that “just because a student is crying does not mean he or she needs psychotherapy. Sometimes that’s actually the type of emotional response that I would want to see.”

-A peer-to-peer application that trains people to consult with each other reportedly produced positive results for reducing stress, depression and anxiety.

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?

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...

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.

Researchers find that support and self-care were helpful for users during discontinuation, but that mental health professionals were not very helpful.

Coordinated care with employment support and family therapy leads to superior outcomes for those diagnosed with psychotic disorders.

A new study, published in Psychotherapy Research, explores how having a career in psychotherapy affects therapists’ personal lives.

-Hurricane Irene seems to have left some community-based approaches to psychiatric care in its wake.

From Girl Talk HQ: A new feminist retirement home in Paris has been built to celebrate aging and counter the societal narrative that growing old is...

In this piece for Vice, Tess McClure describes New Zealand's Mad Pride movement, a movement that seeks to destigmatize, normalize, and celebrate experiences of voice-hearing...

Trauma-informed approaches have the potential to promote recovery but must involve survivors and service-users to prevent the experience of retraumatization within psychiatric and mental health services.

For the last six years we, a group of researchers, social work students, peer experts, and social professionals associated with the Amsterdam University for Applied Sciences, have been studying and facilitating the development of self-managed programs in homelessness and mental health care in the Netherlands. With our research we want to contribute to the development of new and existing programs through critical reflection. With this blog, I hope to share some of our findings, to give back to the respites from which we learned so much.

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.

Interviews with peer providers indicate that they strategically use their personal illness and recovery story in order to assist others.

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

Researchers seek to identify adaptive coping responses to discrimination for the transgender and gender diverse community.

Systematic review suggests social prescribing benefits individuals with mental and physical health issues, but more program evaluations are needed.

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

From YES! Magazine: Lament singing, an ancient tradition once observed for spiritual purposes during funerals, weddings, and times of war, is now seeing a revival in...