ABC Radio: Can Philosophy Prevent Overdiagnosis?
Professor Wendy Rogers believes that overdiagnosis itself is an epidemic and that the roots of the problem lie in an insufficient naturalistic disease-theory. Overdiagnosis, she adds, “can be harmful for the patient and also cause waste of a lot of resources.”
Scientific American Reviews the DSM
In a continuing series, Scientific American analyzes the "Trouble at the Heart of Psychiatry's Revised Rule Book."
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Part 1: Psychiatrists Are About to Shift...
Consciousness is “Not Just Your Brain”
For NPR’s 13.7: Cosmos and Culture blog, philosopher Alva Noë comments on a new Oxford journal, Neuroscience of Consciousness. He is skeptical of the persistent tendency of some neuroscientists “to think of consciousness itself as a neural phenomenon.” His own view, he writes “is that the brain is only part of the story, and that we can only begin to understand how the brain makes us consciousness by realizing that brain functions only in the setting of our bodies and our broader environmental (including our social and cultural) situation.”
“Toward a Social Justice Therapy: Let’s Keep Talking”
Can psychotherapy help dismantle oppression? “Social justice focused, analytic therapy- the kind of therapy I strive to do- is one that can support the...
Your Input Welcome For 2012 Alternatives Keynote Speech – SURVEY
I was invited to give a Keynote Address at the 2012 Alternatives Conference in Portland Oregon, and I'm collecting your input on what I should...
“Fixing the Brain is Not the New World for Psychiatry”
Writing on his critical psychiatry blog, Duncan Double critiques Joe Herbert’s piece on “Why can't we treat mental illness by fixing the brain?” in Aeon. While Herbert admits that there is a "mysterious and seemingly unfathomable gap" between psychology and neuroscience, which "bedevils not only psychiatry, but all attempts to understand the meaning of humanity,” he goes on to speculate that someday psychiatrists will be able to relate symptoms to brain activity.
Homeless crisis needs “transcendence of the nation state”
A scholar who spent 12 years working with homeless people summarizes his perspectives on how homelessness relates to “mental illness” in the Georgia Straight....
‘Mental Illness’: Fact or Metaphor?
-Do we mean "mental illness" literally, or as a metaphor?
Symptoms do not Correlate with Quality of Life in Schizophrenia
Researchers in France found that among 306 outpatients followed for a year, quality of life remained stable relative to subjects' expectations and perceptions about...
“How Open Data Can Improve Medicine”
“Those who possess the data control the story.” In the wake of the reanalysis of the infamous Study 329, where scientific data claiming the antidepressant Paxil was safe and effective for teens was egregiously manipulated, researchers are pushing for open access to raw data. “The issue here, scientists argue, is that without independent confirmation, it becomes too easy to manipulate data.”
“As Diagnostic Thresholds Are Lowered, Being Normal Ends Up Being as Difficult as Being...
"We are in the process of turning the disease into the norm and where the normal becomes the exception. If this continues, we will...
Psychiatry’s Crisis May be Unsolvable
Even if The Lancet's attempts to forge a new vision in response to the crisis of confidence in medical psychiatry work (previously reported in...
Recovery: Personal, Achievable, and Multidimensional
Interviews with 30 individuals three to five years after initial treatment for a first-episode psychosis found that a majority considered themselves to be recovered,...
Madness Challenges Our Sense Of What It Is To Be Human
In The Lancet, psychiatrist and MIA Blogger Andrew Scull discusses the themes in his book Madness In Civilization. "Mental illness haunts the human imagination,"...
Is Good Mental Health About Learning to Live Better with Fewer Resources?
An op-ed in The Advertiser begins with a quote from Carl Jung: “The foundation of mental illness is our unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.”...
Call for (Pithy) Submissions: “Is Psychiatry a Real Science?”
In a call for submissions posted on the History of Madness in Canada website, the long-running OUR VOICE / NOTRE VOIX magazine, publisher of...
“Reducing Future Suicide Attempts by Forging Connection”
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...
“Maybe Companies Should Chill on Employee-Happiness Programs”
Will Davies, author of The Happiness Industry, does a Q&A on the ways companies are misusing psychological research on happiness. “I think that one thing that often gets lost in lots of the discussions of happiness (especially in the business world) is the possibility that happy work may mean less work.”
Letters to the Editor: “The Treatment of Choice”
Readers respond to the New York Times article, “The Treatment of Choice,” about innovative programs for psychosis and schizophrenia that involve patients and their families in treatment decisions. “Narratives of success counter a drumbeat of faulty links of mental illness and violence, inaccuracies which serve only to further stigmatize and isolate individuals with psychiatric illness.”
Robert Whitaker: “Imagining a Different Future in Mental Health”
Robert Whitaker on Imagining a Different Future in Mental Health, Philadelphia May 6, 2012
Training the Brain for Well-Being
Experience shapes the brain, for better or worse. Richard Davidson & Bruce McEwen review the ways that adverse early experience create measurable changes in...
“When Pills Are the Problem”
In the context of the Silicon Valley suicides, one mother offers her story about her daughter. “It’s my premise that not only the culture of Silicon Valley, but also, almost more importantly, the nature of the remedies that are being proposed in the name of mental health counseling, are to blame in these deaths.”