Sacred

From Vox: Mindfulness-based interventions are increasingly being introduced in schools and touted as helpful methods of reducing students' anxiety and attention problems. However, the research...

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...

In this piece for On Being, Sharon Salzberg discusses the importance of self-care and describes a meditation technique that can help increase self-love and self-compassion.

From The Independent: Society's cycle of compulsive consumerism and materialism is partly to blame for Britain's mental health crisis. Instead of merely referring people to...

From Aeon: While psychiatric drugs are often ineffective and can have serious side effects, there are many psychedelics and other illicit substances that have proven...

From Emerging Proud: Activists from around the world are gearing up for the launch of #EmergingProud, a grassroots social movement with the goal of de-stigmatizing...

From Philosophy for Life: Though often pathologized by psychiatry and western science, spiritual experiences and altered states of consciousness can actually be highly therapeutic and valuable. "Having...

From TIME: A recent study suggests a neurological explanation for why deep breathing can be so effective in reducing stress and anxiety. Article →­

From The Atlantic: While solitude is often stigmatized and even viewed as dangerous to our health, spending time alone can actually prove to be valuable...

From Chacruna: Shamanic healing through ayahuasca and other psychedelic modalities can help people reconnect with themselves and feel a greater sense of wholeness and unity. Article →­

A free recording of last week's webinar anchored to Phil Borges' Crazywise, a documentary exploring alternative approaches to mental health, is now available. Over 4,000 people...

From Rolling Stone Magazine: Both the underground practice of and aboveground research on the use of psychedelic drugs to heal PTSD, as well as depression, anxiety,...

From Science of Us: Researchers have found that awe and other Self-Transcendent Experiences have positive consequences for people's mental and emotional health, including enhanced interconnectedness and...

From VolteFace Magazine: MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can play a major role in helping people heal from the effects of trauma. "The results really are incredible and I’ve had...

Sometimes it's the simple things that keep us going, especially when the complicated ones seem so overwhelming; when there's too much chaos, too many emotions, too many possibilities and impending disasters. No one can give you a reason to live. You have to find it for yourself. Until you do, try simple things. For me, it was a turtle.

What are some tactics used by voices, and what can you do about it? I hope the suggestions in this piece can help desperate voice-hearers become more understanding of the forces behind their agony, and perhaps bring a more enlightened perspective to the chemically-lobotomizing tendencies of their psychiatrists who treat voices with more medication.

While a great deal of the excitement about advances in psychological treatments comes from the potential for research in neuroscience to unlock the secrets of the brain, many mental health experts would like to temper this enthusiasm. A special issue of the Behavior Therapist released this month calls into question the predominant conception of mental illnesses as brain disorders.

I am humbled to share with you my life’s journey, and more importantly to convey a recent experience that has transmuted everything, opening up a new frontier of being more fully alive. I am beginning to see the invisible; or should I say I am beginning to feel it, because it is an inner experience.

I'd like to share some personal thoughts on the nature of the Hearing Voices group method, and the insights that this kind of support generates. Through these groups, a tradition of mutual healing is being created that honors subjective experiences, and sharing our stories with each other in this way propels this exciting movement forward.

-When we "re-narrate" our own stories and identities, it may be an opportunity for either liberation or re-oppression.

Much of what we term “madness” is, in fact, the awakening of the "Self" to its own Wholeness/Divinity. We are born totally pure. Throughout our lives we are subject to projections, flung at us from a multitude of directions: from Mom and Dad, from schools, religious institutions, the media, and the medical model. We are all buried, to some degree, under projections, and interesting symptoms emerge: nightmares, stress and anxiety, fear, flashbacks, and so on. These are not "Madness," but symptoms of health; of a "Self" attempting to break free from lies.

-MIA Blogger Dick Russell recounts the story of his son and Malidoma Somé.

I am a psychiatric survivor of over thirty-six years. Since my nervous breakdown in 1978, I have undergone multitudinous experiences ranging from the subtly humiliating to the horrifically debilitating at the hands of incompetent psychiatrists and psychopharmacologists who, in the name of medicine, did more harm than good.

The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry had the clout to draw a stellar line-up of presenters to its recent conference, including internationally prominent critics like David Healy, Peter Gøtzsche, Robert Whitaker and Allen Frances. There were lots of learnings and even some tense discussions, but one of the most intriguing aspects of the entire conference was the way in which scientific and social issues became deeply intertwined, especially when presenters reached for better pathways forward.

On the Sri Lankan social media platform LankaWeb, medical doctor Ruwan M. Jayatunge recounts stories of difficult states of mind described in the ancient...