The False Memory Syndrome at 30: How Flawed Science Turned into Conventional Wisdom ...

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Soon after states finally began providing adults who remembered childhood abuse with the legal standing to sue, the FMSF began waging a PR campaign to discredit their memories—in both courtrooms and in the public mind.
OCD worry monster

Helping Children to Overcome OCD: 6 Creative Strategies for Parents

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Here, Dr. Ben Furman offers a creative approach to helping children who struggle with OCD. Explaining why behaviors like reasoning, reassuring, and superstitious rituals don’t work, he suggests engaging alternatives that teach kids how to manage their “worry monster” and make sense of their distressing experience.
adverse childhood experiences

Adverse Childhood Experiences: When Will the Lessons of the ACE Study Inform Societal Care?

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The ACE study tells of how adverse childhood experiences increase the risk of psychological and physical problems in adulthood. When will we start incorporating these findings into public health policy and medical care?

Medicating Preschoolers for ADHD: How “Evidence-Based” Psychiatry Has Led to a Tragic End

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The prescribing of stimulants to preschoolers diagnosed with ADHD is on the rise, which is said to be an "evidence-based" practice. A review of that "evidence base" reveals that claims that ADHD is characterized by genetic and brain abnormalities are belied by the data, and that the NIMH trial of methylphenidate in this age group told of long-term harm.
Young boy looking through the window

As a Psychologist, I’ve Seen Many Children Misdiagnosed as Autistic—It’s a Clinical Catastrophe

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The ASD diagnosis glosses over the many developmental specifics that might underlie a child’s challenges related to social communication.
A collage depicting cut-up photographs of David Carmichael and his son Ian, Lindsay Clancy and her children, and a bottle of pills spilling out

SSRIs, Lindsay Clancy, and Me

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Sharing the similarities between Lindsay Clancy's homicidal episode and my own will hopefully help prevent rare SSRI-induced suicides and homicides, including mass shootings.
helping children angry child

Helping Children With Angry Outbursts

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Finnish psychiatrist Ben Furman reviews various non-drug therapies for children with aggressive outbursts of anger, including the Kids' Skills approach that he and social psychologist Tapani Ahola developed. These approaches focus on helping children come up with their own ideas for overcoming their problems with the help of family and friends.

NIMH’s It-girls: The Genain Quadruplets and the Whiteness of Psychiatry

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The poster-children of psychiatric genetics, who endured abuse throughout their lives, were also the product of a racist culture.

The Nurtured Heart Approach Goes Mainstream: Research and Experience Support “Celebrating Greatness in Every...

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The Nurtured Heart Approach represents a massive shift in thinking—about schooling, about children and how to raise them, about how we regard those with intensity, and about the medical model pathologizing them.

Monarch eTNS Inspires “Stop the Psychiatric Abuse of Children!” (SPAC!)

The FDA approval of the Monarch eTNS device is the latest form of psychiatric-inspired child abuse. If not stopped, it will afflict millions of children in unimaginably damaging ways. It has inspired us to form Stop the Psychiatric Abuse of Children (SPAC!) a new international advocacy organization.
childhood bipolar

Childhood Bipolar Disorder, Deconstructed

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Diagnosing children with juvenile or pediatric bipolar disorder is largely an American phenomenon. Do we actually have more “bipolar” children in the United States—or are we simply labeling more of them as such? If it is ever fair to call a child “manic,” isn’t the child’s environment the direction in which we should look?
Photo of a girl surrounded by bullies holding cell phones

“A Dangerous Substance”: The Impact of Social Media on Youth Mental Health

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This is what social media does, she says. It draws people in. It hurts people. In the worst cases, it kills people.

Challenging Western-Centric Child Psychology: An Interview with Nandita Chaudhary

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Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Nandita Chaudhary about children’s lives across cultures, the problems with global aid agencies and their interventions, psychology’s bias in the study of children, the limits of attachment theory and more.
A child playing with pills

Driving Our Children into Suicide with Escitalopram and Other Happy Pills

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The Lexapro study is marketing dressed up as science. It represents a flagrant abuse of ethics, deceiving readers at the cost of children's lives.
school refusal

“I’m Not Going, You Can’t Make Me!”: A Community Approach to School Refusal

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Consider an imaginary child called Jack who has been avoiding school as much as possible for a month. Standard practice would be cognitive-behavioral therapy or psychoactive drugs to help Jack deal with his anxiety. But what if Jack's social network instead mobilized to help him regain the role of student?

Talking About Psych Diagnoses and Drugs: A Primer for Parents & Professionals

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It is important to tell parents the truth about what can and cannot be known about their child. In this way, people come to appreciate that labels and treatments offered by psychiatric professionals are far from being grounded in hard science.

The Concerned Parents’ Project: 31 Questions

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The Concerned Parents’ Project grew out of the idea that there may be parents out there who are confused and bewildered by the mixed messages on what it is to have normal and healthy childhood experiences. We posted a new question and answer for parents each day in March.

Reflections on the Silicon Valley Teen Suicides-by-Train: Fifteen Years Later

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A psychiatrist and mom reflects on teen suicide clusters in Palo Alto and discusses alternative ways to address adolescent mental health.

My Lived Experience Helps Others Heal: Working with Families on the Path to Recovery

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If one person is struggling, everyone in the family is struggling. Families need support.
Jesse Kohler

Interview: The Need for Trauma-Informed Schools

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CTIPP Executive Director Jesse Kohler answers our questions about the organization's new report and what the findings mean for families and communities.

Supporting Children and Parents to Withdraw from Psychiatric Medication

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The main problem with prescribing psychiatric drugs to children is that it hasn’t been very effective.

Interview: Abuse and Neglect at Private “Troubled Teen” Centers

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Parents, beware: Disability rights lawyer Diane Smith Howard shares disturbing findings on conditions at youth residential treatment facilities.
A sepia-tone photograph of a lonely teddy bear small against a window.

Medical Journals Refuse to Retract Fraudulent Trial Reports That Omitted Suicidal Events in Children

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The published articles underreported suicide-related events and provided false claims that the drugs were effective.

Giving Caregivers a Platform: Meagan, Mother of Matt

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A mom describes her son's descent into the harms of psychiatry—and his way out. "It was really difficult to watch Matt decline. He had given up hope that he could get well."

Withdrawing Kids from Psych Drugs: Why, How, and When

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Here are methods for reducing or eliminating a child's psychiatric medications that I have seen work well over years of supporting families through this process.