Medical Journals Refuse to Retract Fraudulent Trial Reports That Omitted Suicidal Events in Children
The published articles underreported suicide-related events and provided false claims that the drugs were effective.
Engaging Voices, Part 1: Validating The Arrival of My Wife’s First ‘Alters’
Sam Ruck shares his third excerpt from his book Healing Companions, which describes his life with, and love for, his wife and her “alters.”
“A Dangerous Substance”: The Impact of Social Media on Youth Mental Health
This is what social media does, she says. It draws people in. It hurts people. In the worst cases, it kills people.
Charles Spencer’s Story of Boarding School Abuse Is Haunting
But parents are still sending children away to board, and it’s still dangerous.
Reflections on the Silicon Valley Teen Suicides-by-Train: Fifteen Years Later
A psychiatrist and mom reflects on teen suicide clusters in Palo Alto and discusses alternative ways to address adolescent mental health.
As a Psychologist, I’ve Seen Many Children Misdiagnosed as Autistic—It’s a Clinical Catastrophe
The ASD diagnosis glosses over the many developmental specifics that might underlie a child’s challenges related to social communication.
My Lived Experience Helps Others Heal: Working with Families on the Path to Recovery
If one person is struggling, everyone in the family is struggling. Families need support.
The False Memory Syndrome at 30: How Flawed Science Turned into Conventional Wisdom ...
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.
Enlarging the Treatment Lens for Postpartum Depression
Drugs, social support, placenta encapsulation: How can we approach the specter of postpartum depression?
Helping Children With Angry Outbursts
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.
Driving Our Children into Suicide with Escitalopram and Other Happy Pills
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.
Helping Children to Overcome OCD: 6 Creative Strategies for Parents
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.
Childhood Bipolar Disorder, Deconstructed
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?
The Nurtured Heart Approach Goes Mainstream: Research and Experience Support “Celebrating Greatness in Every...
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.
Giving Caregivers a Platform: Sam, Husband of Ka’ryn Marie
For many caregivers who assist their loved ones, the journey involves navigating the medical system and its many challenges. This time, the journey takes...
NIMH’s It-girls: The Genain Quadruplets and the Whiteness of Psychiatry
The poster-children of psychiatric genetics, who endured abuse throughout their lives, were also the product of a racist culture.
SSRIs, Lindsay Clancy, and Me
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.
Adverse Childhood Experiences: When Will the Lessons of the ACE Study Inform Societal Care?
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
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.
Challenging Western-Centric Child Psychology: An Interview with Nandita Chaudhary
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.
Engaging “Madness”: A Guide for Significant Others and Families
Using personal stories from my own family, my new booklet Engaging 'Madness' paints a clear picture of what an alternative healing journey outside the biomedical paradigm can look like.
Interview: Abuse and Neglect at Private “Troubled Teen” Centers
Parents, beware: Disability rights lawyer Diane Smith Howard shares disturbing findings on conditions at youth residential treatment facilities.
Talking About Psych Diagnoses and Drugs: A Primer for Parents & Professionals
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.
Interview: The Need for Trauma-Informed Schools
CTIPP Executive Director Jesse Kohler answers our questions about the organization's new report and what the findings mean for families and communities.
Withdrawing Kids from Psych Drugs: Why, How, and When
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.