Not Even the Unborn Are Safe from Psychiatric Harm

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Medical organizations and the media dismiss the experts and the large body of research telling of fetal harm from exposure to SSRIs during pregnancy.

Subpatterns: A Deeper Dive into Attachment Theory

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Psychological issues have their roots in childhood and are linked to the attachment patterns we develop early in life.
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.

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.

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.
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.

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.
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?

The TikTokification of Mental Health on Campus

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Many people view their social media feeds as reflections of their identities—and when posts center on a specific diagnosis, it can feel like the platform is diagnosing them.
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?
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?
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.

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.
An older man holds his hands together obscuring his face, head dropped in sadness

Elder Eyes Wide Shut

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There is no universal moral code: Elder law and the injustice and inhumane practice of legal guardianship are a calculated effort by the court, the attorneys, and the healthcare system.

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.

The Path from Trauma to The Power of Nature: An Interview with Banning Lyon

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Our guest today is Banning Lyon, author of The Chair and The Valley: A Memoir of Trauma, Healing, and The Outdoors. An account of...
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.

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.

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 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.
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.
Charles Spencer (left); cover of "A Very Private School" (right)

Charles Spencer’s Story of Boarding School Abuse Is Haunting

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But parents are still sending children away to board, and it’s still dangerous.

Dismissing the “Human Experience”: College Students Feel Unseen by the Medical Model of Mental...

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In conversations with college students and recent graduates from across the country and around the world, they described feeling dismissed by views of mental health that narrow their experiences to individual medical problems.
Family silhouettes against a green and yellow background of a tree

SAFE: Survivors And Families Empowered—An Update

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We hope to combat the increasing reliance on force, too often used with the justification “for your own good.”

Screening for Perinatal Depression: An Effective Intervention, or One That Does More Harm Than Good?

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Why does the U.S. describe perinatal screening as providing a proven benefit, while the task forces in the U.K. and Canada see no evidence of such benefit?