“Pollution’s Mental Toll”: A Talk with Journalist Kristina Marusic
The reporter explains how air and water pollution affect our brains, why children are so vulnerable, and what to do about it.
Stimulants Don’t Improve Academic Performance in Kids with ADHD
“Efforts to improve learning in children with ADHD should focus on obtaining effective academic instruction rather than stimulant medication.”
Risk of Depression Spikes When Kids Take Ritalin
Risk of depression increased when children were taking methylphenidate for ADHD, but once they stopped taking the drug, depression risk dropped to normal levels.
New Tools to Support New Moms: An Interview with Jennifer Barkin, PhD
A maternal mental health expert shares how perinatal stress and the climate crisis are affecting women’s everyday lives.
From Horse Ranch to Home Ground: Healing Families via Telehealth
Since COVID, NISAPI has transitioned our collaborative therapy setting from barns and fields to kitchens and living rooms. Our clients report similar positive outcomes with telehealth as in person.
ADHD: The Money Trail
Doctors, drug companies, and the news media have profited from skyrocketing rates of diagnosis and drugging for ADHD, and the law has created a perverse set of incentives for parents and children which favor the ADHD label.
How to Distinguish Antidepressant Withdrawal from Relapse
Mark Horowitz and David Taylor provide advice on how to tell the difference between antidepressant withdrawal and depression relapse.
The Abused Children to Bipolar Pipeline
The mental health system traumatized me further. They were allies with my abusers to cover up and continue my abuse.
Trans Lifeline: Naming Trans-Specific Harm in Mental Health
Interim Hotline Manager Jahmil Roberts and Advocacy Director Yana Calou from the Trans Lifeline work towards connecting trans people to the community support and resources they need to survive and thrive - free of prisons and police
From Labeled to Healer: A Road Less Traveled
We have let down our children (and ourselves) by losing touch with parental intuition and handing their care over to professionals at the first sign of a problem.
Saving Lives or Cementing Stigma? A Review of “Just Like You…”
In my experience, episodes of anxiety and depression dwindle in the face of hope and empowerment, while broken-brain narratives lead to deeper despair.
Trusting People as Experts of Themselves: Sera Davidow on the Wildflower Peer Support Line
Sera Davidow is a filmmaker, activist, advocate, author, and mother of two very busy kids. As a survivor of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse...
Connecting the Dots: My Toxic Workplace Made Me “Mentally Ill”
In 1996, I suffered my first manic episode. My mother was convinced it had been caused by chemical exposure. But I wouldn’t hear it, and neither would my psychiatrists.
Parenting Changed My Perspective on “ADHD”
My experience of raising a son who was bright and creative but didn’t fit the mold helped me to approach my restless, impulsive students more compassionately and creatively.
Why Do People Self-Harm, and How Can We Stop It?
The psychiatric treatments I underwent did nothing to help me come to terms with my troubled past. Self-harm did not serve me well either. We must re-learn what to expect from ourselves.
Antipsychotics Worsen Cognitive Functioning in First-Episode Psychosis
Withholding antipsychotics may be beneficial for memory, the researchers write.
For the Love and Care of the People: An Interview with Vanessa Green on...
An interview with Vanessa Green, executive director of Call BlackLine a nationally recognized hotline serving BIPOC and LGBTQI communities.
Collateral Damage: The Negative Impact of Antidepressants on New Zealand Youth
Health and wellbeing in young people are trending down in New Zealand. Are antidepressants to blame?
Why Is Child Sexual Abuse So Common in Institutions?
Where ableism and adultism allows disabled children to be seen as unreliable narrators of their own experience, sexual violence in institutions will continue to be pervasive.
Home Alone: Finding Connection During the Pandemic
This wave of emotional distress is a perfectly reasonable human response to living our lives in an increasingly isolated and uncertain world.
Understanding the Youth Mental Health Crisis: An Interview with Elia Abi-Jaoude
The child psychiatrist talks about the importance of seeing the big picture and why parents shouldn't "be afraid if their kid is in distress."
Guardianship Destroyed My Family
People who can’t take care of themselves need support and protection, but guardianship provides neither. I know: I've lived it.
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.
Fatherland Dreamland Motherland Hinterland
I grew up in Rhodesia, a British colony in southern Africa. Until the age of 16, I lived on the grounds of Ingutsheni Mental Hospital where my father worked. As a psychiatrist, he had enormous power.
Getting A Diagnosis Meant That My Sister Never Had the Chance to Resolve Her...
My sister was told if she took medications everything would be fine. But everything was not fine, and the medications sent her down a path of no return.