What's New

Therapists are quick to refer to this pain I feel as a “fear of abandonment,” as if it is a figment of my mind and something not worth the time to attend to.

This week, you’ll notice a new name and a new look on this page. The Parent Resources section of Mad in America’s website is now officially the Family Resources section.

Medical researchers present evidence that ADHD is overdiagnosed in children and teens, which can lead to significant harm.

Dr. Rucklidge talks about the emerging field of Nutritional Psychiatry, which looks at the relationship between nutrition and brain health and how it may affect children’s moods and behavior.

Researcher Nev Jones, Ph.D., talks about her study of youth hospitalized against their will, and how their experiences affected their attitudes about mental health treatment and providers.

Through journaling, I realized that my lifelong confusion surrounding my memories of traumatic events was the direct result of the psychiatric labels and drugs I swallowed alongside years of parental abuse.

When I sit in Billie’s office, I am still 13 years old, bitter anger saturating my body. I am 23, sobbing that I cannot do this anymore. I am 24, celebrating my first year of college. I am all of these people and none of these people.

My childhood was stolen by systems focused on labeling and medicating me instead of healing the effects of abuse and neglect.

Bias and financial conflicts in antidepressant trials “contribute to systematic underestimation of risk in the published literature.”

The one core ingredient on which any recovery from emotional distress depends is the one that never makes an appearance in any medical handbook or psychiatric diagnostic manual—that is, love.

This episode of “Mad in the Family” focuses on a non-drug method to bringing out the best in challenging children, particularly those diagnosed with “ADHD.” It is called the Nurtured Heart Approach® and its essence is that, in the words of our guest, “the same intensity that drives people crazy is actually the source of a child’s greatness."

My hope and prayer is that this dramatic look at a negative effect of this class of drugs will help you understand that, in my professional assessment, their risks outweigh their benefits.

NISAPI helps people achieve recovery by pairing the normalcy of a ranch and the nurturance of horses with a philosophy of postmodern collaborative practice.

From Forbes: Out of concern for their bottom line, colleges are betraying their students and trapping them in social isolation.

Your diagnosis should serve YOU. Not your parents, your doctors, your teachers, or the next door neighbor. We should be fighting for a future where the person being labeled has the ultimate say over how doctors and therapists view them.

MIA’s Samantha Lilly interviews critical youth suicidologist Jennifer White about what suicide prevention could look like outside of the medical model.

Noted antidepressant researcher, Michael Hengartner, summarizes the latest research on the use of antidepressants in children and adolescents.

An interview with Jodi Aman, LCSW, a psychotherapist and coach who has more than 20 years of experience working with children, their parents, and helpers. She is the author of the book Anxiety....I'm So Done With You: A Teen’s Guide to Ditching Toxic Stress & Hardwiring Your Brain For Happiness

An interview with Claudia Gold, M.D., pediatrician, infant-parent mental health specialist, author, teacher, and speaker based in western Massachusetts. We discuss the importance of human interaction in child development.

Hospitalized for "grandiose delusions," I began to wonder: Was my dis-orientation really just a sickness? Or in "treating" it, was I missing a powerful re-orientation toward healing old wounds?

After a failed suicide attempt following my son's death, New York State incarcerated me in a mental institution for 21 days. The environment was degrading, stultifying, and downright depressing.

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

Families may be worried that the stress of lockdown may aggravate their child’s struggles. Yet, we hear some parents say the situation has changed their child for the better. Why might that be? In this interview, Dr. Nicole Beurkens talks about the impact of “quarantine life” on children with different types of behavioral, emotional, and neurodevelopmental challenges.

Psychologist Sam Himelstein, PhD, talks about the impact of the coronavirus crisis and “social distancing” policies on adolescents, taking a look at the unique needs of teenagers and young adults and the challenges they may present for parents, caregivers, and other family members.