How Your Germs Control Your Politics
In this podcast for Cracked, Alex Schmidt and David Wong discuss how our fear of germs has shaped our politics, preferences, and personalities throughout history.
"Stop...
How Victorian Women Were Oppressed Through Psychiatry
From The Atlantic: In the mid- to late 1800s, psychiatric institutions were used to oppress women and reinforce patriarchal norms. The new Netflix show Alias Grace, based...
Scientists Start to Tease Out the Ways Racism Hurts Health
From NPR: Scientists are beginning to understand the subtle ways that experiences of racism and discrimination affect people's health on both a physiological and psychological...
Does ‘Mental Illness’ Exist?
In this interview for ABC Australia, leading psychology professor Peter Kinderman discusses why we need alternative ways of understanding and supporting people in distress that take...
Reading ‘Girl, Interrupted’ in the Psych Ward
In this piece for Electric Lit, Anne Thériault shares how the book Girl, Interrupted helped her survive her 72-hour hold in a psychiatric ward following a suicide attempt.
"The psychiatric...
What New Zealand’s “Unfortunate Experiment” Can Teach Us
From the Boston Review: In his new book Doctors in Denial: The Forgotten Women in the "Unfortunate Experiment," Ronald W. Jones chronicles the history of New...
Voluntary Psychiatric Patients May Face Exploitation
From WFAA: Many patients who check themselves into psychiatric hospitals voluntarily may have difficulty when attempting to check out. In one recent incident in Denton,...
Agency and Activism as Protective Factors for Children in the Gaza Strip
Researchers recommend a ‘politically-informed focus', including activism, when assessing children and designing interventions in areas of chronic political violence.
Racism is Literally Bad for Your Health
From WBUR: Racially motivated discrimination and abuse have tangible, measurable negative effects on health. Not only do daily acts of prejudice and discrimination lead to...
Blaming Mental Health Won’t Solve Gun Violence, Says APsaA
According to a new statement released by the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), the causes of firearm violence are complex and multifactorial, and gun violence...
Is Spanking Harmful? Study Finds Link With Future Mental Illness
From The Kansas City Star: A new study from the University of Michigan has found a link between spanking and serious problems in adulthood including mental health...
Vampire Medicines
In this piece, Dr. David Healy describes the various factors contributing to the lack of awareness surrounding the harmful and potentially dangerous effects of...
The Men Taking Classes to Unlearn Toxic Masculinity
From Science of Us: The Washington, D.C., Rape Crisis Center, Collective Action for Safe Spaces, and ReThink, an organization that works to prevent sexual assault,...
Minority and Immigration Status Associated with Psychosis Risk
Ethnic minorities and those who migrated during childhood have an elevated risk for psychosis, study finds.
The Persistence of the Radioactive Bogeyman
From Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Since 1950, a noteworthy number of American and European horror movies have used radiation as a plot device. The...
How Norms Change
From The New Yorker: The extent to which we act on our biases is largely dependent upon the social norms within our surrounding environments, which...
The Paradox of White Americans’ Mental Health
Are White Americans’ poor mental health outcomes caused by Whiteness?
Why We Ended Long-Term Solitary Confinement in Colorado
From The New York Times: According to international standards for the treatment of prisoners, keeping someone in solitary confinement for longer than 15 days is...
Why We’ve Been Thinking About Madness All Wrong
In this interview for Pacific Standard, David Dobbs, who profiled Nev Jones this month, discusses the ways that the mental health community is beginning to...
Psychiatrists Have Issued a Statement on Aversion Therapy
From BuzzFeed: The Royal College of Psychiatrists has issued a historic statement acknowledging the harm done to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people who were subjected to...
I’m Reinventing Mental Health Care by Putting Patients in Charge
In this piece for The Guardian, Joy Hibbins describes how her experiences of powerlessness as a mental health service user led her to start Suicide...
Psychology in the Metacolony
From Mail & Guardian: Colonialism today is more entrenched in our society than it ever has been in the past, and traditional psychology and mental...
Child Abuse and Violence Survivors are Being Re-Traumatised
From The Independent: Recently, psychiatric patients used the hashtag #AbusedByServices to tweet about their experiences being re-traumatized by mental health services. The hashtag reflects the...
The Touch of Madness
In this piece for Pacific Standard, David Dobbs recounts the story of Nev Jones, a psychologist with lived experience who is working to change the...
Child Abuse, Mental Health and Mental Illness
Psychiatrists and medical doctors don’t ask who was hitting who and how often in your family. These questions would largely put them out of business and invalidate their industries. These questions would make a mockery of their many years of schooling and many prescription pad options. But these questions would also heal.
