Tag: alternative approaches

Ask anyone who’s ever taught kids, and they’ll tell you a story about one student who sticks in their memory.

We have two guests today. One is Susan Swim, executive director of the Now I See A Person Institute, which she created in 2007...

Finally, I realized that my schizophrenia was not a disorder, but a very complex problem that I could solve by myself.

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.

The healing power of communal singing is at the heart of two organizations in England and Ireland: Sing Your Heart Out and 49 North Street.

Why am I whole when I dance and paint but deathly ill when faced by a European/American medical mechanic? Why was I locked in a room for a week in the first place? Was it to heal? Or was it to fill a bed?

Early in my social work career, I truly believed that medication and forced confinement helped heal “mental illness.” Then an abrupt awakening completely altered my worldview.

Some might wonder why I'm still stumbling in the desert when there are cars and jobs and museums downtown, but really, the turquoise dawn is in the canyons. The thing is, my people seem to need this nutrition, the rarified medicine of this particular cactus and that specific root that I haven't found anywhere else.

Tea is my weapon of choice for battling anxiety and depression. But its true power comes from the people behind the cup. Tea is merely the drink that brings us together.

MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Diana Kopua about the Mahi a Atua approach, the global mental health movement, and the importance of language and narratives in how we understand our world and ease our suffering.

This week we e-release a new free booklet, Pathways to Enhance Well-Being. Its creation began with my colleague Linda Lentini sharing with me some of the barriers she experienced as she moved towards bringing alternative approaches such as meditation and breath practices into state psychiatric institutions.

From CBS Radio: U.K. doctors are increasingly prescribing social interventions — community based solutions such as art classes, gardening clubs, and walking groups — as an alternative...

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...

From Healthline: A new app, Concrn, allows users to request assistance from mental health volunteers for homeless people in need. The creators of the app...

From HuffPost Canada: Nature can positively impact people's mental health in major ways. People who spend time outdoors tend to get more exercise, which elevates...

From Quartz: Seeking healthcare in the medical system can be a dehumanizing experience for women: doctors often dismiss women's pain as psychological rather than physiological, and...

From Science of Us: Studies show that spending time in nature has a number of positive effects on mental health, including decreased rumination, reduced depression...

From The Mental Elf: Recent research confirms what many animal lovers already know - that pets can play a major role in improving people's mental...

My opposition to psychiatric drugs is not just that they are harmful, dangerous, and destructive. That would be plenty motivation enough. And it is. But in addition, my profession, which I love and value, has been hijacked by the APA and Big Pharma. It is my goal to return psychiatry to its proper place - where good psychotherapy is understood to be the treatment for human suffering.