Tag: Psychiatry

The metaphor of “mental disease” is doing more harm than good. Rather than being a tool for communication, it has crossed the boundary from a metaphor to a theory that underpins much of what happens within public mental health services. This places psychiatrists in a position of dutiful compliance with what is essentially a fallacious model.

I am a psychiatrist and I have been watching my profession deteriorate for many decades. This is my most direct written statement about the dangers of stepping inside a modern psychiatrist’s office. My conclusions are the culmination of mountains of research authored by me and by an increasing number of other psychiatrists, scientists and journalists.

Peter Stastny is a New York-based psychiatrist, documentary filmmaker, and a co-founder of the International Network toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR). He has been...

Svetlana Sholokhova suggests that incorporating “phenomenological psychology” could open up possibilities for radical transformation within the field of psychiatry.

An anthropological look at the Global Mental Health (GMH) movement suggests several ethical problems and contradictions in its mission.

Experts across the globe point to the harms of drug companies’ influence on research, practice, and education in healthcare noting that it compromises patient care.

New study links involuntary hospitalization with psychotic diagnosis, previous involuntary hospitalization, and economic deprivation.

Anthropologists study Parachute NYC to identify challenges and opportunities for implementing peer support and Open Dialogue practices.

A new review finds that dehumanizing language, including self-dehumanization, is connected to anxiety, depression, and disordered eating.

Prominent researchers in psychiatry urge the field to move away from a rigid biological focus toward social and psychological perspectives to meet the needs of today’s world.

New article pushes for a shift from a psychiatry centered on brain circuitry toward an 'ecosocial' view of mind, brain, and culture.

A re-visioned approach to social psychiatry aims to understand the broad influence of social life on mental health.

Loneliness was found to both predict and be reinforced by severe common mental disorders.

Can a renewed biopsychosocial approach, grounded in an updated philosophy, foster person-centered medicine, and psychiatry?

Major study finds that economic deprivation and a lack of social capital are driving increasing rates of suicide in the U.S.

Psychiatrist outlines varying roles in Open Dialogue model, fostering service-user and family agency through meaningful conversations with a team of providers.

The alternative treatment model of Soteria helps individuals suffering from schizophrenia without relying on medication or coercion.

My study, in which I slowly withdrew people from prescribed antipsychotics and antidepressants, found that it is possible to decrease both spending on psychiatric drugs and patients' chronic exposure to them. In general, the drug-reduction process was well-tolerated and well-accepted among those treated.

Social scientists explore how psychiatry’s use of biotechnology is being used to reinvent and secure the idea of the disordered brain

Analysis suggests that Open Dialogue aligns with human rights-based perspectives on mental health care.

An understanding of the importance of social risk factors in mental health outcomes has professionals calling for better models and integrated treatments.

Ethnographic research sheds light on extensive psychopharmaceutical use by soldiers in post 9/11 U.S. wars.

Founding member of the Critical Psychiatry Network (CPN), psychiatrist Duncan B. Double, reviews the past 20 years of the Critical Psychiatry Network in an editorial published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

The authors outline reasons for renaming schizophrenia and the way a change can reform practice.

In an effort to reduce coercion, researchers isolate associated factors including age, relationship status, location, and diagnosis.