Around The Web

Updates on critical psychiatry postings across the Internet.

BetterHelp to Pay $7.8 Million for Deceiving Customers After Promising to Keep Sensitive Data...

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From FTC: The FTC has moved to ban BetterHelp from revealing people's data, including sensitive mental health information, to Facebook and others for targeted advertising.

STAR*D: It is time to atone and retract

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From Psychiatric Times: Two psychiatrists write in the Psychiatric Times that the response of the STAR*D investigators to a reanalysis of STAR*D data by Ed...

Three Causes of Spiritual Illness: A Shamanic Perspective

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From Shared Wisdom: From the shaman’s perspective, illness can be caused by either disharmony, fear, or soul loss: negative internal states that appear within us in response to negative or traumatic life experiences.

How Chronic Stress Feeds Suffering by Eating Up Our Dopamine

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From Gary Sharpe Substack: This mechanism applies to all "dopamine deficiency" issues including Parkinson’s, dystonia, restless leg syndrome, ADHD, chronic conditions more generally, trauma, and addictions of all sorts.

A Neuroscientist Evaluates the Standard Biological Model of Depression

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This is a talk at UPenn by neuroscientist Peter Sterling, who, in his writings for Mad in America, has critically assessed the “biological model of depression."

Christy Huff, Medical Director of Benzodiazepine Information Coalition, Dies

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From Benzodiazepine Information Coalition: Dr. Huff was a cardiologist who experienced a benzodiazepine injury firsthand, leading her to become a fierce advocate for better education and safe tapering of these drugs.

Parents Must Reclaim the Central Role If Growing Crisis Among Children Is to End:...

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From Irish Examiner: "Parents must surrender their point of view that there’s something wrong with the child and see that it’s the relationship that’s in trouble and the child’s behaviour is just a function of that," says physician Gabor Maté, who works with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness.

ADHD and the Pitfalls of Reification: An Interview With Sanne Te Meerman

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From Terapeutiska Tankar: Reification happens when constructs that describe but do not explain behaviors, such as ADHD, are mistaken for causes of behavior. 

How Scapegoats Experience Traumatic Invalidation

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From Rebecca Mandeville, LMFT - Scapegoat Recovery: Traumatic invalidation is usually found in systems where people are marginalized; so this would be, for example, the family scapegoat, who is the marginalized person in the family system.

Psychiatrist for UK’s Most Dangerous Prisoners Campaigns for a Trauma-Informed Justice System

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From Shaun Attwood: "What's happened with the child trauma, the child abuse, the childhood neglect...is lack of agency in the adult. And unless they've got agency, they can't stop doing bad things," says UK psychiatrist Bob Johnson.

Trapped in a Psych Ward: Michigan Doc Pre-Signed Blank Forms That Can Rob You...

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From ABC7/WXYZ Detroit: Patients, parents, and employees are coming forward to talk about their experiences at some Michigan hospitals with psychiatrist Dr. Nagy Kheir. 

Psychedelics Doctor Admits Relationship With Former Patient Who’s Now Dead

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From BristolLive: Dr. Ben Sessa has said he knew the woman had a history of self-harm and overdoses but was not aware that she had tried to take her own life during the course of their relationship.

Discussing the ‘Obsession’ With Childhood Disorder Labelling

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From Sociology Lens Insights: In recent decades, we have too often passed the buck of social problems to children who lack the power to say no to stigmatizing psychiatric labels.

Suit Blasts 4 NJ State Psych Hospitals for Violent Conditions, ‘Unconstitutional’ Policies

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From NJ Spotlight News: “Imagine living in an environment where even the most basic choices are taken away from you...and, in place of psychiatric treatment, you face both boredom and violence on a daily basis,” said Bren Pramanik, a Disability Rights New Jersey attorney.

The Psychiatrist Who Got Hooked on Antidepressants — Now, He Helps Others to Quit

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From The Times: Although Dr. Mark Horowitz wondered whether the pills were to blame for a growing raft of health complaints “I thought it was the right thing to do,” he says, “like taking your vitamins.”

Prison Is Even Worse When You Have a Disability Like Autism

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From The Marshall Project: State officials often fail to identify prisoners with developmental disorders, a group that faces overwhelming challenges behind bars, from bright lights to noises to social dynamics.

The Mothers Fighting a Scandal Bigger Than Thalidomide: ‘We Were Told the Medication Was...

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From The Guardian: Since the 1970s, it has been known that the epilepsy drug sodium valproate can harm babies in the womb. So why was it prescribed to pregnant women?

Taking Prozac During Pregnancy Can Affect Fetal Brain Development: Study

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From New York Post: A new study provides evidence that antidepressant use during pregnancy can impact child brain development and contribute to the risk of mental health disorders later in life.

Mental Health Advance Choice Documents ‘Would Reduce Sectioning’

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From The Guardian: Expert says treatment plans set out while patients are well should be included in Mental Health Act reforms in England and Wales.

A Dangerous Idea: ‘Bury Bad Thoughts to Boost Mental Health’

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From CPTSD Foundation: We are bombarded with tips to avoid, to reject, to minimize emotional distress and deep-seated trauma. But what we shut out of our minds will bubble up to the surface in ways that could be hurtful for ourselves and others.

Call for Intervention in Case of Boy Left in Windowless Hospital Room for 56...

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From RTE: The child is among those impacted by failings in the North Kerry Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, with the public health service last year apologising for 'deficits in care' he received, including the inappropriate prescribing of heavy anti-psychotic medication.

‘We Hold You Sacred’: Fighting the Opioid Crisis in the Cherokee Nation

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From The Guardian: "When we introduce those cultural aspects [into addiction recovery programs] – it’s like their spirit remembers it, because they pick it up immediately and they crave it...It helps them heal," says Ashley Lincoln, an administrator with the Cherokee MAT program.

Canadians Without Life-Threatening Diseases Are Being Encouraged to Consider Suicide

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From Newsweek: The risk of medical practitioners recommending MAID as a cost-cutting measure to alleviate strain on the health care system is unsettling, as suggested by a 2020 analysis estimating potential savings of $66 million annually in health care costs.

Moving From Crisis Response to Crisis Prevention in U.S. Mental Health Systems

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From STAT: In Chicago, community organizers are lobbying for the 'Treatment not Trauma' approach, which is neither a psychiatric nor police model but a public health model of community wellness.

In the US, ‘Mental Health Treatment’ Can Be a Death Sentence

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From The Nation: Deploying the language of “helping” those in need, policymakers are reaching not for a Band-Aid but a club.