Non-drug Approaches

Between 2007 and 2016, the FDA identified 776 herbal supplements containing active, unapproved pharmaceutical chemicals.

There is hope that the truth about sleeping pills will become more commonplace. As it does, however, we are faced with an even greater challenge: to move beyond the medicalization of insomnia in order to help people sleep better naturally. The alternative paradigm I suggest is that nutrition is a primary cure for insomnia.

New research suggests that minimum wage laws provide financial security that may help prevent suicide.

From Aeon: Although anxiety may be a major source of discomfort and suffering, it can also play an important role in the development of our...

Medical sociologist David Pilgrim argues that mental health care is neither effective nor “kindly,” as it often relies on flawed research and ineffective treatments.

From The British Psychological Society: BBC Horizon's recent documentary "Why Did I Go Mad?" has been monumental in changing the biomedical paradigm of mental illness....

A new analysis of UK mental health data suggests the way organizations deliver mental health services can alter patient outcomes.

In a new article for the journal Social Science & Medicine, sociologist Owen Whooley investigates how the DSM-5 creators failed in their attempt to...

Vanderbilt University psychiatrist Jonathan Metzl, author of The Protest Psychosis, has published a brief history of "schizophrenia" in relation to African American culture in...

From The Philosophers' Mail: Donald Winnicott, an English pediatrician and child psychoanalyst, deserves a place in history for drawing attention to the significance of parenting in...

Time magazine reviews the evidence on exercise for depression, finding that exercise alters brain chemistry such that the brain shows less stress in response...

Researchers in Rhode Island and New Hampshire examined 99 healthy adults for changes related to stress hormones, and asked about their childhood attachment experiences....

Newborn rats can "learn" the fears their mothers have, and then will carry those same fears for the rest of their lives, according to...

From Healio: Preliminary research results presented at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting in San Diego, California suggested that integrating spirituality into mental heath services...

According to a study published in this month’s British Journal of Psychiatry, people diagnosed with depression in high-income countries are more likely to limit...

In this piece for The Guardian, Susie Orbach argues that we should not turn to the DSM to understand ourselves, but instead to the work of...

Interviews with 30 individuals three to five years after initial treatment for a first-episode psychosis found that a majority considered themselves to be recovered,...

Researchers evaluate the impact of a school-based prevention program on anxious and depressive symptoms.

In this piece for Vice, Tess McClure describes New Zealand's Mad Pride movement, a movement that seeks to destigmatize, normalize, and celebrate experiences of voice-hearing...

From Greater Good Magazine: According to Dr. Gabor Mate, capitalism plays an important role in childhood trauma. Because our political and social systems do not support...

From CTV News: A new study found that the risk of premature death increased by 33 percent in people who use antidepressants. Article →

A few months ago I had the great honor of speaking with Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, after a talk he had given locally here in Washington, DC. We spoke about eCPR and there was a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life. He looked deep into my eyes and said, “We are in the same line of work. We are peacemakers.” It was a profound statement that inspired me to think more about eCPR as a tool of peacemaking.

In 1993, the World Health Bank estimated that domestic violence, or intimate partner violence (IPV), was a greater cause of poor health than traffic accidents and malaria combined. It was believed that 5-20% of healthy years lost for women were attributed to IPV. By definition, violence is considered to be any physical, verbal, or sexual assault that significantly comprises a person’s body, trust, and sense of self. But it is not solely a female issue even as women are disproportionately perpetrated against in this way. Results from a study conducted in the United States found that 22.1 percent of women and 7.4 percent of men reported acts of IPV in their lifetime.

Researcher Dr. Silke Schwarz highlights how Western psychology’s construction of individual resilience deflects emphasized individual pathology and deflects efforts at structural change.

Yesterday, Dr. Daniel Fisher emailed and asked my thoughts with regard to “recovery”. Even before I walked away from prescription-pad-only psychiatric work, others asked me about this. Other treatment providers, designated patients and family members asked what I thought they could expect to happen next and what they should do to make things better. I told them that chemical interventions are not the only, or even the essential, tool for recovery.