Exploring the Tension Between Educational Psychology and Child Psychiatry
Researchers explore efforts to integrate educational psychology and child psychiatry.
Letting Negative Projective Identifications Come, and Letting Them Go
In the instant I perceive that I’ve succeeded in inducing fear and shame in you, I can feel a palpable relief from my own fear and shame. This process is called projective identification. I gradually learned as a therapist to be aware of when a person seemed to be mysteriously able to create distressful emotional states in me — states that they were themselves subjectively feeling, but weren’t fully aware of.
I Was God: And You Were A Figment Of My Imagination
The drugs combined with my desire to know how life worked and what made a human broke down all past social conditioning of my individual self. I realized I was God. So was everyone else and I shared with anyone who would listen, but found no one who could understand or navigate the territory. There was little internet to speak of then and no Google to find others who experienced life as I was, so I voyaged on my own as best I could.
Research Emphasizes Association Between Inflammation, Diet, and Depression
Study finds adults with a pro-inflammatory diet have a greater incidence of depression.
What Stops People From Using Exercise to Treat Depression?
New research examines important factors of adherence when prescribing exercise to treat depression.
Review Examines Causes and Consequences of Overdiagnosis in Primary Care
A new review in BMJ investigates overdiagnosis in primary care settings, where the majority of mental health care is provided in the U.S.
Prolonged Exposure Reduces Dropout Rates and Symptoms for Individuals with Complex Trauma
New study finds that intensive prolonged exposure is a promising treatment option for individuals with multiple trauma experiences.
The Psychoanalytic Struggle Against the DSM
Let us go back to 1975: psychoanalytic psychiatry was then quasi-hegemonic, and psychopathological models were accepted and used by most practitioners; other behaviourist practices were of minor importance and psychoanalysts had learned to make use of the advances of pharmacology. And yet a shadow was already looming over the picture.
Publication Bias Inflates Perceived Efficacy of Depression Treatments, Study Finds
Researchers report the cumulative effects of major biases on the apparent efficacy of antidepressant and psychotherapy treatments.
Can Education Level Predict Prescription Drug Misuse in Young Adults?
A new study examines the extent to which patterns in prescription drug misuse and substance use disorder symptoms can be predicted by education level
Catching My Breath After A Panicked Journey
$24,000 later and no one knew what was wrong with me. They sent me home with a bag of pills. After being in the hospital, I developed a fear and mistrust of doctors. My general practitioner suggested antidepressants. More pills. It was all they could recommend. I wouldn’t take them. My anxiety worsened. I was obsessed with the idea that if I slept, I would die. So, I stayed awake as much as I could. For an entire year, this was how I lived.
Sociologist Questions Effectiveness and Ethics of Mental Health Services
Medical sociologist David Pilgrim argues that mental health care is neither effective nor “kindly,” as it often relies on flawed research and ineffective treatments.
Peer Support Reduces Chances of Psychiatric Readmission
A randomized control trial finds that receiving peer support from individuals with similar lived experiences reduces one’s risk of readmission to an acute crisis unit.
A Time For Rain: Teaching Our Children About Sadness
The only way out of the epidemic of feeling-people-turned-medicated-psychiatric-patients is to rebrand and reframe feeling as a cultural collective. And I believe it starts with our messaging as parents and our orientation toward shadow elements like anger and sadness. We have to model a conscious relationship to our own dark parts, and we have to show our children what it looks like to move through these spaces. Feelings can be messy, wild, and sometimes ugly to our constrained sensibilities.
Envisioning Psychiatric Drug Freedom
Psychiatric meds can shut down the emotions and consciousness enough to make it possible to tolerate dynamics that would inspire rage or surges of empowered activity without the meds. It can be helpful to look closely at these blocks and start to create a map to freedom, understanding that it is a complex process that involves not only the physiology of the body of the individual taking meds, but the architecture of the social system around that person.
Digital Media Use Linked to Increase in ADHD Symptoms
Increased frequency of digital media use can increase symptoms of ADHD among adolescents, study finds.
New Study Investigates Negative Side Effects of Therapy
Researchers find that nearly half of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) patients experience treatment side effects.
Study Shows Success With Reduced Antipsychotic Use
People who reduced antipsychotic use by tapering were doing just as well after five years as those who continued using the drugs.
Deadly Serious: Talking Openly About Suicide
The suicide crisis is real. The pain is real. The deaths are real. None of us can afford to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that this isn't happening. But the helplessness and confusion about what to do about it are also real. And that's why peer relationships and peer-developed modalities can be so helpful. Many of us have been there and are still alive to talk about it. We know what ways of relating gave us hope and helped us to continue on.
Lack of Efficacy for Current Physical Activity Interventions in Persons Diagnosed with Severe Mental...
Review finds a need for more rigorous research to increase physical activity in people diagnosed with a severe mental illness (SMI).
Valproate Linked to Decreased Brain Volume in Children Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder
Researchers find that valproate decreases brain volume in a region associated with emotion processing across all participants.
Suicidal Tendencies, Part III: So, When Do I Get to Call the Cops?
What if the key to saving someone is to admit you are powerless to save anyone at all? What would that beckon us to change? A few years ago, I spent a substantial amount of time talking with a man who entered my life because someone in the mental health system told him I might be the one who could save him (or at least, that’s how he heard it). His name was David.
Study Explores Pain Assessment for Medically Complex, Nonverbal Children
To what extent are healthcare providers equipped to assess nuance in the experiences of pain among nonverbal children?
Researchers Can’t Predict Whether Childhood ADHD Will Impact Adult Functioning
New research has found that a childhood ADHD diagnosis is not predictive of adult functioning in boys.
Screening Instruments Do Not Reflect Individual Experiences of Depression
Researchers detect discrepancies between the language used to describe lived experiences of mental health and the language used in modern screening tools.
