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J ust about everyone believes that depressionthe #1 psychiatric diagnosisis explained in the same way as physical illnesses; that is, that depression, too, is of genetic/physiological origin. NIMH and psychiatrists have not always explained depression to be genetic (as “running in the family). Their efforts have failed.
1 The newly announced CNPV pathway was introduced by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, on June 17, 2025, and is intended to expedite reviews for medications that address US public health priorities. The CNPV program, introduced by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, aims to reduce review times to 1-2 months for eligible applications.
With convenience right at our fingertips, it seems paradoxical that, despite our relative prosperity, we suffer some of the highest rates of mental illness compared to any other part of the world, with more than 1 in 5 US adults living with mental illness.
It was written by David Hansen, a crisis worker at a person-centred, survivor-led mentalhealth crisis service. I have tasked myself with mapping out my understanding of how therapy and mentalhealth relate to politics. Mentalhealth is also political. Is therapy political? Is therapy political?
Research shows that children with intellectual developmental disorder have a higher incidence of mentalhealth problems than other kids, but they are less likely to be diagnosed and treated for them. Why are kids with IDD more at risk for mentalhealth disorders?
Understanding these hidden dynamics can facilitate reflection on psychiatric institutions and increase the awareness of the social and cultural factors embedded in mentalhealth assessment. It refers to the task that the participants are expected to perform: to gather the necessary information to evaluate a patients symptoms.
A fter years of work involving hundreds of people in dozens of countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have released their joint production, MentalHealth, Human Rights and Legislation: Guidance and Practice ( WHO/OHCHR , 2023, referred to as the Guidance.
.” —Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (1955) W ith the mainstream media finally reporting that “ depression is not caused by low levels of serotonin ,” many people ask me: Why does psychiatry repeatedly get it wrong when it comes to not only to its theories of mental illness but in so many other areas?
In the protocol for my study, I noted that the textbooks should mention that the causes of psychiatric disorders are mainly environmental, and not genetic or related to a visible brain abnormality. 20 It has three full pages describing imaging studies in depression, with many references. 695 This is sickening. 10:63 This is b t.
Mentalhealth is more than just brain chemistry, its deeply intertwined with your biology, lifestyle, and environment. Unlike conventional models that often focus on symptom management, functional psychiatry aims to uncover and address the root causes of mentalhealth challenges.
I know I’ve diagnosed myself with a rare genetic disease a time or two only to discover it’s just a gas. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are like a symptom checker for mentalhealth conditions. Or they present to a mentalhealth professional and insist on a particular diagnosis.
Major depressive disorder commonly referred to as depression, is a serious and common mentalhealth condition that affects millions of people globally. Depression can be caused by various factors, including genetics, life […]
Depression commonly refers to a mentalhealth disorder characterized by persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a loss of interest in activities that you once enjoyed. Depression can be caused by acombination of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors. 877.799.1985 What is Depression?
Mad in America has previously examined the problems with conflicts of interest in research but this time we extend that to look at the potential effect of COIs on diagnostic tools such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). We don’t see that in the mentalhealth field. Moore: Thank you so much.
A 101 on Epigenetics Reading Genes Genes play an important role in shaping a wide range of traits and characteristics, from hair and eye color to susceptibility to mentalhealth conditions. Yet, genetic influences are less fixed than one might think. Epigenetic alterations have been linked to numerous poor health outcomes.
From from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry : “Conduct disorder” refers to a group of repetitive and persistent behavioral and emotional problems in youngsters. They are often viewed by other children, adults and social agencies as “bad” or delinquent, rather than mentally ill.
Current research suggests a combination of brain changes, biochemical causes, genetic and environmental factors. An experienced clinician should be able to differentiate changes in thinking, feelings, and unusual behavior that could be due to a persons or their families cultural belief system versus changes caused by a mental illness.
At one time I thought that the FDA efficacy standard for psychiatric drug treatment of mentalhealth problems has a lower standard than for general medicine, but later in my review of health research I found that in many cases this was not true (as I will discuss in Chapter 6). The post Much of U.S.
Fischer Baum and Elliott discuss how a new model of brain function, the GANE model, helps explain why heightened physiological arousal makes it harder for some people to regulate their emotions, what norepinephrine does to hotspot brain regions, and what this means for mentalhealth treatments. That is great news.
This highly focused mental state is what Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow. This is why Csikszentmihalyi refers to mindfulness, being present, and acknowledging what is happening and what needs to be done. For example, a person may experience happiness through their accomplishments at work.
However, mental disorders are not concrete things that can be found with a brain scanner or treated with medication like a bacterial infection with antibiotics. Much has already been written about these points, for example in my book on mentalhealth and substance use (open access). In this sense, everything is somehow genetic.
Dr. Moncrieff is a psychiatrist who works in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. Moncrieff: When I was in medical school we were taught, as we’re still officially taught now, the biopsychosocial model of mental disorders. Whitaker: So now you go out and you’re in the asylum or mental hospital.
Studies in Australia and the United States followed individuals with subthreshold psychotic symptoms and functional decline, along with a genetic risk for schizophrenia, over time. The DSM-5 task force concluded that there was not enough evidence to justify incorporating APS as an official mental disorder diagnosis in Section II.
Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of MentalHealth (NIMH) from 2002-2015, acknowledged in 2011, “Whatever we’ve been doing for five decades, it ain’t working. adults now takes an antidepressant”; however, Time continued, “Mentalhealth is getting worse by multiple metrics. As of late 2022, just 31% of U.S.
Within this, some parts of the neurodiversity movement take an uncritical or neutral perspective on the validity of psychiatric diagnoses such as—but not limited to—ASD and ADHD, backed up by unsubstantiated claims about biological and genetic causal factors. Instead, it describes a specific ‘neurominority’ , a particular kind of person.
As a Professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard University’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Kleinman has profoundly influenced how medical professionals understand the interplay between culture, illness, and healing. Listen to the audio of the interview here.
Two questionnaires were administered at baseline one to look at psychosocial determinants and risk factors for mental illness and the other for substance use history. In their references, the authors have 12 case reports or series of cannabis induced psychosis dating back to 1972. It all started for me with reference 1.
But the focus on genetics doesnt tell the whole story. While there may be some genetic component, a growing body of research suggests that epigeneticsthe study of how experience can alter gene expressionmay provide an even more nuanced understanding of how traditions of distress are inherited.
659 They referred to drug-induced dopamine supersensitivity as a likely reason for this difference in outcomes. 668 A WHO study of 640 depressed patients found that those treated with medication had worse general health and were more likely to still be mentally ill than those who weren’t treated at the end of one year.
My views, which are based partly on my experience as a clinical psychologist/neuropsychologist and my 22-year career managing behavioral healthcare for large national employer health plans, are not those of most physicians or the vast majority of the media and general public. The MD degree is a medical practitioner degree, and a Ph.D. (as
In the twenty-first century, there has been no higher-level psychiatrist then Thomas Insel , director of the National Institute of MentalHealth (NIMH) from 2002-2015. and devoted much time to the problem of mental illness.” Some doctors,” Greenstone notes, “referred to his practices as ‘murderous.’”
Her second book, which we will be discussing today, Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America , explores the lives of the four women behind the National Institute of MentalHealth’s famous case study of schizophrenia. He sets out to study the genetics of schizophrenia, through twins.
Another paper confirmed that, like the public but unlike most psychiatrists, the majority of people who are prescribed antipsychotics have psycho-social rather than bio-genetic causal explanations for their difficulties 11. Perhaps they have personally had a bad experience with mentalhealth services but not with this particular treatment?
A Brief Group Social-Belonging Intervention to Improve Mental-Health and Academic Outcomes in BIPOC and First-Generation-to-College Students Erin S. Understanding Ethnoracial Disparities and Advancing MentalHealth Equity Through Clinical Psychological Science: Introduction to Special Issue P. Pritchard, Jennifer L.
R ay Moynihan is an accomplished health journalist and author who has won several awards for his work. This applies in the mental illness world and everywhere in medicine. It’s about framing human misery as the signs of mental illness, framing aging as a condition of disease. I started writing books.
Premise In our information we always emphasize that psychotropic drugs do not have a specific action on mental problems or psychopathology, but only on their symptoms. Essentially, the development of this hypersensitivity can cause abnormal reactions when the same drug or a different drug is reintroduced.
Moore: We’re here to talk about some of your experiences of the mentalhealth system and polypharmacy, experiences which are beautifully captured in your book, May Cause Side Effects , published by Central Recovery Press in 2022. Thank you so much for joining me today for the Mad In America podcast. Everything is so reactive.
Today's Content Level: Beginner, Intermediate Introduction and Key Definitions 1 , 2 Various terms have been used over the years to refer to drug abuse: Substance use : The consumption of psychoactive substances. Genetics , environmental influences , mentalhealth comorbidities , and early exposure contribute to vulnerability.
2 Or you are told you have a lack of insight into your disease, which is a symptom of your mental illness, a catch-22 situation from which there is no escape. In 2014, the Danish Ministry of Health issued a licence to kill. 11,12 References 1 Collin S, Rowse G, Martinez AP, et al. Joseph Biederman was an example of grandiosity.
Similar results were found in a 2024 systematic review of 55 studies investigating the role of pubertal hormones on mentalhealth conditions. The review concluded that most of the studies that exist on hormones and mentalhealth outcomes were at high risk for bias and involved many confounding factors. J Health Soc Behav.
For more information regarding the three types of ADHD, and the primary symptoms of each one, please refer to the previous article in this series. Factors that may affect the development of ADHD can be: The mix of genetics that makes the development of ADHD likely can certainlyrun in a family. It is treatable and manageable.
Genetic predisposition, a history of trauma, mentalhealth disorders, and even the accessibility of opioids all contribute to an individuals vulnerability to addiction. Sleep Disturbances: Insomnia, restless sleep, and vivid dreams are common, further adding to the physical and mental strain. What is Opioid Detox Like?
As an example, the Danish Board of Health has warned that adding a benzodiazepine to a neuroleptic increases mortality by 50-65%. Genetic association studies have come up empty-handed and so have brain imaging studies, which are generally highly flawed. References 1 Gøtzsche PC. of patients treated for one year. 2 Gøtzsche PC.
The truth is that, in our “diagnostic culture,” all these behaviors and emotions will be translated as symptoms of some mental disorder classified in the DSM. Fear of returning to a place where they give you medication and channel you back to mentally ill normality.”
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