Mental illness

Trapped: Mental Illness in America's Prisons

Photographer Jenn Ackerman has created a stunning and extensive video essay on Kentucky's correctional facility unit for prisoners with mental illness, interviewing the inmates, staff and clinicians who form part of America's biggest provider of residential psychiatry - the prison system. Of course, the prisons were never designed to be providers of mental health care, but as a recent Time article noted, they have become the default treatment facility for the many people who fall through the cra...

Once Again, I Appear to be a Big Pharma Ho

I think I'll stop speaking to reporters about Seroquel and AstraZeneca because, though I talked at length to journalist Andrew Eder about AZ being unethical, he was only able to include this in his article in the Delaware News Journal: There's no question that Seroquel has been a vital treatment for many mentally ill patients. Liz Spikol, an [executive editor] at Philadelphia Weekly, has taken Seroquel for about 10 years as part of a treatment regimen for bipolar disorder. She said she has seen...

The death of Riccardo Rasman

No comment The Rasman trial will take place in October in Trieste. The blog will follow the main hearings. ”The police officers came here at two thirty in the morning. They told us that Ricky was dead, that they had taken him to the mortuary in via Costalunga. We asked what had happened. They told us that he had thrown firecrackers and damaged the ear drums of a girl who lost blood. They had called the Fire service, they broke down the door of Ricky’s one room apartment and that Ricky collaps...

Detecting suicidal intent in the unconscious mind

The Situationist has just alerted me to a fantastic article in the Boston Globe on the development a cognitive test for suicidal thoughts that doesn't rely solely on the conscious mind. The test is a variant of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) that has been used to look at our automatic associations between different concepts, based on how quickly we can categorise them. We've discussed in it more detail previously but it essentially relies on the fact that if you have an pre-existing associa...

Hundreds of new psych medications in pipeline

There are a record 301 new medicines being developed for mental illnesses, according to a new report released in New Orleans, Louisiana during a briefing that focused on the devastating effects that mental illnesses have on patients, their families, and society. In Louisiana, rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide have increased since hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Mental disorders after a natural disaster usually decrease with time, ...

Study to test two drug approach to depression treatment

Hoping to answer a question raised by the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have designed the Combining Medication to Enhance Outcomes of Depression (CO-MED) trial to test multiple-medication treatment of depression. "We are trying two active, Food and Drug Administration-marketed antidepressant medicines available by prescription from your local drugstore," said Dr John Rush, professor of clinical sciences and psych...

Depression and culture

The expectation that East-Asian people emphasize physical symptoms of depression (e.g. headaches, poor appetite or aches/pains in the body) is widely acknowledged, yet the few available empirical studies report mixed data on this issue. A new study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) debunks this cultural myth, and offers clinicians valuable insight to into cultural context when assessing a patient, leading to more accurate diagnosis. Lead by CAMH Clinical Research Director Dr...

London Goes Mad for Pride

Here's a piece that ran in yesterday's London Times (yum!) about mad pride and the upcoming Bonkersfest. It takes its starting point from the New York Times piece. Bonkersfest Laurel Ives For the most part, Liz Spikol’s videos on YouTube come across as light-hearted and quirky. In one, she pinches her chin to demonstrate her weight gain; in another, she muses on what it meant for her relationship when she lost her libido. Yet Spikol, 40, executive editor and columnist of Philadelphia Weekly, ...

Bonkersfest! strikes this Saturday

Bonkersfest! South East London's fantastic festival of mirth and madness, kicks off this Saturday with its biggest ever event. It's also finally getting the recognition it deserves with a fantastic article in The Times and another in the New Statesman covering the upcoming celebrations. In fact, it was also recently name dropped in a Guardian article and a story in The New York Times, although I can proudly say that we covered the mayhem back when it first started in 2006, when it was launched b...

Liz Spikol Continues To Take Over Media

PW executive editor/blogger/all-around cool gal Liz Spikol hasn't stopped her quest for world domination at the New York Times. She's headed across the pond as well. Yesterday, Liz's first name was the fifth word in a piece about the increased acceptance of mental illness in The Sunday Times. There's also apparently something called "Bonkersfest," which features "a moving padded cell, a de-normalisation programme, and performance art by Bobby Baker featuring seven adults dressed as frozen peas....