Health and social workers often choose their profession because they want to help people. But seeing trauma and suffering on a regular basis can have a deep impact on these workers. “Compassion fatigue…
In an attempt to move away from the traditional language used to describe psychosis and schizophrenia, the British Psychological Society (BPS) has launched an update to its thinking on this issue. The…
Physician attitudes towards mental illness can reflect the general public’s prejudice.
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Mental illness is a major public health problem in the United States. Suicide alone takes the lives of 38,000 Americans each year, more than double that from homicide. Medical and surgical patients who…
Triggers don’t only come on guns.
Soldier by Shutterstock
During World War I, severe post-traumatic reactions reached an epidemic scale that surpassed anything known from previous armed conflicts. The centenary of the Great War has reminded us of the tremendous…
Too stringent an approach to assisted dying risks locking people with mental illness out of the right to make decisions about the end of their lives.
Thomas Hawk/Flickr
Euthanasia advocates often assert a distinction between dying with dignity (good) and suicide (bad), drawing on the community’s twin commitment to both permitting euthanasia in some circumstances, and…
When you have such a big stage, use it well.
Rocor
On a recent Halloween special of the X Factor, contestant Lola Saunders sang Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. When the song came under fire from Simon Cowell for not being Halloween enough, Saunders’ mentor, Cheryl…
Sharon Stone, in Basic Instinct, dramatised the catastrophic actions of a clever yet unhinged woman.
EPA/ Peter Foley
Mental illness and women’s sexuality are frequently aligned – on screen and off. The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, pathologised women’s sexuality. Indeed his definition of a woman as someone…
Positive portrayals of people with mental illness exist in the media but these are the exception rather than the norm.
Network Ten
When Homeland first aired in 2011 starring a CIA agent with bipolar disorder, Carrie Mathison (played by Claire Danes), it was commended for its realistic portrayals of people with mental illness. Courtney…
People with complex trauma appear like they are always anticipating or responding to a threat.
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Experiencing trauma has significant implications for mental health. We’ve known this for some time but particularly since the early 1970s after observing and studying the effects of war on American servicemen…
The announcement by Dinesh Bhugra, president of the World Psychiatric Association, that an independent commission will investigate what psychiatrists of the future will look like signals what all mental…
Depression is a major, if not the major, cause of suicide. Every year, almost one million people die from suicide around the world. Depression is often seen as a disorder of the developed world; mental…
Introverted and A-type? We’re not that easily categorised.
Ivana Vasilj/Flickr
The idea that people can be classified into types has a long history. Writing 23 centuries ago, the Greek philosopher Theophrastus sketched 30 characters that are instantly recognisable to this day. They…
Therapy helps patients gradually confront situations, places and activities they’ve avoided since the traumatic event.
Bill Strain/Flickr
While human beings have always known about the mental health effects of trauma, it was only in 1980 that the term post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, was coined. This acceptance spawned an explosion…
People who attribute mental illness to brain disease or genes tend to blame affected people less, but see them as more hopeless and dangerous.
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Depression, schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions are increasingly linked to abnormalities in the brain and in our genes. Many professionals believe these developments hold the key to better treatments…
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety-related mental condition that affects 1-2% of the population. It is severely debilitating and can strike anyone regardless of age, gender and cultural…
Past failures cannot detract from the significance of documenting current abuses of children
Stephen Mitchell
The 1,000-plus children currently detained in immigration detention facilities in Australia and Nauru are at risk of serious mental health and developmental problems. The Human Rights Commission this week…
Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, who starred in Silver Linings Playbook.
Warren Toda/EPA
It is a basic tenet of mainstream filmmaking that you want the audience to identify with your protagonist: to go on an emotional journey with them, to empathise with them. What, then, are the particular…
Teen mental health problems are not a ‘life sentence’.
Image from shutterstock.com
Around half of teens who experience a brief episode of depression or anxiety do not go on to have a mental illness in adulthood, according to a study from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Half…
Excess dopamine activity is not the only neurological change seen in patients with schizophrenia.
Image from shutterstock.com
The landscape of pharmaceutical development for mental disorders has changed over recent years, with pharma companies abandoning traditional neuroscience drug discovery programs and turning instead to…