Epigenetics, nutritional psychiatry, trauma, treating psychosis, patient empowerment, and addiction: these topics were heavily trending in the mental health field this year. We put together a list of our most popular links and posts that we shared on social media this year and that others have shared with us.
Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry.
Psychiatry is at an important juncture, with the current pharmacologically focused model having achieved modest benefits in addressing the burden of poor mental health worldwide. Although the determinants of mental health are complex, the emerging and compelling evidence for nutrition as a crucial factor in the high prevalence and incidence of mental disorders suggests that diet is as important to psychiatry as it is to cardiology, endocrinology, and gastroenterology.
Under the Korowai: new approaches to Māori mental health
Under The Korowai is an 11-minute documentary that looks at Te Whare Marie, a kaupapa Māori mental service provider that is combining tohunga-led cultural therapy and clinical methods to help young Māori understand, rather than fear, their gifts.
Gabor Mate: The Cost of Ignoring Our Bio/Psycho/Social and Spiritual Needs
A short clip with Gabor Mate, MD from the much longer documentary, Crazywise. From their website: Crazy…or wise? The traditional wisdom of indigenous cultures often contradicts modern views about a mental health crisis. Is it a ‘calling’ to grow or just a ‘broken brain’? The documentary CRAZYWISE explores what can be learned from people around the world who have turned their psychological crisis into a positive transformative experience.
Claire Wineland: When You Pity the Sick You Disempower Them
Late Cystic fibrosis activist, Claire Wineland, reveals the most important lesson she learned while living her life in a hospital room. Her powerful speech urges you to transform the way you think to live the life you never thought you deserved.
America’s Crime Problems Being Fed by a Broken Mental Health System
Written by John Snook, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, based in Arlington, Virginia. The 20-year-old Center is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating legal and other barriers to the effective treatment of severe mental illness. The organization promotes laws, policies and practices for the delivery of psychiatric care, and supports treatment and research into the causes of severe and persistent psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Can We Really Inherit Trauma?
Written by NYT journalist, Benedict Carey. Headlines suggest that the epigenetic marks of trauma can be passed from one generation to the next. But the evidence, at least in humans, is circumstantial at best.
What’s Life Like After Depression? Surprisingly, Little is Known
Another great article from Carey. Most research on depression focuses on the afflicted, a new paper argues, overlooking a potentially informative group: people who have recovered.
The Loneliest Generation: Americans, More Than Ever, Are Aging Alone
Loneliness undermines health and is linked to early mortality—and baby boomers are especially feeling the effects.
Report: World Support For Mental Health Care Is ‘Pitifully Small’
The world is ignoring millions of suffering people.
That neglect is reflected in “pitifully small” levels of financial support from governments and assistance groups for research and patient care, say the 28 mental health researchers, clinicians and advocates from across five continents who authored the report. And there are far-reaching economic as well as psychological consequences, the report notes: Untreated patients are often unable to support themselves, and sometimes their caretakers can’t work as well.
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