Tag: mental illness

Mental Health Professionals Affected by personal experience in their council

A new study highlights how mental health professionals’ lived experiences influence their perspectives on mental health. The study, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, investigates how clinicians’ first-person experiences of depression and their perceptions of their own susceptibility to mental health concerns affect their viewpoints on causes of depression, the connection between depression and burnout, and mental health issues in general.

Researchers found that previous experiences of depression and perceived vulnerability influenced whether clinicians viewed depression as caused by biological or social and psychological factors, as well as whether they viewed depression and burnout as connected or as separate concepts.

The inspiration for the current study was motivated by the significant number of clinicians who have lived experience of struggles with mental health. The researchers, led by Angel Ponew of the Medical University Brandenburg Theodor Fontane in Neuruppin, Germany, write:

“. . . a German study (EKB study) found that over 80% of a self-selected sample of mental health professionals stated to have experienced mental crisis including mental disorders.”

Lived Experience Affects Mental Health Professionals’ Approach

www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/lived-experience-affects-mental-health-professionals-approach/

ECT does not prevent Suicide- Mad in America

A new study challenges the notion that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) can prevent suicide. The researchers found that after receiving ECT, patients were still almost 45 times more likely to die by suicide than people in the general population.

“The 2-year suicide risk of patients having received treatment with ECT is highly elevated compared with sex- and age-matched individuals from the general population,” the researchers write.

However, they add, this extremely high rate of suicide after a treatment that is supposedly very effective for suicide prevention is “to be expected considering the severity of the mental disorders treated with ECT.” Despite this conclusion, the researchers did not actually obtain any data about the severity of the mental health symptoms of the patients in the current study.

Another important finding was that the risk of dying by suicide was especially elevated for people who were already suicidal—the target demographic for ECT. The researchers note that people who had a history of suicide attempts or self-harm were more than four times as likely to die by suicide than those who received ECT without that history. This indicates that ECT does not have a special suicide prevention effect for the people most at risk, either.

ECT is a controversial procedure that involves electrocuting the brain to induce seizures deliberately. There is no consensus on how this might reduce mental health problems. The procedure results in adverse cognitive effects that can last for months or even years, including persistent memory loss in over a third of patients.

ECT Does Not Seem to Prevent Suicide

www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/ect-does-not-seem-to-prevent-suicide/

Think About it -Mad in America

We’re Obsessed with Labelling Suffering, But Our Power to Think about it Matters More

By Charlotte Beale

A psychiatrist once told me my depression was partly due to low blood sugar. In retrospect, I needed Kierkegaard and Freud; she prescribed cereal bars. My despair, to her, was an imbalance to be corrected, rather than a relationship with the world—a relationship explored in a rich and serious literature, from philosophy to novels, and a relationship which meant I was alive, excruciatingly so.www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/obsessed-labelling-suffering/

Psychodynamic Therapy Study / Effective – Mad in America

An article recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders finds that mounting research evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (STPP) in the treatment of depression.

Using meta-analytic methods – or the analysis of results of multiple previous studies – European psychiatrists led by Ivano Castelli found STPP to be more effective in reducing depressive symptoms than unstructured treatment and supportive therapy. In addition, the researchers found Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and STPP to be similarly effective and did not see increased improvement in patients who combined STPP with antidepressants. The authors write:

“The findings could provide significant data for updating APA guidelines for treating depression. In fact, STPP can be a useful ground for the treatment of patients with mild depression or who do not assume pharmacological therapy or in case of no benefits from cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy.”

Psychodynamic Therapy Effective for Depressive Symptoms, Study Finds

www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/psychodynamic-therapy-effective-for-depressive-symptoms-study-finds/

Move on

One of the lesser discussed outcomes of toxic relationships is how narcissists are often successful at convincing your friends and family that YOU are the dysfunctional, toxic one. Sometimes, they can even turn them against you.

So then, not only do you have to cope with the painful smear campaign, but you are also faced with the fact that your friends and family who sided with the narcissist have betrayed you, as well.

These are not your people. Maybe they never were.

Anyone who knows you – authentically – should not side with the person who is trying to tear your life down.

Sure, narcissists are exceptionally skilled at pretending they’re just regular people trying to live their lives, but these people knew you long before the narcissist came along…yet, here they are, siding with them.

If someone doesn’t know you well enough to know the narcissist’s accusations are false, then did they ever really know you?

I find that life is too short to change people’s minds about things. If flying monkeys and enablers want to believe the narcissist’s stories, then they have their own path to travel. It’s not our job to make them see the light.

Along my own journey, I stopped wasting my precious time and energy trying to correct the narrative or defend myself against accusations and the people who wanted to believe them. Let them find out the truth like you did (IF they ever do).

Some people love to eat up drama like a tasty snack.

Some people want to think they found dirt on you.

Some people want to get into the narcissist’s good graces for their own reasons.

And some people are just too naïve and gullible.

None of these people belong in your circle OR your tribe.

These are lost people who need to find their own way or remain unwoke. It’s not your job, and it’s not your project.

Save your precious time and energy for other, more important things…like getting through the smear campaign with the people who are truly on your side.

And if you have no one, get a dog, a cat, or a goldfish. Our tribe can be anyone or any creature who will have our back.

🔥 Grab your free Beginner’s Healing Toolkit for backup:

https://bit.ly/BeginnersRoadmap

#selfhealers

Mad in America- Rights Get Stomped on – Mine Were

“Psychiatric practice is too often violating human rights, too often incapable of understanding the suffering of people.”

www.madinamerica.com/2023/01/oaks-interviews-benedetto-saraceno/