Anti-psychiatry is a loose social movement that first emerged in the 1960s in Europe and the US, and it began as an ideological response to the treatment of mental illness in asylums at the time. Those supporting the movement were concerned about the poor conditions of many of these asylums, as well as the abusive…
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In many discussions around psychedelics, there can be a tendency to focus on how these compounds alleviate various ills, rather than on what they can positively add to people’s lives. This speaks to a more general theme in the psychological field, where there is a preference for trying to resolve the negative and maladaptive aspects…
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One of the main reasons it’s often so difficult to talk about mental health is that we fear what others will think and say about us. This is mental health stigma. It is the negative attitudes and prejudices that society and the individual have about mental illness, as well as the guilt, shame and embarrassment…
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The placebo effect remains as the most bizarre aspect of modern medicine. The placebo effect occurs when a patient is led to believe that they are receiving a medically effective treatment, when in fact they are receiving none. The most influential studies investigating the placebo effect usually involve sugar pills or ‘dummy pills’, the purpose…
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You wouldn’t think that an antidepressant, a medication which is supposed to alleviate depression, would cause someone to want to end their life. However, since antidepressants have been on the market, we have seen a marked increase in self-harm, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and completed suicides associated with their use. This mostly applies to SSRIs…
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