Coffee addicts of the world, brace yourself for validation: new research from Harvard (so you know it's smart) indicates that coffee doesn't just prevent you from acting like a c-word to your coworkers. It might actually prevent suicide. And here you thought "I'd DIE without my coffee!" was just hyperbole.
It's been two months since 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed six female teachers and 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut before turning the gun on himself. Some of us (including Obama) often forget to mention his 27th victim: Nancy, his mother.
In light of last Friday's tragic school shooting, some people are arguing that gun control is just a band-aid, and that access to mental health services in this country is the real problem. But the thing is, if I cut myself, I'm not going to say, "No, no band-aid for me, thanks! It won't heal the wound completely on…
A recent study by the Department of Psychology at the University of Westminster in London has found that depression, though significantly more common in women, is much more difficult to recognize in men. Researchers presented a sample group (1,218 UK adults) with the following vignette that, in non clinical terms,…
As medical technology has gotten amazingly advanced, and we've gained more and more control over how and when babies are born, we tend to think that as long as you're not extremely premature, it doesn't really matter exactly how long a baby cooks in its mother's womb. Well, think again. Two new studies have found that…
In the US and other developed countries, suicide is usually associated with mental illness. But in China and India, often the only affliction affecting female suicide victims is a bad, no-way-out marriage. Can divorce literally save these women's lives?
As anyone who's experienced bipolar disorder in their own brain (or been close to a bipolar person) can attest, it's not all magnificent highs and crushing lows as depicted on television dramas, and treatment is never as simple as one noble, weepy trip to the hospital and back. In fact, many (most?) bipolar people…
As sex addiction becomes fodder for TV scripts and philandering athlete excuses, doctors and researchers are turning their eyes to its study. Specifically, is sex addiction even a real thing? Can women be sex addicts? Why do women become addicted to sex? And, most importantly, is it just another term for "being super…
How many times have you looked at a kid meticulously lining up a series of blocks, or refusing to eat anything green on their plate, or carefully putting on their socks in just the right way (because, duh, otherwise the seams press into their toes!) and thought, "Man, that kid is going to be totally OCD when she…
More college students than ever are asking for special academic accommodations for their mental health issues. But experts are divided on the best way to help them.
If you've been treating your mood disorder with antidepressants but haven't experienced much relief, doctors may have found a solution: A psychiatric illness isn't the root of your problem. For some people issues like depression and anxiety may actually be caused by thyroid imbalances so slight that doctors may not…
On last night's episode of Hoarders, we met a man named Kevin, whose dense hoard is so crammed into his apartment that he cannot live there. He sleeps on a bench outside of the building and washes himself using a hose on the street. When he needs to enter the apartment, he climbs up the fire escape and crawls…
One of the first studies to look at child marriage and mental health has found that American women who married before age 18 are at increased risk of psychological problems.
We all know that childhood abuse has devastating lifelong effects, but today there's even more bad news. Not only are people who were abused as children twice as likely to suffer from depression as adults, they're also less likely to respond well to psychological and drug-based treatments for the condition.
In news that can only be called depressing, a new study suggests that depressed women have an elevated risk of stroke. And women who take antidepressants apparently have an even higher risk.
When University of Iowa grad student Rebecca reported her rape, Asst. County Attorney Anne Lahey declined to prosecute. It’s not completely clear why, but we’ll consider a couple of possibilities. [jump]
When University of Iowa graduate student Rebecca reported to police that she’d been date-raped, she hoped she’d get justice. But because of the circumstances of her case — possibly including her bipolar disorder — that’s not what happened. [jump]
In a new book called "The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia became a Black Disease," psychiatrist and cultural critic Jonathan Metzl draws on a variety of sources — patient records, psychiatric studies, racialized drug advertisements, and popular metaphors for madness — to contend that schizophrenia transformed…
Cognitive therapists have long spoken of the negative thoughts associated with depression as "distortions." But it turns out something else may be distorted in depressed people — their memories.
With recent revelations of mental illness by Catherine Zeta-Jones and Demi Lovato making the rounds through mainstream media (including Michael Douglas's recent sit-down with Oprah), bipolar disorder is experiencing a moment in the spotlight. Top that off with Charlie Sheen's ambiguously energetic "I'm Not Bipolar"…
