Mental Health

International News

Not all mental health apps are helpful. Experts explain the risks, and how to choose one wisely (Aug, The Conversation)

To chat or bot to chat: Ethical issues with using chatbots in mental health (Jun, Digital Health)

Decolonising global mental health: the role of Mad Studies (May, Global Mental Health) See also discussion on the Debrief.

The Drawbacks and Downsides of Online Therapy

“In the past year, a flurry of reports have found that some of the most recognizable names in the industry have repeatedly engaged in creepy and harmful data-sharing practices that treat people in need of help as prospective sources of profit instead of as patients. Taken together, the reports reveal a dangerous cocktail of tech solutionism, abuse of consumer trust, and regulatory failure that puts highly vulnerable people at risk.” (Apr, Business Insider)

Reprioritising global mental health: psychoses in sub-Saharan Africa. “Our findings point to the need not only for more research on psychoses in sub-Saharan Africa, but also for more representation and leadership in the conduct of research and in international priority-setting more broadly—especially by people with lived experience from diverse backgrounds.” (Mar, International Journal of Mental Health Systems.)

Anxiety and Depression Signs Among Adolescents in 26 Low- and Middle-Income Countries: “Compared to adolescents without functional difficulties, those with difficulties in one or more domains were three times more likely to have signs of depression and anxiety.” (Jan, Journal of Adolescent Health)

Controversy erupts over non-consensual AI mental health experiment. “Koko let 4,000 people get therapeutic help from GPT-3 without telling them first.” (Jan, Ars Technica)

BasicNeeds Network Launch: bringing together 100+ years of mental health implementation experience. (Jan, CBM UK)

The Virtual Asylum Replacing Mental Healthcare (2022, Tech Policy Press)

An issue on Mental Health & Climate Justice including research on women with psychosocial disabilities in intersecting disasters and climate change. (2022, Mariwala Health Initiative Journal)

IASC Guidance, Addressing Suicide in Humanitarian Settings. (2022, IASC)

Mental Health Apps Are Not Keeping Your Data Safe “With little regulation and sometimes outright deception, the possibility of discrimination and other “data harms” is high” (2022, Scientific American)

The future of mental health care might lie beyond psychiatry: “Poor countries are developing a new paradigm of mental health care.” (2022, Vox)

How climate change affects mental health highlighting dimensions of concern. (2022, Wellcome)

Launch of the report of the Lancet Commission On Ending Stigma and Discrimination in Mental Health. (2022, United for Global Mental Health)

Guidelines on mental health at work: “evidence-based recommendations to promote mental health, prevent mental health conditions, and enable people living with mental health conditions to participate and thrive in work.” (2022, WHO)

The story of depression and how we treat it a review of A Cure for Darkness, a new book which “takes a more global and socioeconomically inclusive approach to studying depression”. (2022, Africa is a Country)

World Mental Health Report “Stigma, discrimination and human rights violations against people with mental health conditions are widespread in communities and care systems everywhere. And in all countries, it is the poorest and most disadvantaged in society who are at greater risk of mental ill-health and who are also the least likely to receive adequate services.” (2022, WHO)

Hope, empowerment, action: a new series dedicated to suicide prevention:

“To begin with, we need to abandon the myth that every suicide is the outcome of 'mental illness'. And we must reckon with the deep socioeconomic factors that make suicide one of the biggest public health challenges of our time.” (2022, Sanity by Tanmoy)

Mental Health Apps Like BetterHelp Are a Privacy Nightmare, Mozilla Says. (2022, Gizmodo)

COVID-19 pandemic triggers 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide (2022, WHO)

A briefing on Financing Mental Health For All as part of universal healthcare: “the opportunity for once-in-a-generation change”. (2022, United for Global Mental Health)

Entry points for mental health and wellbeing a brief on how international cooperation can incorporate mental health. (2022, Bond)

Mental health support for children and adolescents with hearing loss scoping review (2022, BJPsych)

Digital Futures in Mind Reflecting on Technological Experiments in Mental Health & Crisis Support:

The “paradigm of advocating for and developing algorithmic mental health tools has in turn exacerbated harms done to those in crisis, by not recognising either the particularities of their circumstances, or the systemic stigma these systems can reinforce. In this report, the authors present an alternative framework in which every step of the design, training, implementation and regulation of algorithmic healthcare systems would be done with the direct involvement of people who know the worst things that these systems can do, because they’ve lived it.” (link to pdf, 2022)

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Latin America and the Caribbean

Towards Mad Justice and Reparation (In Spanish, Jun, RedEsfera)

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Ghana

Chaining People with Mental Health Conditions Persists Visits to prayer camps and healing centers see “people were chained or confined in small cages, in some cases for more than seven months.” (2022, Human Rights Watch)

A policy brief on addressing mental health needs of deaf people (2022, Ghana National Association of the Deaf)

Mental Health Quarters is a youtube channel on mental health advocacy. (2022)

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Kenya

Alienation in three parts: mental health in Kenyan women activists (2022, ROAPE)

Kenya Mental Health Investment Case 2021 Providing Evidence for the Long-Term Health, Social and Economic Benefits of Investment in Mental Health.

“Kenya has a standalone mental health policy, and efforts to review the outdated mental health act are on-going. [But] Mental health services are scarce and inaccessible, the mental health workforce is limited, and budgetary allocation to mental health is inadequate.” (2022, Ministry of Health)

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Somalia

A new plan to tackle trauma in Somalia after 30 years of ‘shared distress’ (Feb, The New Humanitarian)

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South Africa

Large mental health study finds 20-30% of students at risk (2022, Mail and Guardian)

A retrospective study exploring how South African newspapers framed Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders over an 11-year period (2004–2014). (2022, BMC Psychiatry)

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Afghanistan

Kabul’s Mental Health Crisis Spirals Out of Control “The Taliban-led government has little expertise in dealing with long-standing issues in psychological treatment”. (Apr, New Lines Magazine)

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China

For people with mental health conditions finding work remains a challenge. (2022, Sixth Tone)

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India

Laws, Health Policy Fail To Stem India’s Tsunami Of Mental Health, As Stress Claims Victims, Cuts Productivity. (May, Article 14)

‘A lifeline’: mental health camps bring peace of mind to thousands in rural Assam. (Jan, the Guardian)

Mental justice: Addressing the mental health of de-notified tribes. (Jan, IDR)

The Long-Run Effects of Psychotherapy on Depression, Beliefs and Economic Outcomes:

“We revisit two clinical trials that randomized depressed adults in India (n=775) to a brief course of psychotherapy or a control condition. Four to five years later, the treatment group was 11 percentage points less likely to be depressed than the control group. The more effective intervention averted 9 months of depression on average over five years and cost only $66 per recipient.” (link to pdf, 2022, Bhat et al)

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Jordan

‘Amman is a prison’: Rise in suicides highlights mental health crisis in Jordan: ‘Instead of addressing the structural problems, the government is trying to punish and repress the symptoms of the crisis.’ (2022, The New Humanitarian)

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Europe

Mental health of people with intellectual disabilities and family members: “Mental health and intellectual disabilities diagnoses are being used to deprive people of their right to decide about their lives.” (Feb, Inclusion Europe)

Joint statement welcoming the suspension of the adoption of the draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention (2022, EDF) See more from Human Rights Watch.

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Belgium

A Radical Experiment in Mental Health Care, Tested Over Centuries. “In the Belgian town of Geel, families have long taken in people with psychiatric conditions. Could this approach work elsewhere?” (Apr, New York Times)

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Denmark

“Mental health is declining in Denmark” and the plan to tackle the inefficiencies in the mental healthcare system through the next ten years. (2022, Unbias the News)

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Finland

Vastaamo hacking suspect arrested in France. “French police arrested a suspect Friday who is allegedly connected to the notorious cyber attack against Finnish psychotherapy center Vastaamo in 2018.” (Feb, TechTarget)

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Russia

Tedtalk on How to alter the perception of mental health care in Russia “During the Soviet Union era, therapy was often used as a tool of political oppression. Since then, Russia has seen major reforms in mental health care -- but stigmas and distrust for the practice still live on.” (2022, TED)

Mental Health Crisis Looms in Russia as Sanctions Fuel Drug Shortages, Job Losses (2022, The Moscow Times)

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United Kingdom

A toolkit to support understanding and supporting mental health in infancy and early childhood. (Apr, UNICEF)

Autistic people are six times more likely to attempt suicide – poor mental health support may be to blame (2022, The Conversation)

The Guardian view on mental health privatisation: unsafe spaces. “Businesses that fail patients while making profit margins of 15%-20% are no substitute for investment in the NHS” (2022, the Guardian)

A critique of digital mental health via assessing the psychodigitalisation of the COVID-19 crisis (2022, Psychotherapy and Politics International)

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United States

Why addiction should be classified as a disability. “How Treating Addiction as a Disability Could Transform Treatment” (Feb, Slate)

Advocates Fear The Impact Of NYC’s Involuntary Hospitalization Plan. (2022, Huffington Post) See also an extended take on the push to expand involuntary treatment (Mad in America).

Doctors Gave Her Antipsychotics. She Decided to Live With Her Voices: “A new movement wants to shift mainstream thinking away from medication and toward greater acceptance.” (2022, New York Times)

This Teen Shared Her Troubles With a Robot. Could AI ‘Chatbots’ Solve the Youth Mental Health Crisis? “The pandemic hit and this technology basically skyrocketed. Everywhere I turn now there’s a new chatbot promising to deliver new things,” (2022, 74 Million)

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Australia

In mental health units, women are drugged up, dehydrated and retraumatised. “Some say they're leaving facilities in a worse condition than when they arrived, having reported sexual assault or discrimination. Many report being administered high dosages of medication without any support on release, while some say they were even denied adequate water.” (Jul, ABC News)

People living inside our mental health system must not be left outside its reform. “For too long, people with lived experience of mental health have been excluded from policy discussions,” (Jan, Independent Australia)

As Australia’s human rights record comes under scrutiny, here is a missing piece in mental health reforms. (Jan, Croakey Health Media)

Mental distress is much worse for people with disabilities, and many health professionals don't know how to help.

“Someone may present to a disability-specific health service, and be turned away due to a co-occuring mental health difficulty. They might then present to a mental health service and be turned away due to having a disability.” (2022, the Conversation)

More than 1,200 people are detained indefinitely with no criminal conviction. “People detained indefinitely without conviction are most commonly those who are found unfit to plead after being charged with a criminal offence, or who are found not guilty because of a mental impairment.” See more in how advocates have responded. (2022, the Guardian)

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New Zealand

Unaffordable home heating increases risk of severe mental distress. (Mar, PHCC)

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