🤩 A season to remember!

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Spicy Take: the DSM is often merely a cluster of symptoms named with a thesaurus. Describing a cluster of behaviours in Greek doesn't explain it. Naming is not understanding. We've confused the two for fifty years and called it progress.

This is before even mentioning the intermittent reinforcement schedules that social media sites utilise knowingly and make them highly addictive. Many adults don’t stand much of a chance, so where does that leave children and adolescents?

What next for big tech after landmark social media addiction verdict? The ruling could be the beginning of the end of social media as we know it, writes the BBC's technology editor Zoe Kleinman.

As Johann Hari mentions in his book ‘Stolen Focus’, theres a reason facebook doesnt have a feature that lets you know if your friends are nearby and happy to meet up…less scrolling time and therefore advertising revenue! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Photo of text that says: The celebrated child psychology research known as the “marshmallow experiments” suggests that it’s a great asset to have the kind of self-discipline that enables you to defer the gratification of a single marshmallow in order to receive an additional marshmallow, later on. But life offers no prizes for being so good at deferring gratification that you accumulate a thousand uneaten marshmallows, then drop dead. At some point, you’re going to have to eat a marshmallow.

Important & simple messages here in this article. I'm gonna sit down with a nice cuppa & read it again www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

It mentions the 'marshmallow experiment', which every undergrad psychology student will know. This text below impacted me in a good way...😃

I don't think "mental health conditions are being over-diagnosed" but that "real suffering is being over-medicalised". These are very different things. The former tries to justify cutting support, but the latter does not: it acknowledges real suffering but asks for different (psychosocial) provision

I can kind of see where this blog post is going, but with PHQ-9 and GAD-7 clinical thresholds so low (and arbitrarily so) it’s hard to really tell what’s going on. Some quali data for context would help.

Youth mental health is an intractable problem

The numbers do not come down with programs tried so far

There are programs that work, they don't happen in traditional settings though

Bricks and mortar will not help

Used to wonder why sweeteners gave me headaches, you can taste that it’s not sugar. If you’re gonna go for fizzy drinks, have them full fat (sugar) but have them as a treat. Easier said than done, I appreciate

Psychosis Severity Tied to Childhood Trauma, Not Inherited Mental Illness Childhood maltreatment has a powerful and independent impact on psychosis later in life, according to new research on schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Psychosis Severity Tied to Childhood Trauma, Not Inherited Mental Illness

A cross-national study shows trauma’s lasting impact on psychosis is not explained by parental mental illness.

By Richard Sears

www.madinamerica.com/2025/09/psyc...

A new personality type - ‘Otrovert’ - is here to make life even more confusing Forget ‘extroverts’ and ‘introverts’, there's a new way to categorise ourselves in town

It’s ironic that we embrace broad identity labels to express how unique we are.

Now we have a new one for people who don’t like groups, and share rare traits like authenticity and independent thinking.

Call me anal but I don't think we need it.

My GQ latest:

www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/a-ne...

Does ADHD Exist? Rethinking Psychiatric Diagnoses with Dr. Sami Timimi, Leading UK Child Psychiatrist Six Hats · Episode

open.spotify.com/episode/0LWS...

The Youth Access Quality Framework consultation Complete the quality framework consultation to help us ensure it's meaningful, practical, and supportive

UK mental health people (incl users), please feed back on this draft of the Youth Access Quality Framework (on youth mental health hubs). #healthpolicy #mentalhealth

Full disclosure: my PhD student had something to do with this.

www.youthaccess.org.uk/quality-and-...

Remember, if a health product is trending on social media, tell them to stick it up their **** rather than yours.

I’d say around 30, based on previous figures.

My worry will be revisions that ever-expand the diagnostic criteria and further narrow what can be subjectively seen as normal functioning, behaviour, and reactions to adversity

Psychology students, if you are looking for an example of conflicts of interest in research and theory development, look no further.

National Psychiatric Drug Deprescribing Clinic (PDC)

Those living in England and willing to get off antidepressants, benzodiazepines and z-drugs safely can be referred to this clinic run by @markhoro.bsky.social and @joannamoncrieff.bsky.social Lucky them! #pharmasky #medsky
www.nelft.nhs.uk/national-psy...

How are you supposed to dress for roaring heat but strong chance of thunderstorms? 🫠

Yup. They call it psychoanalysis, circa 1900.

“There is evidence of other bad outcomes too, such as decreased prosocial behaviour or decreased relationship quality with parents.”

Did anyone else experience a seismic shift today? Like something had turned a corner?

Future Proofing Study: a cluster randomised controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of a universal school-based cognitive–behavioural programme for adolescent depression

This is a *key* new paper in the world of school mental health interventions

A very large trial (N=6388) testing a universal CBT-based app for adolescent depression (13-14y)

No effects found (on depression, anxiety, distress or insomnia)

(🧵)

mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/28/1...

The romanticisation of mental health problems in adolescents and its implications: a narrative review - European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Romanticisation is the perception and portrayal of a phenomenon as more attractive, interesting, cool, profound or desirable than it really is. There are concerns that mental health problems are incre...

The romanticisation of mental health problems in adolescents and its implications: a narrative review by Awa Ndour & Lucy Foulkes - now online and #openaccess in our #ECAP journal:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#youthmentalhealth #mentalhealth #ESCAP

Black Mirror Season 7 is chilling and close to the bone as it always has been. @charliebrooker.bsky.social is still a genius. Looking forward to the Bandersnatch sequel #BlackMirror #Netflix

‘Founder as Victim, Founder as God’: Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and the two bodies of the entrepreneur Silicon Valley’s tech moguls have increasing political ambitions, as spectacularly illustrated by Peter Thiel’s and Elon Musk’s involvements in the US 2022 midterm elections and 2024 presidential e...

All in all, Musk and Thiel’s ideology stems from an existential crisis within themselves. In other words, they cannot accept their own mortality.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

@bpsofficial.bsky.social

Brain alterations in children/adolescents with ADHD revisited: A neuroimaging meta-analysis of 96 structural and functional studies The findings of neuroimaging studies in children/adolescents with ADHD, and even those of previous meta-analyses, are divergent. Here, Activation Like…

There's a common misconception that ADHD has been shown to have a neurological basis. It hasn't. The evidence is not compelling e.g. this negative meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The neighbourhood that could hold the secret to fixing the NHS With public satisfaction in the NHS just 21%, one area has a plan to shake up its services that could reduce GP waiting lists, as well as unblock hospital beds - but can it really work nationwide?

Been shouting about this for a long time. Fix health services from the ground up, starting with communities and addressing the social difficulties within them. It does permeate.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...