Drugs Shrinking Psychiatrists' Talk Time: Study

Use is up 400% since 1988, says CDC

(NEWSER) - The CDC rounds up some depressing stats about antidepressant use:

• More than one in 10 Americans (11%) older than 12 take the drugs, the majority of them for depression.
• That marks a 400% increase since 1988 and makes antidepressants the most commonly used drug for people ages 18 to 44, notes USA Today .
• Less than one-third of those on antidepressants have seen a mental health professional in the last year.

Study subjects' pain fluctuates based on belief in treatment

(NEWSER) - Patients who think their medicine won’t work may find that is indeed the case—just because they thought as much, a study finds. Researchers attached subjects to IV drips and applied heat to their legs, asking them to rate the pain the heat caused them on a scale from 0 to 100. When the researchers secretly gave them a powerful painkiller, the average reported pain decreased from 66 to 55. More»

Boys who stay close with mom avoid unhealthy stereotypes

(NEWSER) - Being what Time describes as a "mama's boy" is good for you, a new study suggests. An Arizona State professor followed 426 boys through middle school to find out when and to what extent they embraced stereotypically male qualities like emotional reserve and physical toughness. He found that boys who shun hyper-masculine behavior have better mental health. And "mother support and closeness was the most predictive of boys' ability to resist stereotypes," the professor says. More»

He's a candidate for borderline personality disorder

(NEWSER) - If young Anakin Skywalker had gotten himself into see a good psychotherapist, he might have steered clear of the dark side and the Darth Vader get-up. The Star Wars prequels show that Anakin suffered from borderline personality disorder, say French psychiatrists. (They've made the argument before, but will buttress it in an upcoming issue of Psychiatry Research.) More»

'Mindfulness' effective in preventing relapse

(NEWSER) - The best prescription for recurrent depression isn't pills or talk therapy, it's "mindfulness"—a combination of meditation, yoga, and breathing techniques that empties the mind of negative thoughts. So claims a UK mental health organization so impressed by its effectiveness in combating chronic depression that they're urging doctors to start prescribing courses for patients. Clinical trials have shown that it halves the rate of relapse in people with recurrent depression, they note, urging Britain's national health insurance system to start covering it. More»