Psychiatry

The new documentary series promised compassion for sufferers of poorly understood chronic illnesses. Instead, it peddled the tired narrative that their suffering is "all in their heads."

For the last decade, forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner has led a curious, self-funded effort to create something he calls the Depravity Standard, a crowd-sourced instrument for objectively scoring the level of evil associated with humanity's most twisted crimes. But can a scientist really define the outer edges of our morality?

An early look at a Pacific Standard story that's currently only available to subscribers.

Frontiers in Psychology just published a damning list of terms that researchers abuse. What can journalists learn from it?

How does one tell the untraumatized majority about the conditions that constitute the underworld of trauma?

Illinois leads the country in group psychotherapy sessions in Medicare, and some top billers aren’t mental health specialists. The state’s Medicaid program has cracked down, but federal officials have not.

Mindi has never harmed her daughter and is capably raising a son, but authorities took her daughter under a concept sometimes called “predictive neglect.”

A new study gets to the root of our anxieties.

For the month of April we're profiling the individuals who made our inaugural list of the 30 top thinkers under 30, the young men and women we predict will have a serious impact on the social, political, and economic issues we cover every day here at Pacific Standard.

With psychotropic drug cocktails, of course.

So now what?

And what we might be able to do to calm it down.

Seminal research that changed how we think about homosexuality—one step at a time, over the past century.

Psychiatry is under attack for not being scientific enough, but the real problem is its blindness to culture. When it comes to mental illness, we wear the disorders that come off the rack.

The newly revised, hotly contested book of psychiatric diagnoses is finally here. How will it change the way we consider and treat substance use problems?

What does it mean that the American Psychiatric Association is switching from Roman numerals to Arabic? And will the critics ever be won over?

Gary Greenberg's new book skewers the inner workings of the DSM just three weeks before the latest version is scheduled to be released.

When the dust of debate settles, the new revision's benefits should be clear: good science, better diagnoses, more individualized care.

The 1,000-page psychiatrists' Big Book will redefine addiction. Critics are already demanding a boycott.

Can mindfulness help heal our wounded soldiers?

How two long-time therapies for brain disorders work are finally being understood by the medical community, creating a path to safer alternatives.