World Mental Health Day 2015

In this post we shall report on some of the initiatives promoted by mental health charities to celebrate this year's World Mental Health Day and we will point to some resources from the blog that could be of interest. One of the objectives of project PERFECT is to undermine the theoretical foundations for the current stigma associated with mental illness and argue for the continuity between so-called 'normal' and 'abnormal' cognition, so we feel we are making a small contribution to progress in this area.

The Mind Charity has announced that on Mental Health Day the Duke and Duchess of Kent will participate in a special event, meeting young people who have faced mental health issues and now volunteer for Mind.

The Mental Health Foundation focuses this year on children's mental health issues, and raising the problem that children may find it particularly difficult to gather information or ask for help due to stigma. See the campaign poster below:

Rethink has launched a new film (you can watch it here) to promote awareness of the difficulties encountered by people with schizophrenia in particular, highlighting that most of them do not feel that they are receiving the support they need to feel better.

Sane is currently running a Black Dog campaign to raise awareness for depression, educate the public about mental health issues, demonstrate the importance of research, and ultimately change perceptions of mental illness in society.

And finally, here are some of our recent posts dealing with stigma:

Young People and Mental Health

Amy on Anxiety

Sadder but Wiser?

Pills, Poetry and Prose

The Definition of Mental Disorder

Understanding Psychosis

I hope you enjoy reading them, and participating in the many initiatives launched for this year's World Mental Health Day!

Delusions in the DSM 5

This post is by Lisa Bortolotti. How has the definition of delusions changed in the DSM 5? Here are some first impressions. In the DSM-IV (Glossary) delusions were defined as follows: Delusion. A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture (e.g., it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility.

Motivated Reasoning in Science

Today's post is by Josh May (University of Alabama, Birmingham). In this post, he talks about one of his papers published in Synthese and entitled " Bias in Science ". Josh May Much discussion of the replication crisis in science has focused on the social sciences, particularly psychology. A common narrative is that the social sciences are particularly susceptible to powerful biases, such as moral and political ideology. I argue instead for a parity thesis: all areas of science are subject to bias, through the general psychological mechanism of motivated reasoning . This provides a unified framework for understanding how values influence the entire scientific enterprise. The scientific process involves numerous decisions that can be influenced by one's values--including moral, political, and prudential values--which manifest as goals or motivations. A researcher wants badly, say, to publish in a prestigious journal in order to either advance her career or maintain ...

Models of Madness

In today's post John Read (in the picture above) presents the recent book he co-authored with Jacqui Dillon , titled Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis. My name is John Read. After 20 years working as a Clinical Psychologist and manager of mental health services in the UK and the USA, mostly with people experiencing psychosis, I joined the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1994. There I published over 100 papers in research journals, primarily on the relationship between adverse life events (e.g., child abuse/neglect, poverty etc.) and psychosis. I also research the negative effects of bio-genetic causal explanations on prejudice, and the role of the pharmaceutical industry in mental health. In February I moved to Melbourne and I now work at Swinburne University of Technology. I am on the on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis and am the Editor...

Imperfect Cognitions

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