Mental Health

  • Read more: The Deadly Cost of Ignoring Clinical Need

    The Deadly Cost of Ignoring Clinical Need

    Iryna Zarutska immigrated to North Carolina in August 2022, fleeing war-torn Ukraine. Exactly three years later, she was taking the subway home from a shift at a local Charlotte pizzeria when, abruptly, Decarlos Brown fatally stabbed her. 

  • Read more: Hamm v. Smith: The Limits of Legal Certainty when Science Evolves

    Hamm v. Smith: The Limits of Legal Certainty when Science Evolves

    Can states keep IQ testing people sentenced to death until they get the “right” score for execution? What is really at the heart of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on executing people who have an intellectual disability?

  • Read more: The Fight for Mental Health Is the Fight for Human Rights: Argentina’s Movement for Dignity and Inclusion

    The Fight for Mental Health Is the Fight for Human Rights: Argentina’s Movement for Dignity and Inclusion

    In Argentina, austerity threatens hard-won progress in mental health. In Córdoba, the 12th March for the Right to Mental Health filled the streets with color and conviction — reminding us that mental health is built through rights and sustained by care, equality, and community.

  • Read more: To Treat or Not to Treat: The Ethics of Competence Restoration in Capital Cases

    To Treat or Not to Treat: The Ethics of Competence Restoration in Capital Cases

    Physicians are ethically not allowed to assist in the execution process, as it violates their oath to “do no harm.” Yet, the professional organizations that provide ethical guidance to practitioners allow physicians and psychiatrists to help restore a person’s mental competence so that they may be put to death. How can this be?

  • Read more: 2025 Annual Conference: Law, Health Care, and the Aging Brain and Body

    2025 Annual Conference: Law, Health Care, and the Aging Brain and Body

    Recording

    The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School is pleased to announce our 2025 annual conference: “Law, Health Care, and the Aging Brain and Body.” This year’s conference is organized by the Petrie-Flom Center in collaboration with Nina A. Kohn, the David M. Levy Professor of Law at Syracuse…

  • Read more: Mental Health and Climate Change: When a Global Crisis and Planetary Emergency Collide

    Mental Health and Climate Change: When a Global Crisis and Planetary Emergency Collide

    Recording

    The range of adverse mental health effects resulting from climate change include triggering or exacerbating anxiety, depression, grief, and suicide. Natural phenomena from heatwaves and droughts to floods and fires that are fueled by climate change cause trauma, distress, and other mental health conditions. So can chronic, slow-onset effects of global warming, such as water and food insecurity, community breakdown, and conflict. Members of marginalized groups, especially Indigenous peoples, feel these effects in unique and especially acute…

  • Read more: Dr. TikTok? The Impacts of Misinformation on Mental Health Self-Diagnosis

    Dr. TikTok? The Impacts of Misinformation on Mental Health Self-Diagnosis

    A study published on March 19 yet again confirmed the widespread nature of healthmisinformation. Looking specifically at claims about ADHD on TikTok, the study found that more than half of all claims in the videos lacked scientific accuracy.

  • Read more: Assisted Death for Psychiatric Suffering: Approaching Uncertainty with Humility

    Assisted Death for Psychiatric Suffering: Approaching Uncertainty with Humility

    By Zain Khalid On May 22 this year, Zoraya Ter Beek, a 29-year-old woman from Netherlands, died by euthanasia on grounds of mental suffering. Zoraya had been diagnosed with chronic depression, borderline personality disorder, and autism and had struggled with self-harm and suicidal thinking for several year. She had tried numerous treatments, including 30 sessions…