The shocking mortality rate for anorexia — higher than for any other psychiatric disorder — is not due just to starvation or physical deterioration, says new research, but to sufferers committing suicide in the most violent and determined of ways.

Compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression. That’s according to a new meta-analysis of clinical trials research. A triumph for the placebo effect! How does it work?

Although research in this area is in its infancy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is generally revealed by a recent overview to be a promising therapy in terms of clinical effectiveness.

The issue of self-harm is gaining a higher profile, in the UK at least, but it still remains to some extent a hidden and misunderstood problem, as evidenced by the stereotype of a teenage girl cutting her arms in a dark bedroom.

A new study shows that the results of around a third of drug trials have not been released. Once these are taken into account, the advantage of antidepressants over placebos shrinks significantly. This amounts to seriously misleading the public about the drugs’ effectiveness.

Sometimes tragedies, losses, or terminal illnesses really galvanise us into action, make our priorities crystal clear, and give us a strength we did not know we had…

‘If you never feel sad, it is because you have never become attached to someone, and that is a very lonely way to be.’