Work can make you mentally ill, but we still have a lot to learn about the links between employment and mental health

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Chris O’Sullivan explores a recent systematic meta-review of work-related risk factors for common mental health problems.

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CBTp changes the brain’s wiring? Extraordinary claims, ordinary evidence

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Keith Laws and Samei Huda are not impressed by a study on brain connectivity changes following CBT for psychosis, which received a significant amount of press coverage when it was published back in January.

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Perinatal mental health problems in fathers are common and legitimate, but we need better ways to reach and help them

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André Tomlin explores a recent qualitative study of fathers’ views and experiences of their own perinatal mental health, and also shares his own lived experience of postnatal depression and anxiety.

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Job clubs may protect unemployed people from depression

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Ian Cummins explores a recent systematic review of interventions to reduce the impact of unemployment and economic hardship on mental health in the general population.

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Negative Effects Questionnaire: measuring the potential harm of psychotherapy

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Edel McGlanaghy publishes her debut blog on the Negative Effects Questionnaire for monitoring and reporting adverse effects of psychotherapy. She also highlights her own APT study (Adverse effects of Psychological Therapy), which is currently recruiting individuals with experience of any face to face psychological therapy.

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Targeting unhelpful repetitive negative thinking in young people to prevent anxiety and depression

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Michelle Moulds publishes her debut blog on a recent randomised controlled trial about the prevention of anxiety disorders and depression by targeting excessive worry, rumination and repetitive negative thinking in young adults.

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Nicotine reverses hypofrontality in animal models of addiction and schizophrenia

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Marcus Munafo looks at a complex and sophisticated series of experiments that provide further insight into the relationships between genetic risk, cigarette smoking and schizophrenia.

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Third wave psychotherapies for depression and anxiety in older people

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Sarah McDonald is left feeling frustrated by this meta-analysis of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy for depression and anxiety in older people.

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Novel Psychoactive Substances: important information for health professionals

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Harry Sumnall, Ian Hamilton and Mark Monaghan provide an overview of Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) aimed at health professionals and others who work with people who use these new psychoactive substances.

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CBT and severity of depression

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Joe Hayes summarises a new meta-analysis in the British Journal of Psychiatry that shows how the initial severity of depression does not alter the efficacy of cognitive behavioural therapy.

This is the first in a new series of Mental Elf blogs produced in partnership with the British Journal of Psychiatry.

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