Healing takes time: Can cognitive therapy for PTSD help young people in CAMHS? Insights from DECRYPT

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PTSD in young people is common, complex, and often entangled with depression, anxiety, and multiple traumatic experiences. A major new UK trial (DECRYPT) tested whether a structured form of trauma-focused cognitive therapy (CT-PTSD) can work in real CAMHS settings for those with the most severe difficulties.

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From menstruation to menopause: how sex-steroids shape women’s mental health across the life course

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Sex and gender differences in mental health are real; the mechanisms are under-explored. This review pulls together evidence on sex-steroids, brain development, neuroinflammation, and the social world to show where practice and policy must catch up.

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Just how good are different psychotherapies for common mental health problems?

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Lisa Lloyd and Milagros Pallavicini review a recent study on psychotherapies for 8 mental disorders, finding that while most outperform control treatments, response rates remain modest.

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Apps for depression and anxiety: big new meta-analysis supports effectiveness

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In their debut blog, Lee Valentine summarises a large-scale updated meta-analysis investigating the effectiveness of mental health apps for depression and anxiety.

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Adverse childhood experiences: how common are they and who is most at risk?

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In this joint blog, Becca Lacey and Sarah Stock explore a recent meta-analysis on the global prevalence of adverse childhood experiences, which looks at the groups of people most at risk of experiencing them.

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Capturing the lived experience of depression

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Charlotte Walker blogs about a recent World Psychiatry ‘bottom-up review’ on the lived experience of depression; co-written by experts by experience and academic researchers.

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Is cognitive behavioural therapy the best we’ve got for depression?

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Camilla Babbage and Maria Loades summarise the largest meta-analysis to date on the effectiveness of CBT for depression.

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Prediction of psychosis and bipolar disorder in children and adolescents: the role of CAMHS

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Matthew Broome considers a Finnish study on the potential of predicting psychosis and bipolar disorder in young people who have previously used child and adolescent mental health services.

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Digital mental health technologies: useful, usable, and safe?

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Cara Richardson and Stephanie Allan summarise a recent paper focusing on the growing field of digital psychiatry and the future of apps, social media, chatbots, and virtual reality.

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Youth mental health interventions: umbrella review presents efficacy and acceptability data

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In his debut blog, Nick Meader tackles a huge umbrella review of youth mental health interventions, which presents the efficacy and acceptability of 72 different approaches to help children and young people.

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