Scott Smith LCSW

26/02/2026

Major new report on global trends in mental health, out today from Sapien Labs. Data from 2.5 million people across 85 countries.

Some of the most important findings:

1) Young adults used to generally have good mental health, compared to older generations. But now, in ALL countries examined, they are doing badly compared to older generations in that country.

2) "Four key factors have emerged that together predict three quarters of this effect. These are diminished
family bonds, diminished spirituality, smartphones at increasingly young age, and increasing consumption of
ultra-processed food."

3) The decline of young people's mental health is "most pronounced in the wealthier and more developed countries." They note that it is in such countries that smartphones are given earliest, junk food is most heavily consumed, spirituality is most diminished, and family ties are looser and often weaker.

4) "A younger age of first smartphone ownership is associated with increased suicidal thoughts,
aggression, and other problems in adulthood."

5) Here is their summary of findings on early smartphone ownership:

"GenZ is the first generation to grow up with a smartphone. Among this group, the younger they acquired their first smartphone in childhood, the more likely they are to have struggles as adults. These struggles extend beyond sadness and anxiety to less discussed symptoms, such as a sense of being detached from reality, suicidal thoughts, and aggression towards others. The effects arise through disruption of sleep, increased risk of exposure to harmful online content, predators, and explicit material as well as increased probabilities of cyberbullying during crucial developmental years. Excessive time spent on smartphones also diminishes the development of social cognition that requires learned interpretation of facial expressions, body language, and group dynamics. The negative impacts are particularly sharp below age 13."

The report is short, accessible, and important. Read it here:

A view of the mind health of the Internet-enabled world and the factors that drive it.

25/02/2026

When people think about getting help in psychotherapy, they naturally draw on their experiences of “help” in everyday life—and assume the same applies in therapy. But real psychotherapy isn’t about being “helpful” in everyday, commonsense ways. It is something else entirely.

Most Therapists Aren’t Really Doing Psychotherapy

Real psychotherapy isn’t about “being helpful.” It’s something else.

18/02/2026

"The science is sound, but its popular reception often strips away the conditions – time, repetition, constraint – under which such change occurs."

The metaphor of rewiring offers an ideal of engineered precision. But the brain is more like a forest than a circuit board

18/02/2026

"Mental distress is poorly captured by symptom lists and labels. People who are diagnosed with anxiety, addiction or psychosis might all describe feelings of entrapment or hopelessness. Two people diagnosed with the same disorder will have different vulnerabilities to, say, stigma or self-harm, different resources available to them and different care needs. It is these needs that clinicians should focus on.

"If the basic logic of the DSM is flawed, it should be abandoned. Instead, psychiatrists should move towards a system that looks at an individual’s mental experiences in context, alongside their unique developmental vulnerabilities and strengths, as the main source for analysing and responding to their distress. Diagnosis would no longer name a disorder but map what kinds of support, relationships and learning processes are most likely to help a person regain agency, coherence and a sense of future."

Instead of trying to refine diagnoses, we should focus on how best to give people the care that they need.

17/02/2026

It's debilitating... but treatable!

OCD is often misunderstood. How much do you really know about it?

Elena wants people with OCD to know they're not alone. But how well do Australians understand the condition?

13/02/2026

Beatrice Beebe is looking for interns! This is a fantastic opportunity for someone—

Join the Lab | Beatricebeebe https://www.beatricebeebe.com/join-the-lab

We run our lab with volunteers. We usually have about a dozen volunteers from various schools around the city. A volunteer position in our lab is ideal for students who are between college and graduate school, who are interested in research experience, and who want to get into a PhD program in clini...

12/02/2026

“Why does psychiatry struggle so much to create clinically useful new drugs? One answer, according to the researchers, is that most psychiatric drugs fail in early trials, probably because we don’t know much about the supposed biology of “mental illness.”

“The comparative absence of clear biomarkers in psychiatry (for target selection, prognostication, etc) plays a role, effectively limiting our understanding of why early-phase findings often fail to engender desired outcomes in later-phase trials. Without many clear-cut targets, it follows that the mechanisms of action of approved drugs and supplemental indications are often not as clear in psychiatry compared to other specialties,” the researchers write.

And according to the researchers, most of the “new” drugs are “me-too” drugs—tweaking an existing formula to create a slightly different drug of the same class, which usually means it has similar efficacy and side effects to existing drugs.”

Excerpt From
“None of the 22 FDA Approvals for Psychiatric Drugs in the Last Decade Were “Clinically Useful””
Mad in America
https://apple.news/Ak_MMKeCePuWYjwu8mDyndw
This material may be protected by copyright.

None of the 22 FDA Approvals for Psychiatric Drugs in the Last Decade Were “Clinically Useful” https://www.madinamerica.com/2026/02/none-of-the-22-fda-approvals-for-psychiatric-drugs-in-the-last-decade-were-clinically-useful/

Established drugs were repurposed, “me-too” drugs were approved, and even the few new biological approaches lacked clinical utility.

11/02/2026

Researchers, whose findings were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, are urging mental health professionals to "prescribe exercise with the same confidence as traditional treatments".

The review, conducted by Australian experts, analysed 63 studies and concluded that aerobic exercises had the "most substantial impact" on both conditions.

Exercise is an ‘evidence-based first line intervention’ for mental health, says new study

11/02/2026

GLP-1 drugs, which have helped some people curb drug and alcohol use, may unlock a pathway to moderation.

11/02/2026

A Buddhist teacher discusses how the concept of mindfulness has been co-opted by corporations—and how we can reclaim the practice for social good.