Mental Health

Proof that with treatment, brains can change and bring relief to PTSD symptoms.

Cool new program at Newton’s Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, which is encouraging veterans to pursue careers in psychology, therapy and other mental health-related careers. Trey Tippens, an Army veteran, is leading up the initiative, which is called Train Vets to Treat Vets.

Iain Duncan’s Smith speech on measuring child poverty today focused on addiction. While it’s a serious problem, the author argues there is much more to poverty than addiction.

Suicide rates among men have risen again. It’s time to address the root causes of men’s depression and inability to talk.

A teenage girl with autism was arrested and hauled before the courts because police mistakenly assumed she was drunk. Despite being completely sober, 17-year-old Melissa Jones spent ten hours in a police cell, was finger-printed and had her DNA taken.
She was charged with being drunk and disorderly, forced to appear in court and became suicidal while waiting eight months for her case to go to trial. Last week, however, prosecutors finally realised they had got it wrong and agreed to drop the case against her.

There’s a lot of necessary discussion lately about linkage between mental illness and gun violence but this piece theorizes that focusing on mental illness is unlikely to achieve a significant reduction in gun violence, because the vast majority of shootings are the handiwork of people who do not fit the profile of those deemed dangerous. Moreover, by shifting the debate away from gun control and toward mental health concerns, proponents run the risk of further stigmatizing mental illness, discouraging those who confront it from seeking professional help.

Pretty interesting stuff from the Houston Rockets rookie who suffers from an anxiety disorder and is standing up for his rights.

According to a survey by the Irish Primary Principals’ Network, three out of five primary school principals said they noticed an increase in emotional disturbance of children while four out of five said attention disorders were becoming more prevalent.

Vitamin D plays a pivotal role in a number of disorders. Now scientists are investigating whether it could be implicated in autism. A recent study was the first to discover that children with autism had significantly lower levels of vitamin D in their bloodstreams than non-autistic children.

The stigma of mental illness knows no bondaries, and BasicNeeds is fighting it in Africa and Asia, where crushing poverty makes their work even tougher.

Researchers seem to have found a link between autism and the digestive system, of all places. The finding could also lead to a blood test for the disorder that could be obtained during pregnancy.

There is a tendency to think of traumatic brain injuries being suffered by soldiers exposed to blasts in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, it is also true that civilians at home in the United States also suffer from TBIs caused by a diverse number of accidents.

Stirring commentary and appropriate plea for more mental health care services for post-war veterans.

Recent research shows new findings about proteins linked to disorders that could provide a route for therapy in treating autism, schizophrenia, and epilepsy.

Say electroconvulsive therapy to most people and they will think of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Next.” And that’s scary. But for plenty of people the therapy is invaluable. A look.