College educators now recognize that promoting mental health for students plays a key role in achievement. A new book, says Anna Scheyett, fills a gap about planning and implementing essential services. Read her review of Mental Health Care in the College Community. [Full Story]
College educators now recognize that promoting mental health for students plays a key role in achievement. A new book, says Anna Scheyett, fills a gap about planning and implementing essential services. Read her review of Mental Health Care in the College Community. [Full Story] College educators now recognize that promoting mental health for students plays a key role in achievement. A new book, says Anna Scheyett, fills a gap about planning and implementing essential services. Read her review of Mental Health Care in the College Community. [Full Story]Paula Goring and Jijian Voronka, researchers in Canada's At Home project, review two books about the practicalities of recovery research.
Read their review [Full Story]
Thirty years of research and clinical know-how frame the techniques and theories of cognitive behavioral therapy. In a review of Schizophrenia: Cognitive Theory, Research and Therapy, Dr. Richard Evans explains how reading this book can be applied to treating people with schizophrenia. [Full Story]
In a word, Bill Anthony and Kevin Huckshorn have put together, with the help of a myriad of interviews, the ideal text for future leaders of behavioral health programs and institutions, says Richard Van Horn in a review of "Principled Leadership."
[Full Story]
The impact of trauma is now conceptualized as a syndrome rather than as isolated symptoms such as dissociation or somatization. In this review of the first book to look at Complex PTSD, Dr. Kristina Muenzenmaier discusses the findings of more than 30 experts, all of whom are involved in treatment or research of the impact of trauma. [Full Story]
"Gwill Newman was born into privilege," says Vi Orr, in a review of My Son's Name Was Fred. Yet wealth and advantage did not protect her son, Fred, from schizophrenia. In this memorial to Fred, Newman describes her passionate advocacy for brain research as the first president of NARSAD. [Full Story]
Journalist Steve Lopez was looking for a story when he stumbled onto the life of a remarkable musician with schizophrenia. In a review of "The Soloist, soon to be released as a motion picture, Arlene Notoro Morgan, whose father had schizophrenia, writes about Lopez, her friend, and the impact of his work. [Full Story]
People can and do recover from schizophrenia. Daniel Mackler, a filmmaker and a psychotherapist, tells the story of two women whose recovery took place without antipsychotic drugs. Darby Penney reviews "Take These Broken Wings." [Full Story]
iStock photo Stories about conflicts-of-interest in psychiatry are percolating regularly, and MIWatch readers will not be surprised by Dr. Marcia Angell's review of three books taking aim at doctors, regulatory agencies, academic medical centers and drug companies. "So many reforms would be necessary to restore integrity to clinical research and medical practice," writes the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, "that they cannot be summarized briefly." Angell has written extensively about these issues. ... [Full Story]
The failure to anticipate the mental health needs of vets has led to public outrage. Filmmaker Dan Weisburd released "Another Kind of Valor" a docudrama with a rich set of resources that communities can use to help veterans and families who struggle. [Full Story]
Reviewed by Paul Pines* Ronald Bassman's book, A Fight To Be, is a daring and insightful portrait of psychosis and the "mental health" system we have put in place to address"chronic and persistent disorders". The book is a weave of three distinct threads: it is a personal memoir, a clinical meditation and, finally, rising from that dialogue, a call to action. The first thread offers the authority of the author's direct experience as one who was diagnosed with and treated... [Full Story]
by Alison Bateman-House* Charles Barber's latest book, Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation (Pantheon Books), is a passionate, multi-pronged critique of the state of psychiatry in the United States. Barber takes as his starting point his fourteen years working with the mentally ill homeless in New York City. In positions ranging from a counselor to a senior social services administrator, he worked on the streets, in shelters, and in supportive residential programs with clients who were dealing with... [Full Story]
reviewed by Sue E. Estroff* By Any Means Necessary? By No Means Necessary E. Fuller Torrey's most recent book, The Insanity Offense, continues his literary style of provocative, catastrophic language when referring to violent incidents attributable to people with psychiatric disorders. This is not a work in the scholarly convention. It is one activist psychiatrist's impassioned and purposeful argument for a reversion of mental health law, policy, and treatment to the 1950's when involuntary confinement and forced treatment qua medication... [Full Story]
... [Full Story]
by Phyllis Vine
"Canvas" is an honest and textured portrayal of an ordinary family managing the uncertainties schizophrenia brings to their lives. Marcia Gay Harden (Mary), Joe Pantoliano (John) and Devon Gearhart (Chris) give stunning performances of living on the margin of Mary's illness and hospitalizations while they face an uncertain future. Writer and director Joseph Greco writes without sensationalizing a painful story. [Full Story]
"Canvas" is an honest and textured portrayal of an ordinary family managing the uncertainties schizophrenia brings to their lives. Marcia Gay Harden (Mary), Joe Pantoliano (John) and Devon Gearhart (Chris) give stunning performances of living on the margin of Mary's illness and hospitalizations while they face an uncertain future. Writer and director Joseph Greco writes without sensationalizing a painful story. [Full Story]
reviewed by Jean Arnold
Anti-stigma activist Jean Arnold reviews a new book about bias and the author's suggestions for how to address it. [Full Story]
Anti-stigma activist Jean Arnold reviews a new book about bias and the author's suggestions for how to address it. [Full Story]
by Mark Ragins, MD
A book for "readers who are already inspired and passionate workers, advocates, or searchers in our world of mental illness. You’ll have more meat on your bones," says Ragins. [Full Story]
A book for "readers who are already inspired and passionate workers, advocates, or searchers in our world of mental illness. You’ll have more meat on your bones," says Ragins. [Full Story]
reviewed by Sigurd Ackerman, MD
ECT has been alternately hailed as a medical miracle and denounced as a dehumanizing punishment. For author Kitty Dukakis, despite its risks and the side effects, it was the most successful therapeutic intervention she experienced in decades of fighting depression. [Full Story]
ECT has been alternately hailed as a medical miracle and denounced as a dehumanizing punishment. For author Kitty Dukakis, despite its risks and the side effects, it was the most successful therapeutic intervention she experienced in decades of fighting depression. [Full Story]
reviewed by Phyllis Vine
Within the context of a supportive community and watchful friends, part of Abraham Lincoln's courage came from the humility he acquired in his battles with depression and melancholy. [Full Story]
Within the context of a supportive community and watchful friends, part of Abraham Lincoln's courage came from the humility he acquired in his battles with depression and melancholy. [Full Story]
Consider This
by Phyllis Vine
Upcoming
Nov. 17-19: Addressing Imbalances: Promoting Equity in Mental Health
by Education Development Center
Sept. 29-Oct. 3: Alternatives Conference: Promoting Wellness Through Social Justice
by National Empowerment Center
Sept. 17 registration: Teleconference: Peer Support and Peer Providers: Redefining Mental Health Recovery
by SAMHSA
MIWatch.org on Facebook
Relevant Sites
- Visit the Illinois neurology department of Northshore
Featured Videos
Most Popular
MIWatch Archives
This site complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information:
verify here.