The Ninth Annual Report of The American Mental Health Foundation
by Evander Lomke on
Annual Report of AMHF November 1, 2018, to October 31, 2019
This is the Ninth Annual Report of The American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF), a research organization formed in 1924, incorporated in New York State in 1954. AMHF celebrates ten decades of philanthropic service and activities—“Advancing Mental Health:A Century of Excellence in Mental Health Research.”—likely an unprecedented long-term record serving the public weal.
The fuller-goal of AMHF for the coming fiscal year and beyond: Everything You Wanted to Know about Mental Health. AMHF aims to be “a full-service” organization toward this goal.
In mid-2019, the Board of Directors authorized the first significant descriptive-change in the Mission Statement, with an expanded research-emphasis, thereby taking AMHF into an exciting future:
The American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF) is an association of distinguished international researchers, scientists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and educators dedicated to understanding and promoting treatments for improved mental health—a major challenge of the 21st century. AMHF focuses on the welfare of people suffering from emotional problems, with a particular concern for at-risk youth, individuals of any age with special needs, and elders.
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The fiscal year, which concludes today, October 31, 2019, was one of extraordinary positive change.
°AMHF is listed with PayPal Giving Fund beginning April 2019. The support of PayPal Giving Fund is significant. Check it, and us, out!
° AMHF continues to early 2020 as an Accredited Charity of the Better Business Bureau of New York. AMHF has an even more ambitious goal in 2020-21 of directing 90 cents of every donated-dollar toward its 3 Strong Program Areas (see below).
°AMHF Books is an enterprising publishing program to disseminate the research and goals of AMHF: Erich Fromm, Dr.Stefan de Schill, Dr.Raymond B.Flannery Jr., Dr. Henry Kellerman, Dr. David J. Gavin, Dr.Joanne H. Gavin, and Dr.James Campbell Quick are its authors to date. Some of the best-selling titles are Beyond Freud, The Heart of Man, The Pathology of Normalcy, and The Revolution of Hope by Fromm; Crucial Choices—Crucial Changes: The Resurrection of Psychotherapy by de Schill; The Assaulted Staff Action Program (ASAP), The Violent Person,Posttraumatc Stress Disorder: The Victim’s Guide, and Coping with Anxiety in an Age of Terrorism by Flannery; Personality: How It Forms and Therapeutic Traction: Uncovering the Patient’s Power-theme and Basic-wish by Kellerman; as well as Live Your Dreams, Change the World: The Psychology of Personal Fulfillment for Women by Gavin, Quick, and Gavin.
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Vision: Building a More Compassionate Society—Get Involved in 2019-20!
We are often asked to give specific examples of people we have helped. This is a reasonable question, but a difficult one for any research organization to answer except to say, from our history of group psychotherapy, many; and today the long-term benefits that derive from our seminars, Webinars, postings on Facebook, the Web site with its Help dropdown, and publications collectively ripple through the culture, in surprising ways, to enlighten and inspire.
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Mission: In support of the new Mission Statement, the Facebook Page will reflect this direction in the coming months. A fund-raising campaign in September 2019 well exceeded expectations. AMHF also is on Twitter.
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History: The AMHF Wikipedia entry describes the key role of 1940s chairman Hermann Broch. A giant of 20th-century Austrian literature and social psychology, Broch was aided out of Vienna, following the Austrian Anschluss, by James Joyce, as one of his (Joyce’s) last acts. Broch and Otto Kauders recruited Dr. Stefan de Schill for the position of director of research in 1948, a title de Schill retained for nearly 60 sixty years.
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2018-19 Leadership Changes:Michelle Harrison, MD, agreed to join theAMHF professional-advisory board in 2018, and was elected to the board of directors later that year. She is the only individual to hold both positions. Dr. Harrison founded and directs Childlife Preserve Shishur Sevay in Calcutta (Kolkata). Her essential philanthropic and charitable work can be linked from the AMHF website. John P. Fowler is no longer treasurer; now working as a special-financial consultant.
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AMHF works in 3 Strong Program Areas:
· research
· educational
· books in areas related to research
Research. A groundbreaking two-year control study under the direction of Dr. Suzanne Button formerly of Astor Services for Children & Families, of individuals with documented-behavioral issues, between the ages of 8 and 14, identifies factors and causes that could develop as later-life schizophrenia or in the form of other psychoses. Given the dearth of analysis in the area of predictive-psychiatric behavior among youth, AMHF had established this as its principal research-and-programming goals into 2016: to support important and necessary studies, AMHF Books issues these findings as Early Identification, Palliative Care, and Prevention of Psychotic Disorders in Children and Youth.
>AMHF requires a substantial gift for other such studies.
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Publishing. See AMHF Books above.
AMHF Books includes 30 titles since its launch in fall 2009. All titles, all formats, are available via (formerly Lantern, to June 30, 2022) Lantern/Amazon/Kindle/Audible.Several are available, since spring 2018 as audiobooks from Amazon. AMHF Books is strong in the following areas:
° Group therapy
° Personality formation
° PTSD, violence, bereavement, and life-stress
° Social psycholoogy
A program ad for a fall 2020 issue of New York Review of Books is projected.
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Seminars/Webinars. As a vital aspect of its mission, in 2012 at the FDR Presidential Library,AMHF inaugurated its three one-day seminars, “The Stefan de Schill Memorial Series.” This series was conceived as a two-day seminar “Small Family Business, Big Family Stress.”
Due to burgeoning costs in publicizing, the serminar series was superseded by two interactive Webinars—which offer 2 CEU through APT, NASW, and NBCC. As of 2019, professionals and students continue to sign up for one of the Webinars, and for CEU.
>Additional funding is sought to defray the prohibitive costs of even successful, especially successful,Webinars and seminars, since as part of its mission AMHF keeps the cost for taking its Webinars well below “market value.”All Seminars are free.
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Web site: The site is being reevaluated for overhaul, to be more forward-looking, though presently costs are prohibitive.
>Of news to most of the medical community is an August 14, 2018, posting on SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy). Current scientific thinking is that significantly more individuals die of SUDEP, an inexplicable dysfunction of the brain among individuals with epilepsy, than from SIDS (so-called crib death). A completely original, coauthored article was issued online and then in print, January 2019, in Pychiatric Quartely. Authors Flannery and AMHF president & executive director Lomke have been invited to write and/or speak for/at 35 venues to date. This is remarkable for any peer-reviewed journal article in under a year from print-publication.
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Professional Advisory Board: AMHF has an enviable professional-advisory board of 15. As noted, in June 2018 Michelle Harrison, MD, agreed to be the 15th adviser.Her background in psychopharmacology and current work with orphaned and disabled girls in India, fit AMHF.
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Income and Fundraising: There is a single modest endowment, the Baschkopf Family Fund. The generosity of Rosaria Tomasetta, half of whose estate was donated to AMHF in August 2012, had been an important source of funding into 2016. In 2017, AMHF received a portion of the estate of the late Ms. Gwendolyn Curry.All 2018-19 donors are listed on the AMHF Web site and are encouraged to partner more fully.
The latest AMHF-audit and NYS Charities Bureau filings are posted on the Web site under Donate.
>In 2017 AMHF reached a critical stage in funding its mission, and its directors seek a forward-leaning strategy through the fiscal year ending October 31, 2020.
The most-recent AMHF tax filing can also be viewed by clicking here, and the most recent CPA report may also be viewed here.
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>Long-range Future: Did you know that (U.S.) society is on the verge of the largest-generational transfer of wealth in history? The American Mental Health Foundation fits in these plans.
The AMHF mission and accomplishments are outstanding for a nonprofit of its scale.
Know when you give you are supporting one of the first philanthropic organizations of its kind in the world. AMHF, a 501(c))(3) charity, is committed to expansion and extension of its mission, outreach, and research in a way that will benefit individuals and society by, among other undertakings, focusing on the specific emotional needs and issues confronted by the disabled and elders, a growing demographic, which are under-served,
>Following are 9 key areas or research programs alongside the following fund-raising goals:
· Schizophrenia $250,000
· AMHF-Pearson Assessment (Developmentally Delayed) $600,000 ($50K donated 2016-17)
· PTSD $150,000
· Suicide Prevention $150,000
· Depression $250,000
· OCD $150,000
· Alcoholism $150,000
· Animal-companion Bereavement $150,000
· SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy) $150,000
>Give generously to The American Mental Health Foundation. The directors of AMHF thank you for reading this Annual Report and welcome comments and improvements of service—via the Web site under “Contact,”which includes the AMHF telephone number (unchanged since the 1940s).
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