Category: Adolescence

The Power of Two

Given the pressures in today’s world, would you welcome the opportunity to lessen your life stress and anxiety? Reduce your dysphoria and depression? Improve your physical health and sense of well-being? Even lengthen your life? What if I told you that you could attain all of these health benefits at no cost to your health-insurance […]

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COVID-19 Lockdowns and Violence: Attachment Theory Revisited

As COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in 2022, people put aside masks, social distancing, and lockdown social isolation to venture out to restore a more normal life. Most found that the “old” normal had been altered during the lockdown and had been replaced by “new” normal, e.g., some employees now worked from home, some local small […]

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The Tenth Annual Report of The American Mental Health Foundation

Annual Report of AMHF November 1, 2021, to October 31, 2022; on November 1, 2022, The American Mental Health Foundation will be 99 years in existence thus rapidly moving into 100. Few not-for-profit organizations can make this claim. This is the Tenth Annual Report of The American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF), an organization formed in […]

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Violence as COVID-19 Lockdowns Are Eased

It is happening everywhere. Adults are assaulted or shot in bars and entertainment venues. Teenagers and gang members kill each other in broad daylight. Children are murdered in their classrooms. Dinner guests who do not know each other break out in brawls in restaurants. Why is there this increase in crime and violence as COVID-19 […]

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Dr. Raymond B. Flannery Jr. Joins The American Mental Health Foundation Board of Directors

Raymond B. Flannery Jr., Ph.D., FACLP, a licensed clinical psychologist, is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. He has also served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School and Boston College. For 10 years, he was Director of Training for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health […]

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Child Abuse, Natural Disasters, and Health Care Providers

A busy pediatrician looked troubled and tense. He had seen this five-year old, Angela, once before two years ago. Then, it was a fall from some playground equipment her mother had said. Today, mom reported that it was a fractured wrist due to a fall from Angela’s bicycle. However this didn’t explain the child’s two […]

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Preventing Youth Violence: Twenty Years Later (Enhanced Findings and Treatment Interventions, Part 2)

Twenty years ago I published a book (that link goes to the new edition, with additional information by scrolling down here) on a topic of national concern: preventing youth violence. The American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF) requested I write two blogs that highlighted the contents in the book. The first blog reviewed the early/serious/urgent warning […]

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Preventing Youth Violence: A Guide for Parents, Teachers, and Counselors

Preventing Youth Violence: Twenty Years Later (New Findings, Part 1)

Twenty years ago I published a book on a topic of national concern: preventing youth violence (Flannery, 2012a). The American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF), with its emphasis on improving mental-health awareness, requested I write two blogs (herewith, in 2019, are these two new essays) on some of the topics in the book. The first blog, from […]

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SUDEP: Sudden Unexpected Death in a Person with Epilepsy

This essay has been prepared in consultation with Evander Lomke, president and executive director of The American Mental Health Foundation. It is posted in memory of Elizabeth Leah Lomke, September 19, 1986 – June 4, 2018. The medical community and the general public are fully cognizant of the unexpected death of otherwise apparently healthy infants, […]

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Michelle Harrison, MD, Joins The American Mental Health Foundation Board of Directors

Michelle Harrison, MD, has joined The American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF) directors’ board as of July 1, 2018. She is the only director also serving on the AMHF professional-advisory board. Dr. Harrison is a U.S. physician of family medicine, psychiatry, and obstetrics with international stature. From 2006 to the present, Dr. Harrison directs Childlife Preserve Shishur Sevay, which […]

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Michelle Harrison, MD, Joins the AMHF Advisory Board

Michelle Harrison, MD, joins The American Mental Health Foundation professional-advisory board as of June 1, 2018. She is also nominated for its board of directors. Dr. Harrison is a U.S. physician of family medicine, psychiatry, and obstetrics with international stature. From 2006 to the present, Dr. Harrison directs Childlife Preserve Shishur Sevay, which she founded. […]

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The Sixth Annual Report of The American Mental Health Foundation

This is the sixth Annual Report of The American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF), a research organization formed in 1924, incorporated in New York State December 31, 1954. In 2017, AMHF celebrates 93 years of philanthropic service and activities—“Advancing Mental Health: A Century of Excellence in Mental Health Research.”   Vision: Building a More Compassionate Society—Get Involved!   Mission: AMHF endeavors […]

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The American Mental Health Foundation–Astor Services Study and Young People

On April 16, 2015, American Mental Health Foundation Books published its most comprehensive research project devoted to young people in its 90-plus-year history. Early Identification, Palliative Care, and Prevention of Psychotic Disorders in Children and Youth is the result of a pioneering two-year study developed and funded by AMHF. This monograph is also a collaborative […]

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Dr. Eric J. Green Counselor Educator of the Year

The American Mental Health Foundation congratulates its own Dr. Eric Green, Associate Professor of School Counseling at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, as well as AMHF professional advisory board member, on receiving the 2015 Counselor Educator of the Year Award at the Indiana School Counselor Association Annual Conference, November 13, 2015. Dr. Green is pictured […]

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Dr. Eric J. Green of AMHF Professional Advisory Board Publishes a New Book

Renowned play therapist Dr. Eric Green has co-authored and co-edited the pictured new book on family counseling. This book is officially published in October 2015 by one of the finest academic houses anywhere, Rowman & Littlefield (publishers, for example, of the former Jason Aronson program). Dr. Green is on the esteemed AMHF professional advisory board. […]

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Dr. Eric J. Green Joins the AMHF Professional Advisory Board

The American Mental Health Foundation is delighted to announce distinguished Jungian play therapist and author Dr. Eric J. Green has joined its professional-advisory board. Dr. Green’s full bio can be read here. We encourage one and all to visit his superb Web site, Soulplay. AMHF is coming off Dr. Green’s well-attended (more than 300 registered) […]

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11/6 FREE Webinar Is Selling out Fast Sign up Today!

The November 6 Free Interactive Webinar sponsored by AMHF, with Dr. Eric J. Green presenting on Disaster Mental Health with Children and Families has already had an overwhelming positive response. Wait no longer to sign up! Join Dr. Green and AMHF here. This Webinar is APT, NASW, and NBCC approved, and offers 2 CE Contact […]

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Understanding Adam Lanza and the Newtown-Sandy Hook Mass Killings

A year-and-a-half following the horrible killings at the Sandy Hook, Connecticut, elementary school, we Americans are still searching our souls, trying to understand how this tragedy could happen, why it did, what might have been the warning signs before young Adam Lanza snapped. Journalist Andrew Solomon met with Adam’s father, Peter Lanza, over six gut-wrenching […]

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The New York Times and News Regarding the Brain on Any Given Day

One of the world’s largest publishing houses was named by co-founder Bennett Cerf Random House. The name describes the true nature of trade-book publishing. (In fact, one publisher goes one better, calling itself Serendipity Press.) It is an interesting word: Random. Many of a philosophic or theological disposition believe nothing in life occurs randomly: that […]

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Purple Day

Today, March 26, 2014, is International Purple Day. AMHF joins all families, foundations, and health-care providers on the front lines in raising the flag of Epilepsy Awareness. Epilepsy, which derives from the ancient Greek meaning “to seize,” is a condition of the brain and nervous system. It is caused by lesions in the brain and […]

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Extraordinary Documentary on a Mental Institution

I have had the opportunity to view an extraordinary documentary entitled Kings Park. Here is what Oliver Sacks has to say: “A brave, compelling look at the life of a state mental hospital and those whose lives it has touched. Lucy Winer has thought long and hard about the subject, and brings to her film […]

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Psychiatry Films from AMHF: “The Bell Jar” (1979, 2013?)

This is the final blog in the AMHF series of twenty-one films relating to “Hollywood and Psychiatry.” These blogs have taken us from ca. 1921, and the release of silent classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a mere three years before The American Mental Health Foundation was organized, into the twenty-first century. The first blog […]

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Bullies and Food Allergies

Pediatrics, the flagship peer-reviewed journal of that profession, recently reported on a study of over 200 young people who have been bullied., according to an article in the New York Times. The researchers discovered that almost one third of this group reported being singled out for a food allergy. For children with peanut butter allergies, the […]

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Modern Pastoral Counseling

On our AMHF blogs we have tried to feature information about where the Venn diagrams of spirituality and counseling intersect. It seems peculiar that many religious people–from many religions–are reticent to link the spiritual resources and traditions of their faith with modern psychology and psychiatry. When people are depressed, psychotic, or anxious, there is a […]

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AMHF at BookExpo America

For three days last week American Mental Health Foundation Books shared a booth with its distributor, Lantern, at the annual BookExpo America—which is held at the Jacob Javits Center on New York City’s West Side. (New York remains the publishing capital of North America, even with the multitude of changes the industry has seen.) The […]

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Starting out with Schizophrenia

A feature story in today’s Washington Post, written by Stephanie McCrummen, offers an intensive look at the week of a 19-year-old man who, two years ago, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. It is the story of Spencer Haskell, and of his mom, Naomi, who has taken on the task of monitoring her son and making […]

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Harder than Reaching the Moon?

As Edward R. Murrow said, there are two sides to every story. Our previous probing into an increase and acceleration in funding for research into the brain waxed positively. A different viewpoint—now taken by major pharmaceutical industries—suggests that their interest in brain research is waning. Reuters reports the following: “Many pharmaceutical companies harbor deep doubts […]

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State of the State of Mental Health 2013

This month governors and the President are reflecting on what is going on in their respective territories. I thought this would be a good time to look at the state of the state of mental health and to offer my own reflections. DSM V Will Be Issued This year will inaugurate the new DSM V. […]

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More from Abraham Low

Previously I’ve written about Recovery International, founded by psychiatrist Abraham Low in the 1940s in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Low initiated a revolutionary brand of treatment that we now call cognitive therapy: by changing one’s thoughts, one could change troublesome feelings and through practice attain better mental health. Dr. Low used the word apprenticeship to denote […]

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Girl Scouts Honored

Two important areas in mental health are prevention and resiliency. Prevention includes all efforts to prevent a person from developing a mental-health problem. One of the most effective prevention programs has been Head Start—from the 1960s, these centers have been a path for positive adjustment for many young persons of disadvantaged backgrounds. Another prevention program […]

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