On this centenary of Mark Twain’s death, we look back at Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. While psychologists have written thousands if not millions of words on the effects of separation and loss in all our lives, Mark Twain taught about these powerful forces in the lives of two young boys growing up. Tom Sawyer […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
While riding the Lake Shore Limited–Ensconced in a small sleeping room, surrounded by a bag or two of books–I am sometimes reminded of Paul Theroux and his captivating books on Riding the Orient Express or going coast to coast on a train in Canada. In today’s New York Times, Theroux reflects on the Boy Scouts […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.In 1953, the year the Rosenbergs were convicted in the electric chair, Esther Greenwood (a.k.a. Elly Higginbottom), poet Sylvia Plath’s alter ego (further complicating the picture, Plath wrote under the pen name “Victoria Lucas”), underwent electroshock therapy. Electricity, neurological connections, high-strung emotion, madness, suicide (which the real-life Plath committed ten years after the setting of […]
By: Evander LomkeDR VAN ORNUM MEETS WITH NYS GOVERNOR PATERSON For the past two months, AMHF Board Member and Director of Publications, Dr. William Van Ornum, has worked to provide feedback to New York State Governor David Paterson regarding the devastating effect of budget cuts on people with disabilities and the programs that provide services to them. […]
By: Evander Lomke
The profession of psychiatry is now in the fourth edition of the book that classifies mental disorders: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV. The revised version will be published in 2013, and there continues to be debate about what will and will not be included. The New York Times brings this and a spirited discussion in […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
There is an increasing awareness of the vulnerability of football players and other athletes to the serious possibility of concussions that have gone unrecognized. This means there is an interaction between the mental health and neurological domains. There is increasing evidence of brain damage caused by concussion in professional athletes within the NFL. This month, […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
The National Institute of Mental Health offers a rich Web site for consumers, researchers, and program administrators. Not only is there detailed and highly credible information about major mental-health conditions, the procedures for obtaining research and program grants are detailed. A section of the Web site, “Science News,” provides interesting feature stories about conditions and […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.One advantage of a blog is the expression of creative ideas, or at least new ideas, in a rapid way. So I will take advantage of this and hope there is at least a little creativity to be found in what follows. Personally written messages are becoming extinct. It is so much easier to dash […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.I had the distinct honor to receive an invitation to the Fall Harvest Festival presented by Suicide Prevention International. Suicide is now recognized by the World Health Organization and the United States government as a global health problem. Suicide Prevention International has developed four distinctive projects: – Youth Suicide Prevention – Recognition of an Individual […]
By: Evander LomkeThe presentation of the Stefan de Schill Award was noted by Reverend Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of NY.
By: Evander LomkeThe presentation of the Stefan de Schill Award was covered in the NY Daily News.
By: Evander LomkeAMHF’s presentation of the Stefan de Schill Award to Astor Services appeared in the Hudson/Catskills newspaper, the Register-Star.
By: Evander LomkeThe Foundation’s presentation of the Stefan de Schill Award received coverage in the Poughkeepsie Journal.
By: Evander LomkeOn October 21, 2009, AMHF awarded Astor Services the first Stefan de Schill Award. This is a $5,000 grant plus the framed citation pictured on our homepage. The ceremony was hosted by Dr Sapna Parikh, medical reporter at Fox News. Overall, some 35 people, representing AMHF and Astor Services, were in attendance. Jazz saxophonist Tony […]
By: Evander Lomke
For further information please contact: Sonia Barnes-Moorhead The Astor Home for Children Foundation (845) 871-1117 *protected email* Astor Services for Children & Families Receives the first American Mental Health Foundation’s Stefan de Schill Award FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Rhinebeck, N.Y. (October 8, 2009) — Astor Services for Children & Families is the first recipient of the Stefan […]
By: Evander LomkeI am recently back from attending the annual American Psychological Association, the major organization of practicing and research psychologists in North America. With 150,000 members, the venerable APA convened for the 117th time in Toronto. Over 10,000 members, representing major universities and clinical programs, attended, as well as many psychologists who are in private practice. […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Bulimia. Anorexia. Binge Eating. Such are almost always associated with young women. But the New York Times reports such conditions are identified by therapists in a significant percentage of the male population.
By: Evander LomkeThe May 18, 2009, issue of The New Yorker features an article by Jonah Lehrer entitled “Don’t.” It is about the psychology of delayed gratification. For those of us who may have long questioned a society that encourages and even reveres instant pleasure, the article is of considerable interest. A cartoon some 40 pages later […]
By: Evander LomkeBoth AMHF and the World Health Organization (WHO) recognize the crippling effect of mental illness. In their report “The Global Burden of Disease,” C. J. L. Murray and A. D. Lopez emphasize that 8 of the 10 leading causes of disability in the developed countries are mental illness. These include: (1) Major Depressive Disorders (2) […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.The American Mental Health Foundation takes no official position on the SAT. We do, however, recognize the tremendous anxiety it engenders. As in many areas related to mental health, knowing something about the history gives us greater awareness of how current practices developed. You will see how this bit of history offers a lesson to […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Researchers estimate that between one and three percent of adults in the United States have a gambling problem. We at AMHF believe there is a need to give more attention to this. How many marriages or families are ruined due to addictive or compulsive gambling? Our society certainly mixes messages to teens: everything from rub-off […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.For over 55 years, the Astor Home for Children has been providing topnotch care for children and families, both in New York City and Upstate New York communities. It is sponsored by the
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Speech and language pathologists and audiologists are a profession that often works with people who have mental conditions: problems in communication can in themselves cause mental-health problems, or can magnify those already present. The goals of speech and language pathologists are to advocate on behalf of persons with communications and other disorders, advance communication science, […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Parents of special-needs children know this, but others might not. Viz., there is a continuum of care and interventions for special-needs children. During the past 32 years, since the enactment of Public Law 94-142 (PL 94-142), different programs of different intensities (and expense) change, depending on the political or economic climate of the times. For […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
Permit me to say this about Lantern Books’s exceptional new title An Unchanged Mind: The Problem of Immaturity in Adolescence by Harvard psychiatrist John A. McKinnon, MD: I wish I were issuing this book myself. The reason being, I am the publisher of American Mental Health Foundation Books. Adolescent behavior in its extreme forms is […]
By: Evander Lomke
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