Category: News

Five-star Review of Erich Fromm in Midwest Book Review

“Four posthumously published titles by psychologist and social theorist Erich Fromm (1900-1980) offer Fromm’s psychology grounded in humanism. “Beyond Freud” (9781590561850, $25.00) is now published for the first time; it’s subdivided into “Man’s Impulse Structure and Its Relation to Culture” plus three lectures: “Psychic Needs and Society,” “Dealing with the Unconsciousness,” and “The Relevance of […]

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E. Fuller Torrey: Mandated Treatment Needed

E. Fuller Torrey, psychiatrist and author of Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual, writes in the Wall Street Journal about the necessity of mandated treatment and the responsibility of public-health authorities to monitor those severely mentally ill persons who need this. Torrey writes… “The killing of six people in Tucson is one more sad episode in […]

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Strains on College Mental-health Centers

Tragic events this past week in Arizona, involving Jared Lee Loughner, have once again brought to public awareness the question of treatment for seriously disturbed people who live in our midst, and in particular the issues concerning what to do when one of them is a college student and his or her behavior is a […]

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Women, Depression, and Diabetes

Dr. Sanje Gupta reported this week on results of a large-scale study among women that examined what happens when depression and Type II diabetes co-occur: “Researchers who published the data in the Archives of General Psychiatry looked at more than 78,000 women between the ages of 54 and 79 who were participating in the famous […]

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Schizophrenia in Its Many Forms

New York Times

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“Skypeanalysis”

The New Yorker has run a fascinating article by Evan Osnos. Osnos covers China for the magazine, writing on other subjects like His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The article under review is about the Chinese meeting Sigmund Freud. As Dr. Stefan de Schill correctly predicted, there has been a resurrection of psychoanalysis. But it is […]

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Unit Cohesion, Combat Exposure, and PTSD

Noting that combat exposure is a consistent predictor of posttrauatic stress (PTS), researchers reported in the Journal of Counseling and Development (Volume 89 Winter 2011 pp. 81-88) that unit cohesion may be an important factor to take into account regarding PTS, and that good unit cohesion may attenuate PTS as well as subsequent depression. “The […]

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On SSI and Medicaid: How Do You Find Good Mental-health Care?

One of the readers of CNN.com wrote in and asked how one goes about finding good mental-health care if one is on SSI and Medicaid. This particular respondent also is limited in transportation. Following is the helpful response. “I have been thinking for a number of weeks about your question. I wish I could tell […]

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Autism and Mitochondria

An article in The Economist, Explaining Autism: Energy drain, suggests that one of the causes of autism may be faulty mitochondria. Mitochondria serve as the power-packs for other cells in the body, especially nerve cells. They take apart sugar molecules and in this process energy that can be used by other cells in the body […]

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The Psychology of Dostoyevsky’s Karamazov Brothers

Although this blog is not a forum for literary critiques and commentary, my recent four-month wrestling match with The Karamazov Brothers (the translator of the edition I found in my branch of the New York Public Library maintains it is as ridiculous to call the book “The Brothers Karamazov” as it is to refer to […]

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Confidentiality Cloaks Medicare Abuse, Says Wall Street Journal

An article in the Wall Street Journal examines how “Confidentiality Cloaks Medicare Abuse.” Mark Schools and Maurice Tamman report on how Medicare’s own internal regulations get in the way of effective review of claims that may be fraudulent. “There are plenty of reasons why Medicare often fails to stop questionable payments up front. To protect […]

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Happy Holidays

Like our colleague and board member Dr. William Van Ornum, I wish all our donors, book-purchasers, and good readers of this blog a Healthy, Happy, and Peaceful New Year. We will endeavor to be at the forefront of mental-health issues in 2011 as we have striven in 2010 and all past years. Please look for […]

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Merry Christmas

I would like to wish everyone who visits this blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It is a privilege for me to be able to share my thoughts on mental health with readers, and I hope that some of the insights are helpful. Let’s keep everyone who struggles with mental-health concerns in […]

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ADHD Is Real, Says New York Times

Most readers here probably acknowledge the existence of ADHD: as something they themselves suffer from or as something they know as “true” from its presence in a family member or close friend. Yet it is interesting that a case needs to be made for the existence of this problem. Dr. Perri Klass does so in […]

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William James Continued

Last summer I was privileged to be able to reexamine and write about William James and his study of religion and mental health. Although James was aware that religious experiences could lead to or accompany emotional problems, and he used the term sick soul to speak of this, he was fundamentally intrigued by how religion […]

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Concierge Medicine and Mental Health Care

Some physicians, not satisfied with the paperwork, intrusive regulations,and reimbursement delays and problems in the medical field, as well as salary limits, which they believe are not fair for the level of responsibility entailed in medicine, are opting out of the field and starting so-called concierge practices. In a concierge practice, a physician, usually an […]

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Courts Criticize Medicare Rule Interpretation

Recently the

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New Erich Fromm Review from Book News, Inc.

The pathology of normalcy. Fromm, Erich. American Mental Health Foundation Books, 2010 152 p. $25.00 978-1-59056-184-3 At the beginning of the 1950s, German-born US psychologist and social theorist Fromm (1900-80) began investigating whether people were psychically healthy in industrial society, and developed a new social psychology approach that allowed the psychoanalysis of the normal, socially […]

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Boosting Workplace Morale

The antics and dangerous deployment of an emergency jet chute by former Jet Blue Airlines employee Steven Slater captivated media attention a few months ago. The case his since been pleaded in court. Slater has come to represent to Americans disgruntled and disturbed employees of all kinds. Recently the American Psychological Association has showcased the […]

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Acne and Depression

For many acne is the bane of growing up and for some acne continues through adulthood. Acne can elicit both teasing and sympathy from others, and like many things, perhaps it is only the sufferer of acne who realizes its true effect on the body and beyond. New research is looking at how acne affects […]

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Group Therapy: Strength in Numbers

An article in a recent edition of “Counseling Today” (Published by the American Counseling Association) reported on the benefits of group therapy. “Strength in Numbers” is the title of the article, written by Lynn Shallcross, and its theme is that “the give and take of group work offers clients a nurturing environment for growth, change, […]

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18 Million Americans Have Untreated Mental Illness

A recent article in the Huffington Post noted the following: WASHINGTON The government says 1 in 5 American adults suffered from mental illness during the past year. Most didn’t receive treatment. A survey being released Thursday by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that 45 million experienced some form of mental illness […]

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Mental-health Problems: Children of the Military

Another recent article in the Huffington Post reports on mental-health problems suffered by children who are from military families. “The latest study on military children, published this month in the Journal Pediatrics, looked at more than a half million military children ages 3 to 8 whose parents were deployed. Researchers found that behavioral disorders, such […]

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Happy Birthday Thea Lucas

Happy Birthday today to long-time AMHF board member and Secretary, Mrs. Thea Lucas! We hope you have a perfect day and many more. Trained and certified as an attorney in Europe, in an era when few young women were, Mrs. Lucas has served AMHF tirelessly for many years. Her philosophical, keen, and common-sense assessments of […]

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Farewell David Castronovo

AMHF mourns the death of David Castronovo. A steadfast supporter of AMHF, Dr. Castronovo was the author or editor of eleven books of literary criticism on subjects ranging from Edmund Wilson and Thornton Wilder to popular classics of the 1950s to “The American Gentleman” to “Blokes: The Bad Boys of British Literature.” Dr. Castronovo was […]

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Shrinking State Budgets and Mental-health Facilities

Below is from the New York Times of November 10, 2010: “The agencies that run prisons and mental health facilities also employ the largest number of state workers of any departments of government under direct control of the governor, part of a work force that Mr. Cuomo may be forced to trim, or demand significant […]

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“In Treatment”

I wonder what readers of our blog make of In Treatment, a drama on HBO.

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Review of “The Violent Person” by Dr. Raymond B. Flannery Jr. in New England Psychologist

Congratulations to American Mental Health Books author Dr. Raymond B. Flannery Jr., for the stellar notice of his book The Violent Person in New England Psychologist. This review, by Dr. James K. Luiselli, in the November 2010 issue (volume 18, number 9), is reproduced in full on our Web site.

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Happy Birthday Mr. William Van Ornum

On this final day of the 86th year of The American Mental Health Foundation, October 31, 2010, the Board of Directors also wishes a Happy twenty-sixth birthday to Mr. William Van Ornum. William has been an inspiration and a tremendous help to AMHF as one of our guiding spirits over the past three years. Happy […]

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No Beds for Children in Boston

Parents and those who work with children have long recognized the difficulty in gaining a bed for a child in a children’s psychiatric unit of a general hospital (these are rare), a large university or teaching hospital, or a specialized children’s psychiatric center. These kinds of placements are crucial when a child is psychotic, suicidal, […]

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