Category: Psychotherapy

New Approach to OCD

Mention OCD and you bring up strong feelings in any person or family member that suffers from it. Strange and frightening thoughts that intrude and don’t go away, meaningless gestures and actions that someone is compelled to perform, over and over, fully aware that these behaviors are at best silly and at their worst thieves […]

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The Psychology of Self-control

The 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 […]

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Did You Know ? . . . SAT and Mental Health

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 […]

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The Roots of Conicidence and the Frontiers of the Mind

What or where are the boundaries of psychology and parapsychology? Are those that ridicule research into ESP, telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance acting as responsible skeptics? Or are they closed-minded? When it comes to the human mind, it may be always be best to keep an open mind. In 1972, a slim book by Arthur Koestler […]

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Marriage and Mental Health

Wouldn’t it be great to raise the stock market and lower the divorce rate in America? At present, stocks have lost around 50 percent of their value, and the permanence and stability of nearly 50 percent of marriages is lost to divorce. Many faith-based institutions are working to counter this trend. Many require prospective couples […]

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Patterns of Culture

“The issue in psychiatry has been too often confused by starting from a fixed list of symptoms instead of from the study of those whose characteristic reactions are denied validity in their society.” (Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture [1934]) These wise words were written 75 years ago.

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A Wonderful Place: The Astor Home for Children

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

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Speech Therapists and Mental Health

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, […]

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The American Group Therapy Association and AMHF

The American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF) has and continues to support all effective models of group therapy. It was the wish of our long-time executive director, Dr. Stefan de Schill, that this mission be carried out and that his own pioneering work in this modality be further developed and made available to those who need […]

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Simple Phobias

Afraid of spiders and snakes? A continuing goal of the AMHF is to continue to bring to everyone’s awareness difficulties that may rob us of happiness. New therapies continue to be developed and older ones improved. There is, indeed, cause for hope. In the words of our long-time director, Dr. Stefan de Schill, exiles from […]

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Therapists Working with Babies

Have you ever been summoned by a baby who is crying in another room? If you have, here is a book for you. Natalie Angier, winner of a Pulitzer Prize as a New York Times science beat writer, has hit another home run in her column of March 3, 2009, wherein she offers reflections on […]

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Dealing with Depression

There is a handy paperback to help those with depression: Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns. It is not the typical self-help book in that it is based on cognitive therapy research. There are many types of charts and plans that can be done as the book is read. All of these are intended to […]

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Aging Well!

There is a great book that has been out several years now: Aging Well by Dr. George Vailland. He is a psychiatrist and long-time researcher. Vailland studied three different groups from radically different backgrounds, levels of IQ, and income. He sought to find the best predictor of aging well. It was not cholesterol. It was […]

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Imperfect Democracy and Mental Health

The January 5, 2009, New York Times reports in its Memo from Pravda that “In Eastern Europe, Lives Languish in Mental Facilities.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/world/europe/05bulgaria.html “A study of guardianship in eight former Communist countries completed last year by the Mental Disability Advocacy Center in Budapest found jaillike regimens for patients with a wide range of mental disabilities, […]

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Watch out for Dual Roles

Lately in the media there has been great attention toward physicians who do research and also have a financial interest in a drug company or receive benefits from a drug company. At least one profession cautions against such “dual roles.” The primary and over-riding loyalty of mental health clinicians is to their clients. although there […]

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The Psychology of Gratitude

On this Thanksgiving Holiday it’s great to know that mental health professionals are more and more emphasizing GRATITUDE in their therapies and publications. Just one example is Martin Seligman’s book on POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY. While insight about the past can be helpful for some, an attitude of appreciation for life in the here-and-now is a good […]

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The Psychopath, Modern Science, and the Therapist

John Seabrook, author of the book Flash of Genius and Other True Stories of Invention writes on the subject of Suffering Souls in the November 10, 2008, issue of The New Yorker. Can new and improved MRI techniques identify and help analysts deal with psychopaths? The psychopath, think characters in a Thomas Harris novel, also […]

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Lantern Books Publishes for Stressed Parents

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 […]

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Our New Video

Under the auspices of LanternMedia, the American Mental Health Foundation has produced a short video about its history and program. You may watch it below:

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American Psychological Association

The American Psychological Association, a group of over 100,000 psychologists in the U.S.A., offers helpful information for professionals as well as the public on its website: click here for APA link

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Anna Freud, WAR AND CHILDREN, 9-11

On this day of sadness and mourning I’m thinking about a book that Anna Freud wrote during World War Two. CHILDREN AND WAR was written for the women of London who were holding down the country during the deadly German bombings. These heroic women did just about everything to keep London alive in front-line conditions. […]

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The New Yorker doesn’t quite get it after all

The contest-winning caption on the Wizard of Oz group-therapy session drawing is in. The judges went for the cheap laugh. “And my hourly fee is six hundred dollars. You’re not in Kansas anymore.” The winning entry is by Bill Craig of Ridgewood, New Jersey. Mr. Craig has written an amusing caption to be sure. His […]

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DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION

I have been reading a wonderful book, DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood through Adulthood by Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., and John Ratey. M.D. This book brings to a general trade audience wisdom gained from peer-reviewed studies and research. Unlike some books on this topic, there is no ax […]

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PSYCHODYNAMIC DIAGNOSTIC MANUAL: Helpful companion the DSM IV

In the latter part of the 20th century a dramatic shift occurred regarding the manner in which psychiatrists and other mental health professionals described and diagnosed psychological problems. DSM I, the first version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, was a modest size paperback handbook providing broad categories of mental health problems. It was the […]

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The New Yorker magazine gets it Part 2

This week, we have the three finalists among caption-writers in The New Yorker Cartoon Capton Contest. “And my hourly fee is six hundred dollars. You’re not in Kansas anymore.” “If you adopt her, please understand that she comes with a lot of baggage.” “Home–is there really no place like it? Who’d like to start?” All […]

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Individual Therapy with Aggressive Children

Dr. David Crenshaw is one of the leading experts on psychotherapy with children and we are grateful to him for writing this for our blog: Aggressive Children have too many Tears Buried Inside David Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP The profound losses of those born and raised in extreme poverty; urban youth who grow up in dangerous […]

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