William, Like you I am getting ready to ring in the new year with family and friends. For me that means a night with my heroes: my sister Jessie who lives with Bipolar Disorder and my wonderful nephew Calen who lives with Schizoaffective Disorder. They have become fearless advocates for people living with mental illness, […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
Your hospital beeper summons you to the emergency room to assess the condition of an assaultive patient. Are you safe as you enter the room? In your private practice office, you are assessing a patient with a known history of organic impairment and impulsiveness. Have you thought to ensure your own safety? You are about […]
By: Dr. Raymond B. Flannery Jr.The December 22, 2011, edition of the New York Times brings out another article on the problems and abuses in New York State public groups homes where developmentally disabled persons reside. It is important to note that the focus of the NYT articles has been on “public” rather than private group homes. Many of the […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
Here is a letter I received from Jesse Close: Dear William: Share your story with Bring Change 2 Mind. I was 47 by the time I was properly diagnosed with bipolar disorder. For most of my life, my illness went undiagnosed and untreated. Life is much better now. A proper diagnosis and treatment helped tremendously, […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
In most cases psychiatric drugs are not valuable commodities on the street: antipsychotics and antidepressants with names such as Thorazine, Haldol, Resperidal, Tofranil, SSRIs, Wellbutrin, Abilify, Lithium, and others generally must build up a therapeutic dosage in the bloodstream to become effective. There is no immediate “rush” or feeling of euphoria. In acute-psychiatric illness, a […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.It is a great service to the public when prominent people share their struggles with psychological conditions like depression. This often gives others the courage to seek treatment and acknowledge their need for help. Dick Cavett’s biography in Wikipedia notes: “Cavett has openly discussed his bouts with clinical depression, an illness that first affected him […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.November is National Epilepsy Awareness Month. I want to take a few words to reflect on this baffling, often-misunderstood condition, especially within the mental-health profession. Epilepsy has been known since ancient times. In the New Testament, Jesus cures an epileptic, recommending fasting and prayer. Such might be the genesis of the ketogenic diet, developed since […]
By: Evander LomkeFrom the 14th edition of Abnormal Psychology by James N. Butcher, Susan Mineka, and Jill M. Hooley (Boston: Allyn and Bacon): “The concept of mental disorder, as we have seen, suffers from the lack of a truly objective means of what is disordered and what is not. It is also in the financial interests of […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
AMHF attended the 51st Annual Meeting of the New England Psychological Association (NEPA), held October 28-29 at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. After a wonderful dinner, hosted by Drs. Robin Crabtree and Susan Franzosa, deans at Fairfield, participants heard child-development expert Dr. James Garbarino speak of “Children and the Dark Side of Human Experience: Confronting […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
On Friday, October 28, 2011, AMHF attended the 17th Annual Meeting of the Northeast Conference for Teachers of Psychology. This is a group of psychologists, who teach in colleges and universities, dedicated to improving their teaching of undergraduates and graduates. Participants of the group come from a wide range of specialties and interests including developmental, […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.I wanted to continue the discussion points Evander Lomke recently raised (following an article published by University of Toronto) regarding what may be a plethora of new categories of pathology in the upcoming DSM V. It would appear that the psychiatric profession indeed is creating labels of “sickness” for many of the woes of everyday […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Counseling Today (a journal of the American Counseling Association in their July 2011 issue reports on a survey released by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and the needs of families who have children experiencing mental illness. The Adolescent Action Center of NAMI did a survey of over 500 respondents. Each of these was […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Previously we have written about Marsha Linehan, clinical psychologist who developed dialectical behavioral therapy, and who has worked throughout her career with persons who display severe suicidal behaviors or symptoms of what is called borderline personality disorder. On June 23, 2011, the New York Times presented an intriguing story, Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Therese Borchard, associate editor of Psych Central, offers everyone 6 Tips to Help Summer Depression. She notes 5 causes of summer depression, as suggested by Dr. Ian Cook of the Depression Research Project at UCLA. The following 5 factors may contribute to summertime depression: disrupted summer schedules, body image issues (i.e., fitting into that swimsuit), […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.From New York Able Newspaper May 2011: Manhattan’s first Mental Health Court, which recently opened at 100 Centre Street, is dedicated to keeping defendants with mental illness from engaging in further criminal behavior. This special court will handle nonviolent cases of defendants with serious and continuing mental illness. It is part of the New York […]
By: Evander LomkeCatherine Zeta Jones, glamorous wife of actor Michael Douglas, suffers the painful effects of bipolar disorder. As this ABC News article and video explain, bipolar disorder, a cause also closely associated with actress and well-known advocate Glenn Close (whose sister, Jesse, is diagnosed with bipolar disorder), can be brought on during any stage of life, […]
By: Evander Lomke
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