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.
On this special day, the AMHF board of directors sends birthday greetings and all best wishes to William Van Ornum Jr. His considerable abilities have been of incalculable value to AMHF, specifically during the presentation of the second Stefan de Schill Award, to Suicide Prevention International, as well as in the smooth running of our […]
By: Evander LomkeI 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.AMHF Advisory Board member Dr. James Quick has authored an extensive comment in the recent American Psychologist, the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association. In that journal there has been an extended discussion about the role of psychologists in working with the military as well as questioning as to whether or not psychologists ought […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.The DSM was first issued in 1952, during that liberating period that saw, for example, Kinsey’s reports on sexual behavior. The DSM in its various editions guides treatment decisions throughout North America and other continents. The original DSM listed 106 disorders. This was pretty much carried over to the 1968 revision. However, the DSM III […]
By: Evander LomkeThe October 9, 2011, New York Times once again brings to our attention the recent suicide of former New York Yankees pitcher Hideki Irabu. Once again, we are reminded of the sadness of Irabu’s death as well as the need for greater research and understanding about suicide from groups such as Suicide Prevention International. The […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Kathryn Lopez in National Review Online brings to our attention a young lady with Down syndrome who was elected Homecoming Queen of her high school. In juxtaposition to this is a news report from Ann Curry, from Serbia, showing that abuse of the kind that occurred at Willowbrook continues to occur in Serbia. These three […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
AMHF wishes our Board Member Gene Gollogly a very happy birthday. His yeoman services for AMHF have included his leadership in complex European transactions, helpfulness in providing a base of operations, and immeasurable wisdom from his decades of publishing. Gene, we wish you many, many more!
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.This week brings a big welcome to Dr. Raymond B. Flannery Jr. of Harvard Medical School, whose expertise in many fields including stress and violence prevention is greatly needed. It is also the time of year for the football season to be getting underway and for baseball season to reach a sometimes-fevered high of playoffs, […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Undergraduate students aspiring to medical school to become doctors face a set of hurdles. A student needs to have an excellent undergraduate grade-point average as well as do well in demanding courses such as physics and organic chemistry. In addition to all of these, there is the daunting challenge of the Medical College Admissions Test […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.AMHF sends condolences to the family of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, who passed away today in Kenya. AMHF also extends condolences to Lantern, the distributor of AMHF Books, which is the publisher of the late Ms. Maathai.
By: Evander LomkePREVENTING YOUTH VIOLENCE PART 2: INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP APPROACHES Raymond B. Flannery Jr., Ph.D., FAPM, Harvard Medical School, The University of Massachusetts Medical School Part 1 of these two essays on youth violence examined the basic cultural, biological, sociological, and psychological theories of youth violence and the continuum of early (disrupted mastery, attachment, meaning), serious […]
By: Dr. Raymond B. Flannery Jr.PREVENTING YOUTH VIOLENCE PART 1: ITS GENERAL NATURE AND WARNING SIGNS Raymond B. Flannery Jr., Ph.D., FAPM, Harvard Medical School, The University of Massachusetts Medical School Recent months have seen outbreaks of mindless violence by youth in Canada, Europe, and the United States. These acts have included homicide rape, robbery, assault, arson, and rioting among […]
By: Dr. Raymond B. Flannery Jr.This year there has been an ongoing discussion in The American Psychological Association about a lack of internship opportunities for doctoral students in APA programs who in their fourth year are applying for the clinical programs. In March, Dr. Melba J.T. Vasquez, APA President, noted that the profession faces a complex problem in creating more […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Researchers, including one from Northern Illinois University, in DeKalb, Illinois, where a gunman killed five students in a classroom and then shot himself, recently published research showing a genetic link to symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as noted in The Chicago Tribune. This was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Archives of General Psychiatry. […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.One theme of Dr. Stefan de Schill’s lifework was his passion for group therapy. His own personality lent itself to work simultaneously with the fascinating dynamics that occur in a group, and he was able to communicate understanding and direction almost intuitively. In many ways Dr. de Schill was also prescient in his concerns over […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.This week there is a great deal of introspection occurring about the events of 9/11/01. Some retellings and analyses are meant to be helpful and cathartic while others may be presented to us with underlying agendas. The counseling profession itself examines A Day That Changed a Nation and a Profession in an article by Lynn […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.No matter what position you take, the effects of abortion on the state of mental health is filled with controversy. The controversy comes from all sides, at root with a theological basis, but also secular: sociological and, of course, psychological in origin. The British Journal of Psychiatry published an extensive study on the subject (uniquely, […]
By: Evander LomkePat Summitt, championship-winning coach of the University of Tennessee Women’s Basketball Team, was recently diagnosed with early onset dementia (Alzheimer’s disease), as reported by Sports Illustrated on August 23. She is 59-years-old and will continue to coach: “Summitt said that she didn’t consider retirement. She told the News Sentinel that she was encouraged after speaking […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.On April 29, and April 30, 2011, in conjunction with Marist College and The Hudson Valley Family Business Institute, AMHF sponsored the workshop Small Family Business, Big Family Stress. We hope you will want to view the following 2-minute video. This workshop is the first in the AMHF-Stefan de Schill Memorial series The Healthy Organization. […]
By: Evander LomkeThe New York Times continues its coverage of the abuse of the developmentally disabled in New York State: “Moving to end the…lax oversight of the developmentally disabled, the Cuomo administration on Wednesday announced an agreement with the State Police to establish guidelines for reporting possible crimes against the disabled to law enforcement authorities.” The entire […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Many higher-level persons with autism are fascinated by trains. Trains are predictable: They run on a schedule, are limited to staying on a track that only goes certain places, and have very structured seating plans that no doubt came to be after much consultation between engineers, designers, and draftspersons. To some extent, buses share these […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.I wish to call our UK readers’ attention to The Violent Person by Dr. Raymond B. Flannery, an AMHF Book and the first title issued by our foundation in late 2009. It is a thoroughly up-to-date study of violence, the emotional and physiological reactions to it (in its most-extreme form, PTSD), and how professionals and […]
By: Evander LomkeA stock market that swings erratically every few years is looking to be the new normal: Many even doubt that a ten-year horizon is a safe one for long-term investors or those planning retirement. Economic worries are real. They can be all-consuming. Yet, often unacknowledged is the role of one’s emotional experience in diluting or […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Sallie Mae has recently added tuition-refund insurance to its spectrum of financial offerings, according to the July 22 edition of the New York Times. This can refund tuition that has already been paid when a student withdraws from classes due to illness. There is a catch, however: although the coverage will pay for 100 percent […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Once focus of American Mental Health Foundation this past year has been to increase awareness and research of suicide. We have done this through our support of Suicide Prevention International. Recently ex-major-league pitcher Hideki Irabu was found dead in his home in California. He had apparently committed suicide by hanging himself. What made this even […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Two new books of interest from The American Counseling Association (ACA): Integrating Spirituality and Religion Into Counseling: A Guide to Competent Practice, Second Edition, edited by Craig S. Cashwell and J. Scott Young. The ACA noted: “An introductory text for counselors-in-training and clinicians, this book describes the knowledge base and skills necessary to effectively engage […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.The evolution of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM I, II, III, IV, IV-TR) and upcoming DSM V is an interesting one. The first manual was a short volume with a small number of diagnoses. The diagnosis itself was often not as important as the detailed clinical description written about the patient, often written from […]
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.Peter Kramer, M.D., writing in the July 9 issue of the New York Times Magazine, responded to a number of recent articles in the media that criticize the efficacy of antidepressant medications. One of the reviews mentioned was an essay in the New York Review of Books, wherein Marsha Angell, former editor of the New […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
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