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| This page provides links to current news stories relating to serious mental illness and mental health. NAMI California is not responsible for the views expressed by the authors. Click on the title to view the full text. | |
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| | | | A Harder Road To Recovery | The Contra Costa Times | 02/07/2010 | | As the unemployment rate goes up, finding jobs for disabled people is getting harder. |  |
| | | | Hopeful Signs Of Increased Emphasis On Mental Health Issues | Psychiatric Times | 02/07/2010 | | A major speech on mental health from Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the ascension of a new administrator at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) have sparked hopes that the Obama administration is putting increased emphasis on mental health issues. | |
| | | | Down To The Bare Bones | The Daily Democrat | 02/05/2010 | | In Yolo County, compassion has resulted in debt, as the Mental Health Department for years has gone above and beyond state mandate to care for its citizens. | |
| | | | Roadblocks, Education, and Recovery | The News Journal | 02/04/2010 | | Mental Illness is a medical condition that disrupts a person's thinking, feeling, mood and ability to relate to others. It also diminishes your capacity to cope with the ordinary demands of life. | |
| | | | Electroboy On Campus | PR Web | 02/03/2010 | | It has never been more important than now to empower college students with the tools they need to manage their mental health care needs. | |
| | | | Mr. Ayers, Recording Artist | The Los Angeles Times | 02/02/2010 | | I was beginning to think we'd never get around to making the CD that Nathaniel Anthony Ayers has been talking about for years. | |
| | | | Fish Oil Can Head Off First Psychotic Episodes | The Los Angeles Times | 02/01/2010 | | In the lives of young people at high risk for developing serious mental illness, heading off that first psychotic episode can mean a world of difference. | |
| | | | Workers Fear Stigma Of Seeking Mental Health Care | HealthDay News | 01/30/2010 | | Fears about losing status at work and about confidentiality are among the main reasons that many American workers are more hesitant to seek treatment for mental health issues than for physical health problems, according to a national survey released this week by the American Psychiatric Association. | |
| | | | Children Of Bipolar Parents At Risk | Parent Dish | 01/29/2010 | | The Parents' Curse: "I hope you have children just like you!" There may be a scientific basis for that. If your child's temper tantrums and assorted fits are frazzling your last nerve, it could be because he or she is a sort of mini-you. | |
| | | | New Rules Promise Better Mental Health Coverage | The New York Times | 01/29/2010 | | The Obama administration issued new rules on Friday that promise to improve insurance coverage of mental health care for more than 140 million people insured through their jobs. | |
| | | | Trading Barbs On California Single-Payer Plan | The Ventura County Star | 01/28/2010 | | Saying that states may need to take the lead on healthcare reform if the effort in Congress stalls, members of the California Senate today approved a measure to establish a single-payer insurance system that would function much like Medicare to cover all Californians. | |
| | | | Stigma and The Service | Stars and Stripes | 01/25/2010 | | The Army staff sergeant knew something was seriously wrong when he still couldn’t sleep weeks after returning from Afghanistan. But he never considered going to Army psychiatrists. | |
| | | | Lumping Ethnic Groups In Mental Health Research Leaves Many Untreated | New America Media | 01/24/2010 | | The conventional practice of lumping ethnic groups together as Latinos, African Americans or Asian/Pacific Islanders makes it nearly impossible for researchers to determine key factors for improving the effectiveness of care among racial or ethnic subgroups, according to a new study of depression care in the United States. | |
| | | | Stay Sought For Fresco County Housing | The Fresno Bee | 01/23/2010 | | Two low-income apartment complexes for the mentally ill that are set to close may remain open -- at least for the next four months -- under a plan that Fresno County supervisors will be asked to approve Tuesday. | |
| | | | Diagnosing Disorders Using Brain Imaging | CNET | 01/21/2010 | | Post-traumatic stress, which is estimated to afflict one in five veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars alone, is typically diagnosed through behavioral screenings and is often considered a "soft" disorder with no known biomarkers. | |
| | | | NAMI Affiliate Director Honored | San Diego Magazine | 01/20/2010 | | Shannon Jaccard, Executive Director for NAMI San Diego, was selected to join the list of 50 San Diego residents expected to make significant contributions to the community in 2010. | |
| | | | Dealing With The Workplace | Psychology Today | 01/18/2010 | | If you’re having trouble doing your job or desperately need an accommodation, you need to tell somebody something before you do serious damage to your career. However, be very careful about disclosing your diagnosis. | |
| | | | A Systemic Look At Schizophrenia | Chemical & Engineering News | 01/18/2010 | | Because schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder, its physical manifestations must all be in the brain, right? Maybe not. Proteomic studies using cells from other parts of the body are showing that there might be a systemic aspect of the disorder. The ability to use nonbrain cells to study schizophrenia could make it easier to find biomarkers of the disease and to develop diagnostic tools. | |
| | | | Migraine and Depression May Share Genetic Component | Science Daily | 01/18/2010 | | New research shows that migraine and depression may share a strong genetic component. The research is published in the January 13, 2010, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. | |
| | | | On the Streets of Colusa County | The Colusa Sun Herald | 01/15/2010 | | Sometimes it just takes an outstretched hand and a brave first step to begin a life-changing journey. | |
| | | | Therese Borchard On Overcoming Depression | Time Magazine | 01/15/2010 | | Therese Borchard writes about depression every day on her award-winning blog at Beliefnet.com, featured weekly on The Huffington Post, and was voted by PsychCentral.com as one of the top 10 depression blogs. But it took a special leap of faith to share the stories of her breakdowns, hospitalizations and ongoing struggle with depression | |
| | | | MHSA Implementations Boost Alameda County Services | Oakland North | 01/13/2010 | | While the Board of Supervisors were preparing for cutbacks, their most spirited debate focused on a department that actually has more money this year—the Health Care Services Agency. | |
| | | | Congress and Extended Mental Health Coverage | Psychiatric Times | 01/13/2010 | | Both bills appear to extend mental health parity to individual and group policies sold within new health insurance Exchanges. They would also expand Medicaid, begin funding medical home demonstrations, and ban insurance companies from denying policies based on an applicant’s preexisting condition. | |
| | | | Debate Over Best Mental Health Therapy | the Los Angeles Times | 01/11/2010 | | If your doctor advised a treatment that involved leeches and bloodletting, you might take a second glance at that diploma on the wall. For the same reason, you should think twice about whom you see as a therapist, says a team of psychological researchers. | |
| | | | How Catholics Struggle With Mental Illness | U.S. Catholic | 01/10/2010 | | Not long after Rich Salazar moved to DeKalb, Illinois from California, he found himself knocking at the door of St. Mary's Church. The then-college student had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was in crisis mode. | |
| | | | Governor Offers Budget Plan With Deep Cuts | the Sacramento Bee | 01/09/2010 | | One thing is clear in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's final January budget proposal: California's finances are about as desperate as desperate gets. | |
| | | | How Cuts Would Affect NAMI Consumers and Families | NAMI California | 01/09/2010 | | If the budget proposals made by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are realized, California's residents who suffer from mental illnesses and their families may be gravely affected. | |
| | | | Millions Of Californians Have Lost Health Care | The San Francisco Chronicle | 01/08/2010 | | About 3 million poor Californians lost health benefits or access to health care, and thousands more lost their jobs due to state budget cuts imposed six months ago, according to a report released Thursday. | |
| | | | SAMHSA Grant Proposals Due Mid-February | Media Newswire | 01/07/2010 | | The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration(SAMHSA)is accepting applications for fiscal year 2010 for up to $8.9 million. | |
| | | | Safety Nets In Peril? | The Sacramento Bee | 01/06/2010 | | Health care advocates estimate that California's budget cuts have forced more than 450,000 Californians, including severely disabled people, to either pay for or go without dental care since July. | |
| | | | Schwarzenegger Calls For Extensive Changes | The Los Angeles Times | 01/06/2010 | | Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning presented lawmakers with an ambitious agenda for his final year in office, calling for broad changes to the state's budget, pension and tax systems, a constitutional requirement to spend more on higher education than prisons and a greater share of federal funding for California. | |
| | | | State Of The State Message | The Sacramento Bee | 01/06/2010 | | Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday in his final State of the State address that he will protect schools in his upcoming budget and proposed a constitutional guarantee that California will never spend more money on prisons than on higher education. | |
| | | | Working Out Healthcare Reform | Yahoo.com | 01/05/2010 | | Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama began work in earnest Tuesday on difficult issues still standing in the way of their national health care overhaul after months of tortuous debate. Topping the list: How to help Americans pay for insurance premiums. | |
| | | | The Clinical Trial That Keeps On Giving | Psychiatry Online | 01/04/2010 | | The large, real-world trial has shown that high-quality depression treatment can be delivered in primary care clinics using a measurement-based treatment protocol. | |
| | | | Oakland A's Pitcher Hurls A Victory For Recovery | The San Francisco Chronicle | 01/02/2010 | | Justin Duchscherer just conducted a very candid conference call with local reporters in which he discussed his diagnosis of clinical depression last summer. | |
| | | | Hushing The Intruders In Her Brain | The LA Times | 12/29/2009 | | It was a little more than a year ago that January Schofield, at age 6, began to drift from reality. Suicidal, violent and plagued by hallucinations of rats and cats who conversed and played with her, she began the first of seven psychiatric hospitalizations. | |
| | | | Shooting Emphasizes Need For Improved Care | The Modesto Bee | 12/28/2009 | | Earlier this month, I got a dreaded phone call from a dear friend. She told me that her daughter, Beth, had been shot dead while in a psychotic episode. She was threatening police in a school yard. | |
| | | | Mental Health Should Be High On List Of Essentials | The Sacramento Bee | 12/27/2009 | | Our community should understand that because of budget cuts imposed by our elected county officials, our health care providers – and every member of this community – are at great risk. | |
| | | | An MHSA Success Story | The Oakland Tribune | 12/27/2009 | | For years, Deaundre Rice waged war with himself — battling alcohol and drug problems as well as mental illness — until bottoming out four years ago. | |
| | | | Healing Power In The Hands Of Patients | The Napa Valley Register | 12/26/2009 | | Joel Carrillo of Napa uses words like “terrifying” when describing the symptoms of depression. But along with others, including many facing the same demons, he’s finding support at a local program for adults battling mental illness. | |
| | | | Sick, Without A Safety Net | LA Times | 12/23/2009 | | On the wall across from Tucker Johnson's easy chair is a three-paneled drawing he believes was an early clue to his son's mental illness, an exacting sketch of the Pillsbury Doughboy, first intact, then split in two, then unrecognizable. | |
| | | | Marin County Reducing Services | The Mercury News | 12/20/2009 | | Marin County's mental health division is cutting back services to Medi-Cal recipients after the state cut in half the funds it provided. | |
| | | | Healthcare Reform Closes In On Victory | Yahoo | 12/19/2009 | | Democratic leaders secured the support of Sen. Ben Nelson to provide the 60th and deciding vote for sweeping health care legislation in the Senate, capping a year of struggle and a final burst of deadline bargaining on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. | |
| | | | Trouble Growing In Fresno | The Fresno Bee | 12/19/2009 | | Six months ago, Fresno County closed its only psychiatric-crisis center to save money, forcing police to take potentially dangerous people to hospital emergency rooms instead. | |
| | | | NAMI Applauds New Report On Caregiving | PR Web | 12/17/2009 | | The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) praises a new report, Caregiving in the U.S. 2009, which offers a revealing portrait of the nearly one-in-three American adults who serve as a family caregiver. | |
| | | | The San Francisco Foundation Awards $30,000 Grant To Conard House | News-Medical Net | 12/14/2009 | | Conard House, a pioneering nonprofit organization developing resources to help people self-manage mental illness since 1960, today announced the award of a $30,000, one-year grant from The San Francisco Foundation to continue implementation of a five-year strategic mental health education initiative. | |
| | | | PTSD Affects Women Soldiers, Too | Google | 12/14/2009 | | Nobody wants to buy them a beer. Even near military bases, female veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't often offered a drink on the house as a welcome home. | |
| | | | Troubling News For The Young | The LA Times | 12/13/2009 | | If your child broke an arm or had a nasty bout of pneumonia, you’d probably visit the doctor. But a new study from researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health finds that only 55% of kids with a mental disorder sought professional treatment. | |
| | | | Use Of Deadly Force | The Sacramento Bee | 12/13/2009 | | Before he called the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department to his 50th Avenue apartment for a tenant dispute that ended with his death Tuesday, Giat Van Truong had been arrested on a mental-health hold several times in his life, according to authorities. | |
| | | | Sensory Studies Show Promise | The LA Times | 12/09/2009 | | Brain Visual and auditory deficits are apparent in teenagers developing schizophrenia, and identifying and treating these deficits might restore sensory function and limit the impact of the disease, researchers reported. | |
| | | | Push For Deal On Public Health Plan | The New York Times | 12/07/2009 | | President Obama exhorted Senate Democrats on Sunday to put aside their differences and seize their moment in history by passing landmark health legislation. But senators said he did not mention sticky issues like abortion or a new government-run insurance plan. | |
| | | | Unkind Cuts At Home | The Mercury News | 12/05/2009 | | Among the patchwork of agencies providing mental health services to schoolchildren, the stitching is coming unraveled. | |
| | | | Mental Health Social Network Launched | Examiner.com | 12/03/2009 | | Mental Health Social has launched a new social network. The site is designed to allow people with mental health conditions to connect in a comfortable and private online environment. | |
| | | | Remember Us For The Holidays | The Bakersfield Californian | 11/28/2009 | | Loneliness is frequently a problem for the mentally ill, but it's especially the case during the holidays. There is a great deal of stigma and rejection for them all year long, but at Christmas things can be especially difficult. Many have no family or friends to spend time with, and little money to buy a Christmas tree or food to eat. Suicides and hospitalizations go up. | |
| | | | Mental Illness Stigma In The Family | The Tucson Citizen | 11/28/2009 | | Discrimination against people with mental illness is all too prevalent, but what does someone do when someone in your family is being stigmatized by their own family members? | |
| | | | A Comparison Of Health Care Reform Bills | Mental Health America | 11/23/2009 | | Below is a summary of some of the major topics of interest addressed in the health care reform bill passed by the House of Representatives and in Senate leadership bill combining two committee-approved versions. | |
| | | | Police Training Pays Off | The Mercury News | 11/21/2009 | | One out of every four San Jose police officers is specially trained to respond to emergency calls that involve a mentally ill or suicidal person. | |
| | | | Military Experiment Seeks To Predict PTSD | Time | 11/20/2009 | | Two days before shipping off to war, Marine Pfc. Jesse Sheets sat inside a trailer in the Mojave Desert, his gaze fixed on a computer that flashed a rhythmic pulse of contrasting images. | |
| | | | Palo Alto High Holds Encouraging Mental Health Forum | Paly.net | 11/20/2009 | | The Palo Alto Parent Teacher Student Association-sponsored mental health and wellness panel held at the Haymarket Theater on Thursday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. sent a clear message that help is available to students and parents in need of guidance. | |
| | | | Seeking Early Interventions | Boston.com | 11/16/2009 | | There may be a way of predicting which teenagers at high risk for full-blown schizophrenia will go on to develop the disease. | |
| | | | Childhood Stress Can Trigger Adult Depression | The LA Times | 11/14/2009 | | Growing up in a stressful environment isn't conducive to becoming a well-adjusted adult. Studies have shown that people who faced constant stress during childhood have an increased risk of being depressed later. | |
| | | | Gene Linked To Mood Disorders | Laboratory Equipment | 11/13/2009 | | A gene in the brain that was not previously linked to mood disorders could have a role in biopolar, depression, and schizophrenic conditions. Pharmacy scientists at the Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) identified antidepressant and anti-anxiety behaviors in tests of mice lacking the gene. | |
| | | | Caring For The Caregivers | NPR | 11/12/2009 | | As the nation held its breath, waiting for news about health care, violent acts were committed against a caregiver to the mentally ill and by a caregiver himself. | |
| | | | Illness and Intimacy | The New York Times | 11/12/2009 | | Few people have written about their experience of manic-depressive illness from the inside as acutely as Kay Redfield Jamison did in her 1995 memoir, “An Unquiet Mind.” | |
| | | | Coming Home | The Town Crier | 11/11/2009 | | The 2000 U.S. Census reported that 2,854 military veterans resided in Los Altos – slightly more than 13 percent of the city’s older-than-18 population. Whether serving stateside or abroad in times of peace or war, Los Altos residents have a long history of defending and protecting their country and its freedoms. | |
| | | | Recovery In Stanislaus | The Turlock Journal | 11/03/2009 | | About 15 years ago, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder caused Robert Hall to run away from home, as if he were a teenager again, and no one understood why, not even himself. | |
| | | | Is This Any Way To Treat Our Heroes? | The Huffington Post | 11/02/2009 | | A close family friend's son recently returned from Afghanistan where he had been working as a government contractor for the US war there. He is a Veteran Marine who joined in 2002 right after terrorists flew airplanes into the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11/01. He unselfishly wanted to serve his country and defend us from these attacks. | |
| | | | Combating The Stigma Of Psychological Injuries | The New York Times | 11/02/2009 | | In his most extensive comments on mental health challenges facing American forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that many military personnel fear a stigma if they seek help for psychological injuries. | |
| | | | NAMI California Collaborates With State Prison System | NAMI California | 11/01/2009 | | After two years of advocacy and with the strong support of numerous prison clinicians, NAMI California has obtained support from the Division of Correctional Health Care Services to place an Inmate Mental Health Information Form in all California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Reception Centers. | |
| | | | What Are Our Priorities? | The Daily News | 11/01/2009 | | When author Pete Earley titled his last book "Crazy," it was not in reference to people with mental illness, but rather to a flawed mental health system intended to help them. | |
| | | | NAMI Goes To Work In Lake County | The Record-Bee | 11/01/2009 | | A core group of volunteers has come together to form the Lake County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Board members are in place and additional volunteers are being sought. | |
| | | | Antipsychotics May Cause Rapid Weight Gain In Youth | Reuters | 10/27/2009 | | Up to a third of children and adolescents who took common antipsychotic drugs for the first time became overweight or obese in as little as 11 weeks, raising their risk for diabetes and heart disease, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. | |
| | | | Survey Shows High Rate Of Depression Among U.S. Unemployed | Voice of America | 10/27/2009 | | The steep downturn in the U.S. economy and the accompanying rise in unemployment have caused financial hardship for millions of Americans. The recession is also having a negative impact on Americans' mental health. | |
| | | | A Push For Colleges To Prioritize Mental Health | NPR | 10/26/2009 | | Arcadio Morales, one of six residence deans at Stanford University, has lived in an apartment in the campus dorms for 15 years. But the mix of problems he's called to weigh in on has become more serious in recent years. | |
| | | | NAMI Calls For Increase In NIH Funding | NAMI | 10/26/2009 | | NAMI is joining advocates from across the nation in asking President Obama to make medical research for improving health care a priority and support robust funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). | |
| | | | Plea For Help At The Top | The Kansas City Star | 10/23/2009 | | In the Senate, Barack Obama fought for better mental health care for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. As president, some of his former colleagues now want him to again make sure troops are getting the benefits they deserve. | |
| | | | Light At Night Linked To Depression | Los Angeles Times | 10/23/2009 | | Lots of research suggests that our bodies are adapted to sleep during darkness and become active during daylight. Disruptions in circadian rhythms may increase the risk of metabolic diseases and some types of cancer. Now, a study in mice has found, being exposed to light at night for prolonged periods of time may contribute to depression. | |
| | | | Teens In The Spotlight Following Tragedies | The Daily News | 10/21/2009 | | Planned long before the death of another Gunn High School student on Monday, a community forum on teen mental health Wednesday night drew a large crowd of community members seeking answers about how to prevent a "suicide cluster" from continuing to expand in Palo Alto. | |
| | | | The Stigma Of Silence and Mental Illness | The Huffington Post | 10/21/2009 | | Mental illness and I are no strangers. From Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction to Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire to Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Weber's Sunset Boulevard, I've had the challenge -- and the privilege -- of playing characters who have deep psychological wounds. | |
| | | | Colleges See Rise In Mental Health Issues | NPR | 10/19/2009 | | They may not tell their roommates or even close friends, but on college campuses all across the United States, more students than ever before are seeking psychiatric help, according to recent national surveys of campus therapists. | |
| | | | Stanford Mental Health Issues Go Public | The Stanford Review | 10/19/2009 | | National Public Radio, the esteemed bastion of obscure trivia, even-keeled journalism, and late night classical music, ran a story both on its website the airwaves yesterday about the rise of reported mental health-related diagnoses on college campuses across the United States. On most fronts, this news would not come as a particular surprise to anybody. | |
| | | | After The Game Ends | The Wausau Daily Herald | 10/18/2009 | | After losing his son to suicide in 2000, former NFL quarterback Eric Hipple spiraled into black depression. | |
| | | | APA Responds On Health Care Reform Bill | Psychiatry Online | 10/16/2009 | | Amendments to strengthen the mental-health-related components of the Baucus health reform bill include an effort to expand the insurance-parity mandate beyond federal legislation enacted in 2008. | |
| | | | Court Nixes Challenge To MHSA | Courthouse News | 10/16/2009 | | California's tax on millionaires' income to expand the state's mental-health services does not violate the Constitution, a California appeals court ruled. | |
| | | | Stop The Revolving Door | Ventura County Reporter | 10/15/2009 | | NAMI Ventura County, a local affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, sponsored a public screening last Friday of the documentary A Revolving Door about a 33-year-old man from Ventura named Tommy Lennon who is on the path of a seemingly endless cycle of homelessness, drug addiction, mental institutions and jails. | |
| | | | Entertainment and Recovery | Reuters | 10/15/2009 | | Writers and producers were honored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for increasing awareness of mental health issues and the power of recovery at the 2009 Voice Awards. | |
| | | | Art As Therapy | The Independent | 10/12/2009 | | More than 70 artists spread their artwork across De la Guerra Plaza last Saturday for Mental Health Arts Festival, using their paintings, sculpture, knitting, jewelry, and performance arts to combat the stigma that often surrounds mental illness. | |
| | | | Napa and Marin Face Critical Changes In Care | The North Bay Business Journal | 10/12/2009 | | Faced with budgets “cleaned to the bone,” North Bay county mental health care directors said this year will mark a distinctive transformation of the system. | |
| | | | Ventura County Diversion Working | The Ventura County Star | 10/11/2009 | | The defendants stand shackled behind bars or out on bail in Courtroom 37. They’re waiting to find out if a judge will allow them into a supervised treatment program for mentally ill offenders. | |
| | | | Stigma Remains Unacceptable | Behavioral Health Care | 10/09/2009 | | With uncanny timing, health policy experts at the 25th Annual Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy wrapped up productive debate on solutions to restructure the broken behavioral health system just as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on an historic floor vote on its healthcare reform bill. | |
| | | | Breaking Silence | Google News | 10/09/2009 | | The topic of suicide makes many people squirm. It's something we've been told we're not supposed to talk about. If you speak it, someone might do it. | |
| | | | Is Bipolar Cool? | Knowledge Is Necessity | 10/09/2009 | | Something major has happened in the ten years since I've been diagnosed with bipolar. Back then, it was an illness you concealed. It was a shame you hid. Friends, family, and colleagues had a way of only seeing the diagnosis, and what they chose to see was not good. | |
| | | | APA and Health Care Reform | Psychiatric Times | 10/08/2009 | | As the nation’s uninsured population climbs to 46.3 million and Congress grapples with health care reform, the American Psychiatric Association has intensified its efforts to advocate for a public health insurance option, insurance market reforms, changes in Medicare’s physician payment system, and preservation of parity for mental health. | |
| | | | PTSD in the Military | Army Times | 10/07/2009 | | Army Col. Rich O'Connor does not mince words when he talks about the amount of mental health training he had before he took a squadron in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to war in Iraq's Diyalah province in 2006. | |
| | | | Troubled Minds Can Mean Wider Waistlines | HealthDay News | 10/07/2009 | | Common mental health disorders, such as anxiety and depression, may increase a person's risk of obesity, and people with repeated episodes of these disorders are particularly at risk, British researchers say. | |
| | | | Young Adults May Outgrow Bipolar Disorder | Science Blog | 10/02/2009 | | University of Missouri researchers have found evidence that nearly half of those diagnosed between the ages of 18 and 25 may outgrow the disorder by the time they reach 30. | |
| | | | Breaking The Silence In The Military | Army News Service | 10/01/2009 | | It will take Soldiers telling about their successful treatment of post traumatic stress disorder to begin breaking down the stigma that prevents other troops from seeking care, said Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire. | |
| | | | Fighting Cutbacks | The LA Times | 10/01/2009 | | Advocates for more than 130,000 elderly and disabled recipients of in-home supportive services this morning filed suit in federal court in San Francisco to block more than $53 million in state budget cuts that, as of today, would eliminate or drastically reduce services provided to them. | |
| | | | Jazz and Recovery | The Record | 10/01/2009 | | Joyce Cooling promises she'll still be entertaining. | |
| | | | Looking For Options | The Mercury News | 09/30/2009 | | Some of San Mateo County's severely mentally ill inmates may be treated at the county's public hospital next year instead of at a jail in San Jose where Santa Clara County charges $1 million a year for two inpatient beds. | |
| | | | Resorting To Hope | Lake County News | 09/30/2009 | | While the current economy is providing challenges for some property owners, it's also creating opportunities for others, including the county of Lake. | |
| | | | Off The Stage, It's No Act | The Baltimore Sun | 09/27/2009 | | Schizophrenia is "the worst pariah, one of the last great taboos," says the character Robert Smith in the British play "Blue/Orange." "People don't understand it. ... It scares them. It depresses them. It is not treated with some glamorous and intriguing wonder drug like Prozac or Viagra. It isn't newsworthy. Organized crime gets better press." | |
| | | | "I Thought I Was Bulletproof" | CNN | 09/25/2009 | | Most people, if they know of Mark Whitacre at all, remember him as a whistleblower. Now his life is dramatized in "The Informant." | |
| | | | Elyn Saks Wins MacArthur Grant | The Los Angeles Times | 09/22/2009 | | A USC law professor whose own battle with schizophrenia has informed her advocacy for those suffering from mental illness are among the 24 winners of this year's "genius" grants from the MacArthur Foundation. | |
| | | | A Big Day For Mental Health | The Napa Valley Register | 09/21/2009 | | The 15th Annual Staglin Family Music Festival for Mental Health raised $2.1 million at its Sept. 12 event to help support pioneering mental health research. | |
| | | | Red Sox Team Up To Help War Veterans | MLB.com | 09/17/2009 | | In a major effort to help veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Boston Red Sox unveiled a multifaceted initiative in tandem with Massachusetts General Hospital. | |
| | | | Suicide and Depression Among Elderly On The Rise | eMax Health | 09/17/2009 | | Suicide and depression are serious problems among the elderly, and there is some concern that increasing worries about Medicare and Medicaid cuts, Social Security reductions, a poor economy, loss of retirement funds, and medical issues will contribute to a rise in the numbers of both areas. | |
| | | | Dominican Hospital To Fold Psychiatric Unit | The Mercury News | 09/12/2009 | | In what's certain to be a big change in how public services are provided to the mentally ill in the county, Dominican Hospital is looking to shutter its 26-year-old psychiatric unit and county health administrators are preparing to fill the gap -- including plans to build their own $8 million center. | |
| | | | Comorbidity Study An Eye-Opener | The LA Times | 09/10/2009 | | Anxiety, depression, and alcohol and drug dependency cases might be more than twice as high as researchers have come to believe, a study published today in the journal Psychological Science finds, with 41% of young adults experiencing major depression, half suffering an anxiety disorder and nearly one in three exhibiting alcohol dependence by the age of 32. | |
| | | | Immigrant Finds Path Out Of Maze Of Detention | The New York Times | 09/10/2009 | | Holding tight to her sister’s hand in the bustling streets of New York’s Chinatown last week, Xiu Ping Jiang looked a little dazed, like someone who has stepped from a dark, windowless place into a sunny afternoon. | |
| | | | Bipolar Adults At Increased Risk For Cardiovascular Disease | Sunnybrook | 09/10/2009 | | Research team found that adults with bipolar I disorder had a 4.95 times higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease than those without the disorder. The bipolar I disorder patients were also more likely to have hypertension than those without the disorder. | |
| | | | Stomp The Stigma | Army News | 09/09/2009 | | The visit wasn't the typical, run of the mill, morale visit from actors and actresses. This time, the actors and actresses had an important message to bring. | |
| | | | Brain Defect Implicated In Early Schizophrenia | EurekAlert | 09/07/2009 | | In the first functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of its kind, neurologists and psychiatrists at Columbia University have identified an area of the brain involved in the earliest stages of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders. | |
| | | | Coalition To Address Teen Mental Illness | Palo Alto Online | 09/04/2009 | | A roomful of self-described Type-A personalities met at Palo Alto City Hall on Sept. 3 to develop a comprehensive program to address teen mental illness. | |
| | | | The Doctor Is IN | The American Scholar | 09/02/2009 | | In the basement of Aaron Beck’s house, nine miles northwest of downtown Philadelphia, in a dimly lit, dusty, concrete-walled room dedicated to his archives, there sits a pink plastic box containing patient notes from a 40-year-old case of psychotherapy. | |
| | | | Depressed Teens Face Adult Risk | The BBC | 09/01/2009 | | Teenagers who have minor depression are at a higher risk of mental health problems later in life, a study saysPsychiatrists at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute spoke to 750 people. | |
| | | | Virtual World and Real Therapy | Next Gov | 09/01/2009 | | Combat veterans rarely talk about their most searing hidden emotions and thoughts caused by their experiences in battle, a reticence that can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder. | |
| | | | Where Will We Go Now? | Reuters | 08/26/2009 | | Senator Edward Kennedy called providing health insurance for all Americans "the cause of my life." His death deprives the issue of its chief champion just as the political battle reaches a fever pitch. | |
| | | | Mental Health Consumers Lose Vital Advocate | The Huffington Post | 08/26/2009 | | Ted Kennedy leaves a remarkable legacy of advocacy. From his earliest days in the United States Senate, he showed a sensitivity toward the plight of Americans including the millions suffering from a major mental illness. | |
| | | | Remembering Longtime NAMI Friend Pat Williams | The Daily Democrat | 08/25/2009 | | Her children fought depression, with one ultimately committing suicide. Yet, where most parents might bemoan their loss, Patricia "Pat" Williams decided to set about creating a support structure for those with mental and physical illnesses that Yolo County residents now take for granted. | |
| | | | Still Waiting In Ventura | The Ventura County Star | 08/24/2009 | | Almost five years after Ventura County officials lined up the money to open a residential center for people facing mental health crises, they still can’t find a site. | |
| | | | The Trauma Of Mental Illness | The Los Angeles Times | 08/24/2009 | | A week ago Sunday, my husband and I spent the day knocking on doors and apologizing to our neighbors. | |
| | | | For Veterans, A Gift From The Sea | The Los Angeles Times | 08/23/2009 | | If you had seen Tatiana Reyes in the water at Zuma Beach last week, gliding smoothly toward the shore, you couldn't have guessed she was nearly killed in a crippling explosion while serving in Iraq. She looked like she could have been one of the surfing instructors. | |
| | | | Fresno County Slashes Critical Programs | The Fresno Bee | 08/22/2009 | | Fresno County will end a mental-health program for children and delay plans for a psychiatric unit for adults as part of an expected series of cuts in response to the state budget, officials say. | |
| | | | APA Disputes Critics Of DSM-V Process | The American Psychiatric Association | 08/21/2009 | | Thirty years after the introduction of DSM-III, important revisions are being contemplated for DSM-V, including the addition of dimensional ratings. But clinicians will still recognize the criteria-based categorical system in place since 1980. | |
| | | | Family Struggles | The Whittier Daily News | 08/21/2009 | | For eight days, Ricardo Sanchez-Carrillo's family lived with worry and anxiety when the schizophrenic went missing Aug. 8 as he rode a bicycle to a niece's house. | |
| | | | Mental Illness Isn't A Punch Line | USA TODAY | 08/20/2009 | | Psycho Donuts, a California-based bakery, features a padded cell, walls decorated with goofy faces and a neon "Bates Motel" sign flashing near the front window. | |
| | | | Psycho Donuts Responds To Stigma Concerns | The Mercury News | 08/20/2009 | | Sooner-than-later changes to Psycho Donuts could be the beginning of the end of a months-long controversy between the shop and the mental health community. | |
| | | | VA Suit Revisited | The San Francisco Chronicle | 08/13/2009 | | Military veterans' advocates took their complaints of a dysfunctional mental health system to a federal appeals court Wednesday and were urged by the chief judge to negotiate improvements with the government. | |
| | | | Ventura Officials Balk At Mental Health Court Plan | The Ventura County Star | 08/10/2009 | | County officials are balking, at least for now, at a Grand Jury recommendation that a special court for mentally ill offenders be created to divert more people from jail into treatment instead. | |
| | | | Combination Treatment For Psychotic Depression Holds Promise | NIMH News | 08/07/2009 | | A combination of an atypical antipsychotic medication and an antidepressant known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) may be more effective in treating psychotic depression than an atypical antipsychotic alone, according to results from an NIMH-funded clinical study. | |
| | | | Building A Roadmap To Schizophrenia | The American Psychiatric Association | 08/07/2009 | | In a massive gene hunt, three groups of international schizophrenia researchers have zeroed in on several mutations that harbor some of the secrets of schizophrenia. The resulting three papers, published online simultaneously ahead of print in Nature on July 1, confirmed some past research and revealed some surprising new insights. | |
| | | | U.S. Spending On Mental Health Care Soaring | HealthDay News | 08/05/2009 | | U.S. spending on mental illness is soaring at a faster pace than spending on any other health care category, new government data released Wednesday shows. | |
| | | | U.S. Spending On Mental Health Care Soaring | HealthDay News | 08/05/2009 | | U.S. spending on mental illness is soaring at a faster pace than spending on any other health care category, new government data released Wednesday shows. | |
| | | | Antidepressant Use In U.S. Has Almost Doubled | US News | 08/03/2009 | | Antidepressant use among U.S. residents almost doubled between 1996 and 2005, along with a concurrent rise in the use of other psychotropic medications, a new report shows. | |
| | | | Stigma Battle Continues In San Jose | The Mercury News | 08/03/2009 | | The widening gap was readily apparent from the start. Kipp Berdiansky, co-owner of the controversial Psycho Donuts, dressed in doctor's scrubs to emphasize the theme of his Campbell shop and offered host Rosy Chu a complimentary T-shirt and bubble wrap, as are handed out to his customers. | |
| | | | Stopping Antidepressants Can Cause Side Effects | The LA Times | 08/03/2009 | | Ryan Yorke, now 21, started taking Paxil after an out-of-the-blue panic attack his freshman year of high school. At first it worked great. But he gained weight and had other problems -- he started acting up in school and failing classes, for example. So after a year, he -- along with his mother and his psychologist -- decided it was time to stop. | |
| | | | Stopping Antidepressants Can Cause Side Effects | The LA Times | 08/03/2009 | | Ryan Yorke, now 21, started taking Paxil after an out-of-the-blue panic attack his freshman year of high school. At first it worked great. But he gained weight and had other problems -- he started acting up in school and failing classes, for example. So after a year, he -- along with his mother and his psychologist -- decided it was time to stop. | |
| | | | Inside Family To Family | The Porterville Recorder | 07/26/2009 | | A 12-week Family-to-Family Education Program, focused on helping those with a family member diagnosed with a serious mental illness, will be offered at no cost on Monday evenings beginning Aug. 10 in Porterville. | |
| | | | Mental Health Expert Says Healing Possible | The Courier-Journal | 07/24/2009 | | It can be a battle to convince elected officials and policy makers that — with enough resources — people can recover from serious mental illness and lead productive lives, Penelope Frese, a national authority on mental health, told more than 400 people Friday at a conference in Louisville. | |
| | | | Screening For Childhood Depression | ScienceDaily | 07/23/2009 | | New research indicates that screening children for symptoms of depression, the most common mental health disorder in the United States, can begin a lot earlier than previously thought, as early as the second grade. | |
| | | | Doctors Watch Brains Change In Schizophrenic Patients | The Chicago Tribune | 07/22/2009 | | Thanks to a study conducted by Dr. John Csernansky and his colleagues at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, doctors can better diagnose schizophrenia, a devastating and potentially disabling mental illness. | |
| | | | New Frontiers In Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Research | MIT World | 07/21/2009 | | In contrast to cardiovascular disease, few breakthrough remedies for psychiatric illness have emerged in the past half century. Edward Scolnick lays blame for this dismal situation on barriers to understanding the genetic basis behind such illnesses. | |
| | | | Barret Robbins' Road To Recovery | Fanhouse | 07/20/2009 | | One of the greatest NFL tragedies of the past decade is the story of former Raiders center Barret Robbins, a Pro Bowl player whose career was destroyed and his personal life ruined by a mental illness that took far too long to diagnose. | |
| | | | Best-selling Author Tom Wootton To Deliver Keynote | Examiner.com | 07/20/2009 | | Tom Wootton, author of The Bipolar Advantage will be the keynote speaker. His speech is entitled "Bipolar in Order - Looking at Depression, Mania, and Schizophrenia From the Other Side." | |
| | | | Healing PTSD and Fighting Stigma | The Modesto Bee | 07/19/2009 | | People can heal any hurt, including the lingering trauma that comes from being a soldier in a combat zone, according to an expert on family violence, who gave a presentation Saturday sponsored by the American GI Forum at Teamsters Hall in Modesto. | |
| | | | Percentage Of Veterans With Mental Health Problems Jumps Dramatically | The LA Times | 07/16/2009 | | About 37% of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have mental health problems, a nearly 50% increase from the last time the prevalence was calculated, according to a new study published today analyzing national Department of Veterans Affairs data. | |
| | | | When The System Ends In Failure | The Manteca Bulletin | 07/16/2009 | | The grieving Lathrop family of Jeremy Lum is planning a massive lobbying effort they hope will honor their son and bring change in protocol for those arrested with a bipolar condition – possibly having them listed in a national database. | |
| | | | There Is No Way To Sugar Coat These Donuts | PR Newswire | 07/13/2009 | | After several months of protests, media coverage and online uproar, Oscar Wright, the chief executive officer of a leading statewide mental health organization, and Kipp Berdiansky, co-owner of the controversial shop Psycho Donuts, will meet face to face to discuss mental illness, the associated stigma and the shop's questionable business practices. | |
| | | | Study May Prompt Rethink On Schizophrenia Drugs | Reuters | 07/13/2009 | | Schizophrenia patients given a cheap older drug are less likely to die prematurely than people on newer treatments, despite the older product's well-known adverse side effects, Finnish researchers said on Monday. | |
| | | | Serenade In The Key Of Glee | The LA Times | 07/12/2009 | | He was so eager to make the trip, he called several times to make sure it hadn't been canceled. | |
| | | | HBO Presents Boy Interupted | Examiner.com | 07/11/2009 | | On the night of Oct. 2, 2005, 15-year-old Evan Scott Perry ended a lifelong struggle with bipolar disorder by jumping from his New York City bedroom window, leaving behind heartbroken parents, beloved brothers and many friends. Director Dana Perry, along with her husband Hart Perry, tells the story of their son's life and death in the heartbreaking documentary. | |
| | | | Childhood-onset Schizophrenia Remains A Mystery | The LA Times | 07/08/2009 | | So rare is the child form of schizophrenia, it has taken researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health 18 years to diagnosis and collect data on 110 children. | |
| | | | Lassen Agency Earns National Award | Lassen News | 07/07/2009 | | A local mental health advocacy group will receive national recognition later this month from the National Association of Counties for its contribution to Lassen County residents working to recover from mental health issues. | |
| | | | Gene Variants Prove Complexity of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorders | HealthNews | 07/03/2009 | | A total of 30,000 common gene variations have now been linked to the mental illness known as Schizophrenia. In addition, a similar pattern was discovered in people with bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression, indicating a overlap between the two conditions that was previously unrecognized. | |
| | | | A Normal Life With Bipolar Disorder | The Stockton Record | 07/02/2009 | | Not once have others seen me as strange or different - that is until I tell people that I'm bipolar and so is my mom. Shortly after this revelation comes the short pause and the question: Why haven't I seen you act differently? | |
| | | | Educating Law Enforcement | The San Jose Mercury News | 07/02/2009 | | When Pat Dwyer hears of police killing a mentally ill person — like Daniel Pham, who was shot to death last month after he allegedly threatened San Jose officers with a knife — he winces a bit. | |
| | | | Fresno Mental Health Clinic Closed | ABC News | 07/01/2009 | | Fresno County's crisis center for the mentally ill is closed as of Monday. Some have predicted the closure would lead to an overflow of severely mentally ill patients at hospital emergency rooms. But others predict a huge cut in the county's mental health budget could be a good thing for the mentally ill in the long run. | |
| | | | At The Mercy Of Her Mind | The LA Times | 06/29/2009 | | It's been a rough week. A few days ago, at UCLA's Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, 6-year-old Jani toppled a food cart and was confined to her room. She slammed her head against the floor, opening a bloody cut that sent her into hysterics. Later, she kicked the hospital therapy dog. | |
| | | | War Games | Stars and Stripes | 06/29/2009 | | The military is turning to the virtual world to treat traumatized veterans of the Iraq war, giving troops a high-tech way to confront and overcome mental war wounds. | |
| | | | Governor Dumps Plan To Build Prison Hospitals | The San Fracisco Chronicle | 06/26/2009 | | Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger disowned a tentative agreement Thursday to build prison hospitals to settle lawsuits over shoddy health care for inmates, saying the state won't borrow $1.9 billion for the effort while it's slashing other services. | |
| | | | Hope and Worry | The San Francisco Chronicle | 06/22/2009 | | Increasingly powerful antipsychotic drugs available on the market, and growing evidence that starting these medications early can help children with conditions like bipolar disorder, is putting doctors under more pressure than ever to diagnose and treat young people with mental illnesses. | |
| | | | Sacramento Needs To Fight Patient Dumping | The Sacramento Bee | 06/21/2009 | | When homeless people walk into (or are dropped at) a hospital emergency room, they receive medical treatment. What happens when they are ready to be discharged? | |
| | | | Novelist Kaye Gibbons Faces Yet Another Hurdle | The San Francisco Chronicle | 06/20/2009 | | On a spring day in 2006, as the sun set on the Duke University campus, novelist Kaye Gibbons strode across the lawn. She had just finished speaking at the Festival of the Book, and two of her three daughters trailed behind her. | |
| | | | Santa Barbara Supes Privatize Jail Mental Mealth Services | The Daily Sound | 06/17/2009 | | Enticed by beefed up mental health services at the Santa Barbara County jail for a bargain price, the Board of Supervisors yesterday opted to privatize the mental health unit at the jail, entering into a two-year contract with Prison Health Services Inc. | |
| | | | Toppling The Single-Source Theory | The New York Times | 06/16/2009 | | One of the most celebrated findings in modern psychiatry — that a single gene helps determine one's risk of depression in response to a divorce, a lost job or another serious reversal — has not held up to scientific scrutiny, researchers reported Tuesday. | |
| | | | Patrick Kennedy Seeks Treatment To Continue Recovery | The Boston Globe | 06/13/2009 | | U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy - who has struggled with depression, alcoholism, and addiction for much of his life - said yesterday that he has checked into a medical facility for treatment. | |
| | | | South Lake Tahoe Mental Health Services To Remain | The Tahoe Daily Tribune | 06/12/2009 | | The El Dorado County Mental Health Division will have a balanced budget for the 2009-10 year, in contrast to the previous year, in which the division faced a $3 million deficit. | |
| | | | Parolees Face Dearth Of Mental Health Services | The Mercury News | 06/11/2009 | | California parolees have a higher-than-average need for drug treatment, health care and mental health services, but tend to return to communities where such services are severely strained, according to a think-tank report. | |
| | | | Campbell Residents Learn About Donuts, Stereotypes, and Stigma | The Mercury News | 06/04/2009 | | Gregory Wild battled depression to the point where it almost cost him everything in his life. Since junior high school, he had been afflicted with the condition but was still able to build a successful career. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees, got his CPA license and started his own firm. | |
| | | | Early Therapy Can Save Teens From Depression | Time | 06/04/2009 | | Depression is one of the dark demons of adolescence. Up to 1 in 12 American teenagers is affected, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and three times as many will experience depression at some point by age 18. | |
| | | | Looking Closer At Asian Teens | The Los Angeles Times | 06/04/2009 | | Family ties vary with different cultures, with some emphasizing obligation and strong bonds among parents, siblings and extended family members. | |
| | | | Not So Fast | e Los Angeles Times | 06/03/2009 | | With the flurry of tests being done on deep brain stimulation for a variety of conditions, some warn that the field is moving too fast. | |
| | | | Suffering In Silence | Medill Reports | 06/02/2009 | | John M. always felt different. Growing up on Chicago's Southeast Side, he longed to fit in and said he was doing okay, but the turmoil inside him continued to grow worse. | |
| | | | Time For An Apology | NAMI California | 06/02/2009 | | Your May 24th article does not advance the dialogue on how California can help citizens with serious mental illness. It is clear you don’t consider people with mental illnesses worth the trouble. | |
| | | | Lake County Bails Out Mental Health | Lake County News | 05/27/2009 | | The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to give more help to the county's beleaguered Mental Health Department, approving a $1 million loan to help the department pay down its vendors. | |
| | | | A Naked Million | The San Francisco Chronicle | 05/24/2009 | | In 1992, after he stopped wearing clothes to his UC Berkeley classes, Andrew Martinez was something of a walking only-in-Berserkeley joke as the campus' own Naked Guy. But his life was no laughing matter. | |
| | | | Prop 1E Defeated By 2 To 1 Margin | The Sacramento Bee | 05/20/2009 | | In returns this morning, Proposition 1E, a measure to divert Mental Health Services Act funds had lost by 66.4 percent to 33.6 percent. | |
| | | | Now What? | The Los Angeles Times | 05/20/2009 | | The "big five" elected leaders -- Schwarzenegger and the legislative chieftains from both houses -- are slated to begin closed-door meetings today upon the governor's return from Washington, where he spent election day after casting a last-minute absentee ballot. | |
| | | | Life and Love With Schizophrenia | ABC News | 05/17/2009 | | This month is Mental Health Awareness Month. Although that beautiful song may not have been written about mental illness, it applies, in my mind. I'm ready to open things up. | |
| | | | Time To Vote Against 1E | McMan's Depression and Bipolar Web | 05/15/2009 | | On May 19, in a special election, California voters will be asked to choose between their children and the most vulnerable members of society, the mentally ill. | |
| | | | Gender and Recovery | CNN | 05/12/2009 | | For the first 45 of her 50 years of living, Bonnie Neighbour used to wake up feeling sorry to be alive. Four years ago, Neighbour learned a different way to cope with her bipolar illness; now she helps others. | |
| | | | Resilience Is Key To Mental Health | The Modsto Bee | 05/12/2009 | | Advocates of resilience or "positive psychology" like to debunk the common theories about people with risk factors for mental disorders or behavioral problems. | |
| | | | Ignorance Is Bliss | The Mercury News | 05/12/2009 | | Ambivalence may be the nicest way to describe local sentiment toward the budget-reform measures on the May 19 ballot. | |
| | | | Fighting Stigma In San Jose | The Mercury News | 05/11/2009 | | Positioned in front of Psycho Donuts on S. Winchester Boulevard, local mental health advocates were making sure their concerns were heard. | |
| | | | Glendora Center Offers Hope For Vets | The San Gabriel Valley Tribune | 05/09/2009 | | Bruce Solheim was determined not to let today's veterans suffer the same isolation and loneliness as those of the past. | |
| | | | Unlikely Faith | NAMI California | 05/08/2009 | | From the moment Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.) tumbles from his bicycle in the opening scenes of The Soloist, we know his life will never be the same. While his superficial wounds will heal, the LA Times columnist is on a collision course with his conscience. | |
| | | | Alternative To Jail | The Press-Enterprise | 05/08/2009 | | For years Elaine Farrell turned to drugs to quiet the voices in her head, but it led to trouble, including a string of arrests and eventually a nervous breakdown. | |
| | | | Getting Help | The New York Daily News | 05/06/2009 | | Dr. Sanjay Mathew says mood disorders are a result of environmental factors and genetics. An associate professor of psychiatry and the director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at Mount Sinai, Sanjay Mathew specializes in the treatment and biology of severe mood and anxiety disorders. | |
| | | | Swine Flu and Influenza Updates For Consumers | The Hospital Preparedness Program of Orange County | 05/06/2009 | | The Network of Care now links directly to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) to continually bring up-to-the-minute information regarding the Swine Flu outbreak. This is among the very best information in the country regarding influenza. | |
| | | | More Americans Taking Drugs For Mental Illness | Reuters | 05/05/2009 | | Many more Americans have been using prescription drugs to treat mental illness since 1996, in part because of expanded insurance coverage and greater familiarity with the drugs among primary care doctors, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. | |
| | | | Two California Organizations Receive Top Honors. | PR Newswire | 05/05/2009 | | Enhancing the quality of care and increasing awareness of and access to mental health care for underserved minority communities are all values held by the 2009 recipients of the American Psychiatric Foundation's (APF) Awards for Advancing Minority Mental Health. | |
| | | | Mental Illness Often Described Negatively | UPI | 05/05/2009 | | Looney, psycho, scumbag, whacked out, ticking time bomb and bonkers are some of terms used by the U.S. media to describe the mentally ill, researchers said. | |
| | | | Cuts Affect Thousands In The Capital | The News and Review | 05/04/2009 | | Amy Yannello is a former SN&R staff writer who specializes in mental-health care issues. If you have a story she might be interested in, let us know at . | |
| | | | Hands Off Mental Health Funds | the Ventura County Star | 05/01/2009 | | I have been fortunate to witness firsthand the incredible strides California has made in mental-health services thanks to Proposition 63, otherwise known as the Mental Health Services Act. | |
| | | | Executive Director To Retire | NAMI California | 04/27/2009 | | NAMI California announces the retirement of its Executive Director, Grace McAndrews, effective August 31, 2009. | |
| | | | Sounds Of Hope | The Ventura County Star | 04/25/2009 | | When supporters show up May 2 for a Ventura walk benefiting the mentally ill, they won’t get the silent treatment from Matt Worrell. | |
| | | | Mental Health Advocates Aren’t Buying Prop. 1E | Noozhawk | 04/23/2009 | | It’s been almost a year since Roger Thompson stood before the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, imploring officials not to allow cuts to mental health programs. Despite his plea, $4 million in reductions went forward anyway. | |
| | | | Rallying Opponents To Vote Could Spell Difference In Prop.1E | The San Francisco Chronicle | 04/21/2009 | | In 2004, then-Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento helped write Proposition 63, a landmark ballot measure that taxed the richest Californians to expand mental health services for the state's poor. | |
| | | | Hundreds Speak Out Against South Bay Health Cuts | CBS5 | 04/21/2009 | | Several hundred people filled the Santa Clara County Board chambers Tuesday morning to speak out against an estimated $160 million in proposed budget cuts for county health services. | |
| | | | Soloist Author Speaks Out | The Los Angeles Times | 04/19/2009 | | So what exactly am I doing on Capitol Hill? I'm at a congressional briefing, which wouldn't be entirely out of the ordinary, except that I'm not taking notes and not planning to beat up on anyone. | |
| | | | Not So Funny | The Mercury News | 04/17/2009 | | In the month since it opened, Campbell's newest doughnut shop has caused quite a buzz in the community, although not everything is sweet. | |
| | | | Bipolar Artist Breaks Free | The San Francisco Chronicle | 04/16/2009 | | Laughter can be the best medicine. At least that's the case for Jimmy DiMarcellis working under the name Porous Walker, who answered the call of full-time, all-out art making last year after getting that unsettled feeling that all was not well with his workaday world. | |
| | | | ACLU Calls Men's Central Jail A Dungeon | The Daily News | 04/14/2009 | | Describing it as a medieval dungeon that can "drive men mad," the ACLU on Tuesday called on the county to close Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles. | |
| | | | Hope In Stanislaus County | The Turlock Journal | 04/14/2009 | | Recovery from mental illness can be a long, difficult and complicated road. | |
| | | | Cuts Come To Lake County | Lake County News | 04/13/2009 | | Layoffs may become necessary for Lake County's Mental Health Department, which is faced with a big deficit and state withholdings due to having received too much reimbursement money in a past fiscal year. | |
| | | | Skid Row, Schizophorenia, The Soloist | Knowledge Is Necessity | 04/13/2009 | | Last week, the LA Times reported that College Hospital in Costa Mesa, 40 miles south of LA, "dumped" Steven Davis, whom they had diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar, and schizoaffective, outside of Union Rescue Mission located along LA's infamous Skid Row. | |
| | | | College Hospital To Pay $1.6 Million In Homeless Dumping Settlement | the LA Times | 04/09/2009 | | Doctors at College Hospital diagnosed Steven Davis as suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder. Doctors at the Costa Mesa mental institution prescribed him numerous drugs to deal with paranoid delusions that had led to an earlier suicide attempt. | |
| | | | No On 1D and 1E Campaigns To Merge | The San Francisco Chronicle | 04/09/2009 | | Groups opposing Propositions 1D and 1E on the May 19 special election ballot said Wednesday they are combining forces. | |
| | | | Disorders Class Aims To Help Parents | The Washington Post | 04/05/2009 | | Jeri Weeks remembers the disorienting feeling of learning for the first time that her son had schizophrenia. He was 18, and she couldn't track down enough information about the brain disorder that was hampering her son's reasoning and making him withdraw socially. | |
| | | | Getting Help In San Diego | The Union-Tribune | 04/05/2009 | | Fighting a war, like the one in Iraq, can't be easy. But equally difficult is coming home from that war, Charlie Hoar says. | |
| | | | Santa Clara County Jails Cut Off Prescription-Drug Pipeline | The Mercury News | 04/04/2009 | | Inmates desperate to get high still rely on an old standard — pruno — a potent prison wine concocted from hoarded fruit and ketchup using the water in cell toilet bowls. Street drugs also regularly get smuggled past guards by wily visitors. | |
| | | | Addressing Economy's Mental Toll | The Washington Post | 04/01/2009 | | As it provides assistance to the financial sector and leads a restructuring of the American automobile industry, the federal government now is also offering advice on how to cope with the pressures of the economic downturn. | |
| | | | Army Cites Progress Against Suicides | Watertown Daily News | 04/01/2009 | | After eight days and six Army installations, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the vice chief of staff, said he has a clearer picture of the "very complicated issue" of suicides in the Army. | |
| | | | Appeals Court OKs Schwarzenegger Contempt Hearing | The Sacramento Bee | 03/25/2009 | | A federal judge will be allowed to proceed with a contempt hearing against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for refusing to pay for improvements to inmate health care, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. | |
| | | | San Joaquin Mental Health System Short Of Psychiatrists | The Stockton Record | 03/25/2009 | | San Joaquin County's mental health work force suffers from a severe shortage of psychiatrists and needs more Spanish- and Cambodian-speaking mental health professionals who can communicate with a large portion of the county's population, according to a plan developed over the past year. | |
| | | | Carlsbad Firefighters Learn About Mental Illness | The Coast News | 03/21/2009 | | The firefighters of Carlsbad’s Station No. 5 got a crash course in the realities of life for those with mental disorders on March 12, when presenters from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, visited. | |
| | | | In Their Boots Comes To SF | In Their Boots | 03/20/2009 | | IN THEIR BOOTS is hitting the road for a 10-month national tour to highlight veterans’ stories and explore ways to improve care for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Our first stop is in San Francisco, Saturday, March 21, 2009! | |
| | | | On The Road To Recovery | Miller-McCune | 03/19/2009 | | Fred Frese was a young Marine Corps officer and graduate student when he started experiencing the psychotic delusions of paranoid schizophrenia. He married and had four children, and 12 years after his first hospitalization, he became a chief psychologist for the Ohio mental health system. | |
| | | | 1E Is A Bad Idea | The Examiner | 03/15/2009 | | The California budget crisis actually continues until the results of a special election on May 19, 2009, are known because the California legislature is proposing to reallocate funds from voter approved programs in order to balance the budget. | |
| | | | 1E Is A Bad Idea | The Examiner | 03/15/2009 | | The California budget crisis actually continues until the results of a special election on May 19, 2009, are known because the California legislature is proposing to reallocate funds from voter approved programs in order to balance the budget. | |
| | | | 1E Is A Bad Idea | The Examiner | 03/15/2009 | | The California budget crisis actually continues until the results of a special election on May 19, 2009, are known because the California legislature is proposing to reallocate funds from voter approved programs in order to balance the budget. | |
| | | | Using Tax Dollars To Turn Lives Around | The Los Angeles Times | 03/15/2009 | | Judge Michael Tynan stepped down from the bench and congratulated five criminal defendants who had turned their lives around. His voice cracked as he told them how proud he was, and then he threw a party and passed out pieces of chocolate cake, with hugs all around. | |
| | | | Long Deployments Lead To Tragedy | CNN | 03/15/2009 | | An increase in the number of suicides among military personnel can be traced, in part, to a "stressed and tired force" made vulnerable by multiple deployments, a military leader said Wednesday. | |
| | | | Children Benefit From Mental Health Care | The Monterey Herald | 03/14/2009 | | A recently released study by the county Health Department suggests that mischief goes down and school performance goes up when children with mental health needs receive help. | |
| | | | Showdown In The Making | the Mercury News | 03/13/2009 | | When the quality of health care in California's sprawling prison system was first challenged in court, it seemed only a matter of time before major reforms would take hold. | |
| | | | Ventura Family To Family | The Moorpark Acorn | 03/08/2009 | | The National Alliance on Mental Illness Ventura County will offer a free, 12-week course titled "Family to Family" from 6:30 to 9 p.m. starting March 9 at the Center for Spiritual Living, 1756 Erringer Road, Ste. 100, Simi Valley. | |
| | | | California Gets a D for Adult Mental Health Care | CNN | 03/08/2009 | | The nation does a poor job in the ways it serves its mentally ill population, earning a D, according to a report card issued by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Twelve states fell backward from 2006 grades. South Carolina fared the worst, going from a B to a D. California earned a C. | |
| | | | MHSA Funding On Way To San Luis Obispo | The Tribune-News | 03/07/2009 | | San Luis Obispo County will receive almost $2 million annually for prevention and early intervention programs aimed at helping people with mental illness from money gathered on a “millionaire tax” California voters adopted in 2004. | |
| | | | Reality For Today's Warriors | AFP | 03/07/2009 | | Anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and record-high suicide rates are haunting American veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, amid a taboo over mental distress. | |
| | | | Staffing Layoffs Feared In El Dorado County | The Ledger-Dispatch | 03/06/2009 | | El Dorado County Mental Health is making changes to respond to a significant reduction in funding from state realignment dollars, as well as other revenue shortfalls. | |
| | | | Bipolar Connection In Families | The Press Association | 03/06/2009 | | Children of bipolar parents have a 13-fold increased chance of suffering the same problem or other psychiatric disorders themselves, a study has shown. | |
| | | | MH Parity Mandate Added To SCHIP | The American Psychiatric Association | 03/06/2009 | | The new measure replaces longstanding provisions in the children's health insurance program that limited reimbursement for mental health treatment. | |
| | | | Prop. 1E Opponents Settle Case Over Ballot Language | The Campaign to Defeat Prop. 1E | 03/05/2009 | | Opponents of one of the measures on the upcoming May 19 special election ballot, Proposition 1E, settled a lawsuit this morning over ballot descriptions that the campaign had called misleading. | |
| | | | Autism Linked To Schizophrenia | News-Medical.net | 03/05/2009 | | Researchers say they have discovered a link between childhood autism and mental illness in parents; they suggest that the parents of autistic children are twice as likely to have had a psychiatric illness. | |
| | | | Opponents Fighting Proposition 1E | The Sacramento Bee | 03/03/2009 | | Two prominent advocates on behalf of the mentally ill have filed a lawsuit challenging the ballot label on the May 19 special election measure that seeks to divert Proposition 63 money to balance the state budget. | |
| | | | Prop. 1E Opponents Sue Over Misleading, ‘Happy Talk’ Ballot Language | Campaign to Defeat Prop. 1E | 03/03/2009 | | Opponents of one of the measures on the upcoming May 19 special election ballot, Proposition 1E, filed suit late Friday seeking changes to the official descriptions of the measure. A judge will hear the case this Thursday morning on an accelerated schedule. | |
| | | | Prop 1E Threatens Mental Health Services For Needy | California Progress Report | 03/03/2009 | | At a time when state funding for all health and human service programs is being sharply reduced, MHSA provides one of the few flexible funding streams available to counties to meet the needs of their most severely mentally ill local residents. | |
| | | | Cutting Regional Support Teams A Mistake | The Sacramento Bee | 02/26/2009 | | We are in danger of losing funding for one of the most cost-effective programs in Sacramento County, one that serves 8,831 adults with mental illness and receives 295 new referrals each month. Of all the difficult choices to be made in this dire economy, sustaining funding for Regional Support Teams should be an obvious one. | |
| | | | Courts Likely To Kill Medi-Cal Cuts | The Daily Journal | 02/25/2009 | | In a pair of moves that spell big trouble for California's ratcheted-up legal efforts to cut Medi-Cal costs, federal judges in two separate cases are now showing strong indication they will kill the state's attempts to slash health care payments under the government's program for the poor and disabled. | |
| | | | General Does Part To Reduce Mental Health Stigma | The American Psychological Association | 02/24/2009 | | Army Maj. Gen. David Blackledge is doing his part to reduce the social stigma attached to seeking mental health treatment for war-related stress. | |
| | | | Wait For The Beep | Newswise | 02/24/2009 | | Two-thirds of patients referred for psychiatric services following an emergency room visit are likely to reach only an answering machine when they call for help. | |
| | | | Calls To Southern California Hot Lines Are Spiking | The Press-Enterprise | 02/22/2009 | | Mental health calls and admissions to Inland psychiatric hospitals are reaching an all-time high, an increase that could be linked to the economy, doctors and mental health experts say. | |
| | | | Budget Plan Goes To Schwarzenegger After Legislature's Vote | sacramento bee | 02/19/2009 | | The state Legislature voted early today to approve a massive budget package of tax increases, spending cuts and borrowing to close a $40 billion deficit after granting major concessions to one holdout Republican senator. | |
| | | | Will America Ever Get It? | The Examiner | 02/18/2009 | | Our mental health care system is in shambles. Not only is the system in need of massive funding and restructuring, it’s time we increased the value we place on it. Mental health can no longer be considered a “carve-out.” It should not be treated as an afterthought and as less important than other medical benefits. Mental health needs to be addressed directly, swiftly, and independently. | |
| | | | New Hope | Medical News Today | 02/15/2009 | | A seismic shift in thinking is offering new hope for prevention and early intervention in schizophrenia, say two of Australia's leading mental health specialists. | |
| | | | Gridley Suffering From Cutbacks | The Gridley Herald | 02/13/2009 | | Many people probably do not realize the important role that local law enforcement and Biggs-Gridley Memorial Hospital play in the field of mental health in our area. | |
| | | | Paying A Heavy Price | Reuters | 02/13/2009 | | Mental illness, substance abuse and behavioral problems among children and young adults, costs the United States $247 billion a year in treatment and lost productivity alone, an expert panel said on Friday. | |
| | | | No Kidding, Me Too! | The Acorn | 02/12/2009 | | Actor Joe Pantoliano remembers one of the greatest days of his life vividly. It happened a few years ago when he was diagnosed with clinical depression. | |
| | | | Looking At TEM | The Mayo Clinic | 02/11/2009 | | In a study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, a team of researchers led by Mayo Clinic psychiatrist Mark Frye, M.D., attempted to identify what factors make some people with bipolar depression more likely to experience treatment-emergent mania (TEM). | |
| | | | Beyond The Happy Faces | The Gazette-Times | 02/11/2009 | | Ross Szabo was a popular, A-student-athlete in high school, and traces of that are easy to see in the 30-year-old. But the charismatic Los Angeles resident also has struggled with bipolar disorder for half of his life. He attempted suicide as a teen. He still has bouts of depression about every year or so, and he still is getting treatment. | |
| | | | Johns Hopkins Researchers Discover New Schizophrenia Gene | AScribe Newswire | 02/09/2009 | | Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine are one gene closer to understanding schizophrenia and related disorders. Reporting in the Jan. 9 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, the team describes how a variation in the neuregulin 3 gene influences delusions associated with schizophrenia. | |
| | | | Shutdowns In The Desert | The Desert Sun | 02/07/2009 | | Riverside County will close three mental health clinics — including its inpatient program in Indio and an outpatient facility in Cathedral City — and will limit other programs as part of widespread budget cuts. | |
| | | | APA Discusses Health Reform With Obama Administration | The American Psychiatric Association | 02/06/2009 | | A week before his inauguration, members of Barack Obama's transition team invited APA, NAMI, and other mental health advocates to discuss both major and incremental changes to the U.S. health care system that could expand access to care for people with psychiatric illness. | |
| | | | Five Million-dollar Funding Hold In Riverside | The Press Enterprise | 02/05/2009 | | Riverside County departments that provide medical and mental health care to an increasing number of patients face possible staff layoffs, clinic closures and program suspensions to plug projected multimillion dollar budget deficits. | |
| | | | Struggles In Santa Barbara | The Daily Sound | 02/04/2009 | | A year ago, the county of Santa Barbara’s department of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services (ADMHS) faced a $6.9 million budget shortfall that required an emergency bailout by the Board of Supervisors. | |
| | | | A "Smart" Way To Help The Mentally Ill | The Daily Journal | 02/04/2009 | | Police officer Channing Lang had ended her shift in downtown Los Angeles and was walking to her car on the rooftop of a nearby parking structure when she spotted a stranger. | |
| | | | MSHA Aid Arrives In Humboldt | The Times-Standard | 02/04/2009 | | The Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services received word late last week that it will receive nearly $1.7 million over the next two years for mental health-related prevention and early intervention programs and services. | |
| | | | Kelso and Brown Spar Over Prison Mental Health | Oakland Tribune | 02/03/2009 | | State officials and the court-appointed receiver running California's prison health care system continued jousting, with the receiver saying much of the cost the officials now complain about was of their own doing. | |
| | | | Bipolar Disorder Linked To Higher Mortality Rates | Newswise | 02/02/2009 | | Bipolar disorders appear to increase the risk of early death from a medical illness, according to a literature review study published as the lead article this week in the journal Psychiatric Services. | |
| | | | Dismantling False Notions About Violence | The Associated Press | 02/02/2009 | | A new large study challenges the idea that mental illness alone is a leading cause of violence. Researchers instead blame a combination of factors, specifically substance abuse and a history of violent acts, that drives up the danger when combined with mental illness in what they call an "intricate link." | |
| | | | Aftermath Of A Bipolar Superbowl | The San Francisco Chronicle | 01/31/2009 | | This time, Barret Robbins says, he didn't check into a country club. A probation violation last spring landed him in a locked-down, substance-abuse treatment facility in Houston, where he sleeps in a dormitory room filled with bunk beds and as many as 19 other men wrestling with drug addiction and mental illness. | |
| | | | Army Suicide Rates Troubling | The San Francisco Examiner | 01/30/2009 | | The U.S. Army is reporting a rise in suicide rates for 2008. The Army’s 2008 Suicide Data report, released yesterday, reveals that suicide rates within the Army rose to 20.2 suicides per 100,000 soldiers. | |
| | | | Time For Action | The California Progress Report | 01/28/2009 | | A broad coalition of mental health advocates Tuesday blasted Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposal to permanently reverse parts of the state’s landmark Mental Health Services Act (MHSA). | |
| | | | Sacramentans Warned Of Suicide Rate Increase | News10 | 01/28/2009 | | More than 32,000 people kill themselves each year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And mental health experts expect those numbers increase because of the economy. | |
| | | | Trouble In Tulare County | The Visalia Times | 01/27/2009 | | Richard Miller can't recall a time when he wasn't suffering from depression. | |
| | | | Inside The San Joaquin County Warm Line | The Record | 01/27/2009 | | It was Monday afternoon at the crisis-intervention hub of San Joaquin County Mental Health Services, and a phone rang in a small cluster of cubicles serving as a call center. | |
| | | | You Don't Have To Feel Alone | The Examiner | 01/26/2009 | | “Family” and “home” convey images of a safe harbor, offering love, warmth, and protection. But those images fade when a family member is mentally ill, because home is not a happy place then. It affects everyone in the family. | |
| | | | A Survivor's Tale | The Sacramento Bee | 01/25/2009 | | The call came in on New Year's Day 2009, and I couldn't help but wonder what it foreshadowed. A family friend was gone, a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder left over from the Vietnam War. His sobbing widow delivered the news. | |
| | | | Sac County Health Faces Firings and Service Cuts | The Sacramento Bee | 01/23/2009 | | Sacramento County is about to announce a mid-year budget shortfall of $42.3 million, which means cuts and layoffs primarily to the Department of Health and Human Services -- including probation, mental health programs, public health clinics and in-home support services -- according to information obtained by The Bee. | |
| | | | "House" Stars Celebrate NAMI | NBC Universal | 01/22/2009 | | Diagnosis: Fun! The stars of "House," including Hugh Laurie, Lisa Edelstein and Omar Epps, stepped out Wednesday night in L.A. to celebrate the show's 100th episode -- and ET was there! | |
| | | | Feds Act To Ensure Medication Availability | Medical News Today | 01/21/2009 | | The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an interim final rule that makes sure beneficiaries with conditions such as epilepsy, mental illness, and depression will not be discouraged from enrolling in any Part D plan, nor experience any interruptions in their drug therapy. | |
| | | | Chiang Lists Payments To Be Delayed In February | the Sacramento Bee | 01/16/2009 | | State Controller John Chiang said today that the state's cash crunch would allow him to make school, college and some welfare payments but would force him to delay $3-plus billion in other payments, including those for state income tax refunds and many health and welfare programs. | |
| | | | State Of The State Is Grim | The Sacramento Bee | 01/15/2009 | | Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will offer a sobering look at California's fiscal woes in his sixth State of the State speech this morning, delivering what he calls an untraditional speech in which he will say the budget crisis has "incapacitated" the state. | |
| | | | Finding The Key Genetic Link | WebMD | 01/15/2009 | | The largest study ever to track bipolar disorder and schizophrenia within families offers evidence that the two psychiatric disorders share a common genetic cause. | |
| | | | One Success Story | PR Newswire | 01/15/2009 | | In 1992, the Austen Riggs Center, a small, not-for-profit psychiatric hospital and residential treatment center in Western Massachusetts, began to follow 226 admitted patients in a multidimensional follow-along study that asked, among others, a most basic question: Can these patients recover? | |
| | | | Elderly Men Have Highest Suicide Rate In California | Contra Costa Times | 01/14/2009 | | For many, saving financially is the most important part of planning for retirement, but it is just as important to plan ways to stay physically and mentally healthy, or depression may turn your golden years into misery. | |
| | | | PTSD Tied To Successful Insanity Defense | The San Jose Mercury News | 01/14/2009 | | In a landmark case for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, a Santa Clara County jury Tuesday found a former Army captain diagnosed with PTSD not guilty by reason of insanity for robbing a Mountain View, Calif., pharmacy of drugs at gunpoint. | |
| | | | Obesity and Schizophrenia | Medwire News | 01/14/2009 | | Obese schizophrenia patients incur greater outpatient medical costs than their healthy-weight peers, even after controlling for demographic characteristics and medical comorbidity, study results show. | |
| | | | A Startling New Approach To Schizophrenia | The Jerusalem Post | 01/11/2009 | | Someday, it may become routine for schoolchildren with serious behavioral problems to be screened for early symptoms and markers of schizophrenia. Those found at risk would be given naturally occurring amino acids to delay or even prevent the onset of this currently incurable psychiatric disorder. | |
| | | | Scentists Hope For Breakthrough Schizophrenia Drug | Associated Press | 01/09/2009 | | Johnson & Johnson has made an unusual $10 million deal with Vanderbilt University, whose researchers will work on development of a potential new schizophrenia treatment, all the way up to creating a compound ready for testing in people. | |
| | | | DSM Review Stirs Controversy | The Monterey Herald | 01/08/2009 | | Whether revisions to the "bible" of mental illness should be carried out in secret might seem like an academic question. | |
| | | | Seniors Face Treatment Discrimination | The New York Times | 01/07/2009 | | Seniors who were hospitalized for a psychiatric illness were less likely to get recommended follow-up care if their Medicare plans required that they pay more for mental health care than for other medical care, researchers have found. | |
| | | | Time For A Mental Health New Deal | The Huffington Post | 01/02/2009 | | Our host Kathleen's sensational homemade chocolate cake was Topic A at the holiday party of Wright Institute Los Angeles (WILA), a non-profit psychoanalytic institute which provides struggling Angelenos with low-cost, long term psychotherapy. But you can't get a bunch of shrinks together without, well, analyzing everything. (Except the cake, which ascended directly to heaven.) | |
| | | | Mental and Physical Health Interrelated | The American Psychiatric Association | 01/01/2009 | | Few mental health agencies have instituted screening and prevention protocols for cardiovascular disease and other chronic illnesses which together account for 87% of years of life lost among people with mental illness. | |
| | | | Help For Troubled Marines | The North County Times | 01/01/2009 | | If you drive through Camp Pendleton you'll see signs and billboards offering counseling and psychological support to Marines and their families. The problem is, many of the people who most need these services are too afraid to use them. | |
| | | | Combatting A Stigma | The New Jersey Jewish News | 01/01/2009 | | “No human is expendable. If one is slighted or excluded, the whole of society is unfit.” — based on Vayikra Rabbah Emor 30:12. | |
| | | | Hope and Justice | The Mercury News | 23/29/2008 | | In Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Stephen Manley's chaotic courtroom, the bulletin board tells the story. | |
| | | | Educators and Health Officials Team Up To Help Young | The Ventura County Star | 12/28/2008 | | Ventura County health officials have teamed up with local educators to develop prevention and intervention programs for underserved students who might need mental health assistance. | |
| | | | Rewarding Mr. Ayers' Courage | The Los Angeles Times | 12/28/2008 | | They had every kind of trophy you could imagine at House of Trophies in Boyle Heights. Soccer, basketball, baseball, football, even fishing. They had trophies 6 inches tall and 6 feet tall, plaques and desk ornaments too, for retiring cops and transit workers and for great teachers. | |
| | | | Tough Climate For New Mental Health Chief | the North Bay Business Journal | 12/23/2008 | | Even with threats to slash close to $4 billion statewide in mental health funding, newly appointed Sonoma County Mental Health Services Director Mike Kennedy said he is excited about the challenge he inherited when he took office Dec. 11. | |
| | | | Sad Realities | The Associated Press | 12/23/2008 | | Mental patients sprinkled throughout the nation's psychiatric hospitals are being locked up alone for years despite laws aimed at preventing the practice, because medical workers say they're too dangerous to handle any other way. | |
| | | | One In Five Soldiers Suffer From PTSD | The Merced Sun Star | 12/22/2008 | | In a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a panel of U.S. Army psychiatrists reported that one in every five active-duty soldiers has developed mental health problems after coming home from Iraq. | |
| | | | Santa Clara Police Response Questioned | The Mercury News | 12/21/2008 | | The family of a man who died Friday after repeated Taser jolts dispute police accounts and say he already was pinned under several deputies, handcuffed and not fighting back when another officer used his stun gun. | |
| | | | Mental Health Is A Public Safety Issue | The Union | 12/20/2008 | | When resources are limited, most people prioritize programs and services that provide for public safety, usually defined as law enforcement, firefighters, and other “first responders.” Yet, mental health and substance abuse treatments are also critical public safety programs. | |
| | | | New Screening Tool For PTSD | Reuters | 12/19/2008 | | Indicators of arousal, such as elevation of the heart and respiration rates, which occur immediately after a traumatic event, are predictive of future posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Australian researchers report. | |
| | | | Governor To Veto Democrats' Proposal | The Sacramento Bee | 12/19/2008 | | California's budget mess got messier Thursday as Democratic legislators approved a package of tax increases and spending cuts, Republican legislators threatened to sue over the package's questionable constitutionality and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made the issue moot by promising to veto it. | |
| | | | Pediatricians Don’t Routinely Ask About Mental Health | US News | 12/15/2008 | | Don't count on your child's doctor to ask whether you're worried about mental health issues such as ADHD or bad behavior. Fifty-six percent of parents say their pediatrician or family-practice doctor never asks about mental health concerns. | |
| | | | Post-trauma For A Soldier's Parents | The Los Angeles Times | 12/14/2008 | | When Army Sgt. Ryan Kahlor returned from two combat tours in Iraq last year, he was a walking billboard for virtually every affliction suffered by today's veterans. He had a detached retina, a ruptured disc, vertigo, headaches, memory lapses and numbness in his arms. | |
| | | | Homelessness Rising As Economy Slides | Reuters | 12/13/2008 | | Homelessness and demand for emergency food are rising in the United States as the economy founders, a report said on Friday, and homeless advocates cautioned many cities were not equipped for the increase. | |
| | | | New Mental Health Coalition Forges Bonds | The Independent | 12/11/2008 | | Considering the fur that might have flown, it was a surprise to see a December 3 forum attended by Ann Detrick, embattled head of the Santa Barbara County Department of Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Services (ADMHS) — and organized by people dependent on the mental health division — turn into a love fest. | |
| | | | Art and Mental Illness | the New York Times | 12/11/2008 | | Last year, The New York Times called the Mexican artist Martín Ramírez “simply one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.” What is so remarkable about his achievement, beyond the mesmerizing repetition of lines and images in his drawings, is that all of the work was created inside a mental institution. | |
| | | | Taking The High Road | The Redwood Times | 12/10/2008 | | Eddie Gray arrived in Garberville on Tuesday, Dec. 3, in the fourth month of a walk around America that he started on April 3 from his home in Ashland, Mont. Eddie is a Northern Cheyenne and a Marine veteran. He joined the Marines in 1997. | |
| | | | Individuals Could Be Predisposed To PTSD | Reuters | 12/10/2008 | | A study of identical twins -- one with combat experience and one without -- suggests both genetic and environmental factors contribute to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), U.S. researchers said Tuesday. | |
| | | | Not All Antipsychotics Created Equal | The National Institute of Mental Health | 12/09/2008 | | An analysis of studies on antipsychotics reveals multiple differences among the newer, second-generation antipsychotics as well as the older medications. | |
| | | | All In The Family | The American Psychological Association | 12/09/2008 | | People who have a sibling with a mental illness are more likely to suffer episodes of depression at some point in their lives, say researchers who analyzed four decades of data. | |
| | | | The Jolt Out Of The Dark | The Sacramento Bee | 12/09/2008 | | Once a week, Lucinda Smith tucks earplugs into both ears, flips her auburn hair over a neck rest and waits for a powerful magnetic burst to be aimed at her skull. | |
| | | | When The System Fails | the Union-Tribune | 12/07/2008 | | “Sorry” was the last thing Diane Carpenter said before she was stabbed to death by the mentally ill son she desperately tried to help for more than a decade. | |
| | | | Tis The Season To Be Depressed? | The Ventura County Star | 12/06/2008 | | It's December. Do you feel energized and ready to start the day? Do you feel nostalgic and lonely -- and just can't get motivated? Or are you overwhelmed with despair and feel like staying under the covers all day? | |
| | | | Share Your Ideas With The White House | the Examiner | 12/06/2008 | | In an unprecedented effort at government transparency and to circumvent special interest groups, President-Elect Obama and his transition team have sought to make good on his campaign promises |
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