Yale Changes Mental Health Policies for Students in Crisis
From The Washington Post: The changes, which come after former and current students sued the university, will allow students to keep their health insurance and take leaves of absence instead of being pushed to withdraw.
Broken Kids, Not Guns | Michael Mendizza
From Touch the Future: To blame guns, TV, video games, Twinkies, the bully next door, bad genes, and all the rest for the pervasive violence, self-mutilation, self-medication, and suicide is a misguided defense.
Project LETS: Building Peer-Led Mental Health Alternatives on Campus
Founder and Executive Director Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu talks about the organization's work to support struggling students and end discrimination against them.
Be Worried About Boys, Especially Baby Boys | Darcia Narvaez, PhD
From ACES Too High/Kindred Media: A review of research by Dr. Allan Schore shows that early life experience influences boys significantly more than girls, leading them to need more care instead of less.
Concern as Proportion of Children in England on Antipsychotics Doubles
From The Guardian: Although the overall percentage who were prescribed antipsychotics was relatively small, experts consider it a worrying trend since these powerful drugs carry serious safety risks.
The Faulty Reasoning That Turned ADHD Into a Disease
Leading ADHD researchers outline four mistakes that turned ADHD from a description of behavior into a medical disease.
The Biases of Western Medicine | Gabor Maté, MD
From Sustainable Human: Western medicine has a number of hidden ideological beliefs that hinder our understanding and resolution of illnesses, whether physical or mental.
Problem-Solving Through Skills-Building: Motivating Kids to Change
Children can overcome all sorts of difficulties by learning specific behavioural or emotional skills with the help and support of their social network.
Babies Feel Pain More Intensely Than Adults, Brain Imaging Study Finds
From Return to Now: Researchers found that babies are actually four times more sensitive to pain than adults, even though painful procedures are still routinely performed on them with no pain relief.
‘Restraint and Seclusion’ Harms Kids. So Why Is It Used in Schools?
From The Washington Post: What if you went five days a week to a school that regularly locked you up or physically held you down? Most of us would walk in ready for a fight, not to learn.
Antidepressants Plus Immune Response Terminate Pregnancies in Mice
Also, male mice born to mothers with an immune response exhibited “autistic-like” behaviors, scientists report.
The Bipolar Rollercoaster: Looking Beyond the Labels
Removing assumptions evoked by my family member’s diagnoses has transformed my understanding of their experience and increased my ability to arrive at solutions applicable to their expressed needs.
Dubious Science: Downplaying the Risks of Antidepressants in Pregnancy
When popular websites, such as Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic, downplay the possible risks of antidepressant use in pregnancy, they are ignoring the evidence.
The Wisdom of the Symptom Bearer: It’s Always the ‘Crazy’ One Who Knows the...
From Medium/Rev. Sheri Heller, LCSW: The 'symptom bearer' or 'identified patient' is the scapegoat who carries the evidence of the familial dysfunction.
Civil Rights Advocates Call U.S. Child Welfare System a ‘National Problem’
From The Imprint: A new report says the child welfare system fails to adequately address the needs of families and often harms the very kids it's designed to protect.
Animals Exposed to Antidepressants in Utero Are Worse at Taking Care of Their Own...
A new study in rats found that those exposed to antidepressants in utero had an impaired ability to nurture their own children in later life.
Interview: The Need for Trauma-Informed Schools
CTIPP Executive Director Jesse Kohler answers our questions about the organization's new report and what the findings mean for families and communities.
Shedding the Limits of “Severe Mental Illness” Labels
When people seeking help are relegated to “the Other,” how can they ever form a “therapeutic alliance”? Without collaboration, treatment devolves into coercion and oppression. We must change our language and relationships so new narratives can be born.
Inadequately Trained Therapists Pose a Risk to Childhood Trauma Survivors
Mental health professionals must be trained in the dynamics of addiction and abuse if they are to help survivors of childhood trauma.
More Play and Less Therapy for Students | Peter Gray, PhD
From Psychology Today: Mother nature designed kids to play, explore, and daydream without adult intervention because that is how kids develop the skills, confidence, and attitudes necessary for mental health and overall wellbeing.
The Nurtured Heart Approach Goes Mainstream: Research and Experience Support “Celebrating Greatness in Every...
The Nurtured Heart Approach represents a massive shift in thinking—about schooling, about children and how to raise them, about how we regard those with intensity, and about the medical model pathologizing them.
‘What If Yale Finds Out?’
From The Washington Post: Suicidal students are pressured to withdraw from Yale, then have to apply to get back into the university.
A Troubled Teen With a Pocket Full of Lithium and Nowhere to Go
Despite the full awareness of Congress and hundreds of deaths in these facilities, little has been done to enact standards in private pay facilities that house troubled teens.
Healing From Transgenerational Trauma: My Mum, My Daughter, & Me
Emotional trauma is the type of wound that, if not processed and integrated, can become a void that expands to swallow not just the traumatized person but also their children and grandchildren.
The “S” Word: How the Culture of Fear Has Failed Youth in Crises
I learned at a young age that my suicidal thoughts and feelings would be met with panic and punishment from adults.
