Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Efforts to Stop "Suicide by Cop"
In this rather lengthy Miller-McCune article, Julia Dahl describes the problem facing law enforcement when confronted by mentally ill or desperate individuals seeking to end their lives in a hail of bullets. One solution that has been producing results and preventing needless shootings has been CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) training, but not all police departments have embraced this technique.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Army Considers Using a New Class of Drugs for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
This hot news item was mentioned by Bob Brewin in his blog, What's Brewin', dated 2 March 2011:
The Army plans to test neuroprotective drugs to treat traumatic brain injury, the service's top scientist told members of the House Armed Services Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee on Tuesday.
Dr. Marilyn Freeman, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for research and technology, told lawmakers the service plans to test the effectiveness of drugs that help prevent damage to axons, which carry electrical impulses from nerve cells.
The drugs, so the theory goes according to this video, help prevent TBI by ensuring axons don't die as a result of a brain injury.
I wish I had paid better attention in biology class.
The Army plans to test neuroprotective drugs to treat traumatic brain injury, the service's top scientist told members of the House Armed Services Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee on Tuesday.
Dr. Marilyn Freeman, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for research and technology, told lawmakers the service plans to test the effectiveness of drugs that help prevent damage to axons, which carry electrical impulses from nerve cells.
The drugs, so the theory goes according to this video, help prevent TBI by ensuring axons don't die as a result of a brain injury.
I wish I had paid better attention in biology class.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
DBSA Colorado State Now a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit!
It involved some trouble and expense on our part, but the DBSA Colorado State organization has achieved 501(c)(3) status, and can now receive tax-deductible contributions. This milestone is a necessary step in our efforts to become a positive force for mental health consumers in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region.
Staying Cool Under Pressure
A Slate Magazine article revisits a topic addressed in books such as The Survivors Club.
"When I was researching Nerve, my new book about how people deal best with fear, pressure, and stress, I got quizzed about this constantly. Is cool-headedness born, people wanted to know, or is it made? We've been arguing about this question since the days of Socrates, but until recently, psychologists had very little hard data about how genes and experience interact to determine how we respond under stress. We now have a far more solid idea of where cool comes from, however. Poise under pressure, it turns out, does indeed have a strong genetic component—yet our poise is mostly the result of what we do to build it up throughout our lives."
"When I was researching Nerve, my new book about how people deal best with fear, pressure, and stress, I got quizzed about this constantly. Is cool-headedness born, people wanted to know, or is it made? We've been arguing about this question since the days of Socrates, but until recently, psychologists had very little hard data about how genes and experience interact to determine how we respond under stress. We now have a far more solid idea of where cool comes from, however. Poise under pressure, it turns out, does indeed have a strong genetic component—yet our poise is mostly the result of what we do to build it up throughout our lives."
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Just Another Way of Saying, "Hollywood Eats Its Own"
The Bookworm Room blog makes this statement about actor Charlie Sheen's ongoing meltdown:
England’s Bethlem Royal Hospital, founded in the 13th Century as [St. Mary Bethlehem] part of a convent, eventually transformed itself into the world’s first facility dedicated to the mentally ill. By the 16th Century, when it housed only the mentally ill, it was famous for the cruelty with which those patients were treated. The word “bedlam,” which describes a situation that is completely out of control, is a bastardization of the hospital’s name....
The practice of making insanity a public show changed only when people realized the indecency and immortality of laughing and staring at people who were helpless victims of their own mental illnesses. People of good will now think to themselves, “I never would sink to such a low practice.”
Apparently the American media is not made up of people of good will. For as long as I’ve been aware of him, Charlie Sheen has been a substance abuser and a loathsome individual. Now, though, it’s apparent that his vices have caught up with him and rendered him mentally ill. Reading the transcripts of his interviews his definite evidence that he has parted with reality. Normal people, even eccentric people, do not say “I am on a drug, it’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available because if you try it you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.”
In a decent world, Sheen would get the treatment he requires. In an indecent world, he’s paraded around for the media’s profit, just as the inmates at Bethlem Hospital were once paraded around for the profit of their ostensible caretakers. It’s embarrassing to watch someone sink into such complete degradation.
Some might say that Sheen wants this publicity. He’s actively seeking it, after all, as he has done for the length of his career. There’s a difference, though, between a mentally functioning person (even a low functioning person) taking appropriate steps to advance his career, and a mentally ill person treading that same path. It reminds me of the arguments the ACLU always makes about the paranoid schizophrenics on the streets of San Francisco: “They want to be there.” Yes, that’s true. They do indeed want to live on the streets, eating garbage, crawling with lice, and having suppurating wounds all over their body. But they want to live that way because they’re crazy as loons. Their desire to be dysfunctional (starving, filthy and diseased) on the streets is evidence of their insanity. A decent society, rather than saying “Great, eat garbage,” helps them out...
England’s Bethlem Royal Hospital, founded in the 13th Century as [St. Mary Bethlehem] part of a convent, eventually transformed itself into the world’s first facility dedicated to the mentally ill. By the 16th Century, when it housed only the mentally ill, it was famous for the cruelty with which those patients were treated. The word “bedlam,” which describes a situation that is completely out of control, is a bastardization of the hospital’s name....
The practice of making insanity a public show changed only when people realized the indecency and immortality of laughing and staring at people who were helpless victims of their own mental illnesses. People of good will now think to themselves, “I never would sink to such a low practice.”
Apparently the American media is not made up of people of good will. For as long as I’ve been aware of him, Charlie Sheen has been a substance abuser and a loathsome individual. Now, though, it’s apparent that his vices have caught up with him and rendered him mentally ill. Reading the transcripts of his interviews his definite evidence that he has parted with reality. Normal people, even eccentric people, do not say “I am on a drug, it’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available because if you try it you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.”
In a decent world, Sheen would get the treatment he requires. In an indecent world, he’s paraded around for the media’s profit, just as the inmates at Bethlem Hospital were once paraded around for the profit of their ostensible caretakers. It’s embarrassing to watch someone sink into such complete degradation.
Some might say that Sheen wants this publicity. He’s actively seeking it, after all, as he has done for the length of his career. There’s a difference, though, between a mentally functioning person (even a low functioning person) taking appropriate steps to advance his career, and a mentally ill person treading that same path. It reminds me of the arguments the ACLU always makes about the paranoid schizophrenics on the streets of San Francisco: “They want to be there.” Yes, that’s true. They do indeed want to live on the streets, eating garbage, crawling with lice, and having suppurating wounds all over their body. But they want to live that way because they’re crazy as loons. Their desire to be dysfunctional (starving, filthy and diseased) on the streets is evidence of their insanity. A decent society, rather than saying “Great, eat garbage,” helps them out...
Stating the Obvious: Study Shows Speed Dating Rarely Works
An article in DiscoveryNews.com confirms what you probably figured out on your own by now.
THE GIST
* Humans and other animals can only handle so much variety before confusion and indecision set in.
* Speed dating usually presents us with an unnatural number of choices, so people often choose the wrong mater or can't choose at all.
* The findings help to explain problems with other situations involving variety, such as long menus.
Prior research indicates non-human animals also make poor choices, or none at all, when confronted with too much variety. For people, the discovery could help to explain all sorts of transaction and social failures, from inability to select a proper home after viewing dozens to what could be called the "George Clooney effect" -- the inability of some people to fully settle down even when dating multiple attractive, wealthy and otherwise desirable partners.
THE GIST
* Humans and other animals can only handle so much variety before confusion and indecision set in.
* Speed dating usually presents us with an unnatural number of choices, so people often choose the wrong mater or can't choose at all.
* The findings help to explain problems with other situations involving variety, such as long menus.
Prior research indicates non-human animals also make poor choices, or none at all, when confronted with too much variety. For people, the discovery could help to explain all sorts of transaction and social failures, from inability to select a proper home after viewing dozens to what could be called the "George Clooney effect" -- the inability of some people to fully settle down even when dating multiple attractive, wealthy and otherwise desirable partners.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Human Guinea Pigs
We have to go to England to revisit a chapter in our history that many Americans are too ashamed to discuss: experimentations on people considered expendable, such as prisoners, mental patients, soldiers, blacks, and handicapped people. The Daily Mail (U.K.) has the story.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Trigger-Happy
We are still harvesting the bitter fruits of an alarming trend: criminalizing actions by children that would not have caused any alarm only a few years ago.
Fox 31 (KDVR in Denver) has a video.
Arvada Police are defending the way they handled the arrest of an 11-year-old boy. The Arvada boy was arrested and hauled away in handcuffs from his home for drawing stick figures in school - something his therapist told him to do.
His parents say they understand what he did was inappropriate, but are outraged by the way Arvada Police handled the case. The parents did not want their real names used....
Fox 31 (KDVR in Denver) has a video.
Arvada Police are defending the way they handled the arrest of an 11-year-old boy. The Arvada boy was arrested and hauled away in handcuffs from his home for drawing stick figures in school - something his therapist told him to do.
His parents say they understand what he did was inappropriate, but are outraged by the way Arvada Police handled the case. The parents did not want their real names used....
Sunday, February 20, 2011
NEDAwareness Week 2011 (National Eating Disorders Association)
NEDAwareness Week is sponsored by NEDA (National Eating Disorders Assocation). NEDAwareness Week is a collective effort of primarily volunteers, including eating disorder professionals, health care providers, students, educators, social workers, and individuals committed to raising awareness of the dangers surrounding eating disorders and the need for early intervention and treatment.
NEDA appreciates your efforts, together we can accomplish a world without eating disorders.
National Eating Disorders Association
www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
New Feature of L.A. Comedy Club: Psychotherapy
In the Los Angeles Times we read that Jamie Masada's Laugh Factory will be using an in-house psychologist to help the stand-up comics who perform at this venue to de-stress.
One of two clinical psychologists will be on hand four nights a week at the club to treat stand-ups; the free, no-appointment-necessary sessions will take place on a therapy couch that, appropriately enough, used to belong to Groucho Marx.
"This is serious. This is something we have to do," Masada says in a recent interview at the Sunset Boulevard club. "From Richard Jeni putting a gun in his mouth and blowing himself up [in 2007] to Greg Giraldo taking drugs and overdosing [in 2010], I just can't stand to watch all of my family, one by one [self-destruct]....
"Research shows that there is a higher degree of depression and bipolar disorder in comedians," she [Clinical psychologist Ildiko L. Tabori],says. "Laughter is a defensive mechanism. It's one of the more mature defense mechanisms, but it still masks whatever it is that's going on inside."
"Weeds" costar Kevin Nealon, who performs at the Laugh Factory, says many of his colleagues are drawn to stand-up as a form of validation. "A lot of comics, they're onstage getting attention and approval. It's one of the reasons they do stand-up," he says....
One of two clinical psychologists will be on hand four nights a week at the club to treat stand-ups; the free, no-appointment-necessary sessions will take place on a therapy couch that, appropriately enough, used to belong to Groucho Marx.
"This is serious. This is something we have to do," Masada says in a recent interview at the Sunset Boulevard club. "From Richard Jeni putting a gun in his mouth and blowing himself up [in 2007] to Greg Giraldo taking drugs and overdosing [in 2010], I just can't stand to watch all of my family, one by one [self-destruct]....
"Research shows that there is a higher degree of depression and bipolar disorder in comedians," she [Clinical psychologist Ildiko L. Tabori],says. "Laughter is a defensive mechanism. It's one of the more mature defense mechanisms, but it still masks whatever it is that's going on inside."
"Weeds" costar Kevin Nealon, who performs at the Laugh Factory, says many of his colleagues are drawn to stand-up as a form of validation. "A lot of comics, they're onstage getting attention and approval. It's one of the reasons they do stand-up," he says....
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