mental illness
kkrisberg | October 14, 2014When it comes to substance abuse disorders, public health and the public at-large are hardly on the same page — in fact, they’re not even reading the same book. And that’s a serious problem for sustaining and strengthening efforts to treat addiction and advancing effective public health policy.
“We already know quite a bit about public attitudes toward mental illness and we were interested in learning more — especially in the context of prescription (painkiller) drug abuse — about what the public thinks about issues related to drug addiction,” Colleen Barry, who recently co-authored a study…
oracknows | May 31, 2012I've pointed out before that pover the last couple of years I've become a bit of a fan of old time radio, having discovered Radio Classics on Sirius XM Radio. I don’t remember how I discovered it, but I rapidly became hooked on shows like Suspense, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, The Whistler, Gunsmoke, Dragnet, The Six Shooter, and The Adventures of Sam Spade (the Howard Duff episodes, of course). Then, of course, there's The Story of Dr. Kildare. This particular radio show stared Lew Ayres as Dr. Kildare and Lionel Barrymore as the irascible Dr. Leonard Gillespie (the latter of whom was…
razib | February 15, 2010It just gets weirder. Ipswich neighbors recall confrontations with Amy Bishop:
Bishop once stopped a local ice cream truck from coming into their neighborhood. According to WBZ-1030 radio, she said it because her own kids were lactose intolerant, and she didn't think it was fair that her kids couldn't have ice cream.
"That's who it was!" Lafoe said. "When we were younger the ice cream truck just stopped coming around. That's strange."
Bishop & her husband both seem to have a history of self-centered anti-social behavior. There seems a precedent of many actions aimed at optimizing their…
grrlscientist | August 30, 2009tags: religion, violence, mental illness, fundamentalism, MtlRedAtheist, streaming video
This is the first in a series of videos that address some of the violent, absurd and atrocious Bible stories being taught to children in Sunday School around the world today. This video discusses how Abraham almost murdered his son because he heard god telling him to do so. And people wonder why fundamentalists of all Abrahamic religions are so violent?
This story is about Abraham and Isaac. In the Bible, God wanted to test Abraham's faith by commanding him to murder his son as a sacrifice. Abraham was…
bioephemera | May 30, 2009In the June Atlantic Monthly, Joshua Wolf Shenk has a long, moving article about what may be the longitudinal study of all longitudinal studies - the Harvard Study of Adult Development (Grant Study), begun in 1937. Its creator Arlie Beck planned to track 268 "healthy, well-adjusted" men from their sophomore year at Harvard through careers, marriage, families, retirement and eventually death - and somehow, from this glut of longitudinal data, to glean the secrets of "successful living."
But the portrait Shenk paints is as full of pathos as it is of success.
Delving into the case files, now…
grrlscientist | April 23, 2009tags: The Soloist, homelessness, mental illness, movie trailer, film, true story, streaming video
Wow, now this is a movie that I must see! I heard an interview with the author of the book on which this film was based, LATimes reporter, Steve Lopez. He meets a mentally ill homeless man playing Beethoven on a violin with only two strings, and, recognizing his talent, writes a story about him. Lopez's readers send him musical instruments to give to this homeless man, who was a musical prodigy as a child. The resulting friendship transforms both men's lives in this inspirational true story [3:…
palmd | March 18, 2009I often write about "cult medicine", that is, medical practices that share many characteristics of cults: they are based on faith, they follow charismatic leaders, they separate people from their money---you know, like The Church of Scientology. The COS has everything going for it---a religious arm, a health care arm (the Citizens Commission on Human Rights), and an educational arm. In fact, the more I learn about these wackos, the scarier (and funnier) they seem. You see, it turns out that these folks have a lot of front organizations. Unlike more traditional religions, that are happy to…
palmd | March 16, 2009Over at Neurotopia, Scicurious has been doing some terrific writing about depression. Mental illness is a topic I've written about many times, so I was inspired to look into the vault and see what kind of goodies I had back there. Well, since I truly loathe people who dole out dangerous medical lies, I figured it was time to dust off this little bit on Scientology and mental illness, rework them a bit, and share them with you again.
The problem
Depression, in the medical sense, is not a mood...it is a severe
disorder originating in the brain, and affecting the entire body. Major…
grrlscientist | October 15, 2008tags: bipolar disorder, manic depression, mental illness, psychiatry, psychology, children
Image: Myself43.
If you are like me and suffered from unrecognized bipolar disorder as a child only to later have this mood disorder diagnosed upon reaching young adulthood, you might be pleased to learn that current research suggests bipolar disorder is increasingly being diagnosed as beginning in childhood. As a result, these bipolar kids are more likely to receive proper treatment and support such that they, their families and friends will suffer fewer of the deep emotional and social scars that…
grrlscientist | September 21, 2008tags: Sarah Palin, religion, The Rapture, Keith Olberman, streaming video
Keith Olberman reports on the peculiar situation where Sarah Palin's pastor, whom Palin gives partial credit for making her the governer of Alaska (does this qualify as cheating?), was involved in chasing an innocent woman out of her home after accusing her of being a witch. We all know that Alaskans love to hunt mostly anything that moves, but .. witches?? What's next; will we be throwing misbehavin' women into ponds to see if they float? Or maybe all muslims will be perceived as witches .. what then? Because Palin has…
grrlscientist | September 13, 2008tags: bipolar disorder, manic-depression, mental health, mental illness, behavior
Image: Gerald Slota, The New York Times Magazine.
A couple days ago, I heard an interview with Jennifer Egan on WNYC about her upcoming article in tomorrow's New York Magazine about bipolar disorder, often known as manic-depressive illness, "The Bi | Polar Puzzle." It's long but well-written and definitely worth reading. In this touching and informative piece, Egan primarily addresses several questions; whether bipolar disorder exists in children, what it looks like and whether children with undiagnosed/…
grrlscientist | July 18, 2008tags: bipolar disorder, manic depression, mental illness, psychiatry, suicide, audioblog
Image: Myself43.
A friend sent me this interesting link to an audio piece that recently appeared in the NYTimes about bipolar disorder. This piece may help those with the disorder to feel less alone and help those who love someone with the disorder to get a better understanding of what it is like to live with it. It's not very long, and it's well worth listening to.
grrlscientist | February 28, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, bipolar disorder, clinical depression, mental illness, mood disorder, functional genomics, blood test, biomarkers
Image: Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, serious mental illnesses affect approximately 44 million Americans. Serious mental illnesses include mood disorders; depression and bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, correctly diagnosing mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, appears to be a sort of voodoo science that depends upon the skill of the mental health professional…
sb admin | October 26, 2007In time for Halloween:
Trailer for Central State: Asylum for the Insane. A filmmaker prowls a closed mental institution to "...uncover the mysteries left behind when the facilities closed in 1994." There's lots of shaky handheld camerawork in poorly lit tunnels, and shakier rumours of ghosts, but no exploration into the disappearance of former patients. Homelessness and prisons, that's scary, not the supposed ghosts that a supposed psychic says are "like a tornado" in the building.
What's actually "menacing and still threatening" is not an old hospital but the stigma attached to mental…