Blog

I'm done! I've just finished a seven-year trek to publish my book, first in paperback, and now as a Kindle eBook. Go to my Kindle link for a free sample which Amazon has selected to show the whole public in Kindle: "Don't Try This Alone: The Silent Epidemic of Attachment Disorder" - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BN2J4TN With both published, the saga of discovering how sick with attachment disorder I was, digging deeper and deeper into it -- then climbing back to be healed from the inside out...

Is loneliness our modern malaise? Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says the most common pathology he saw during his years of service “was not heart disease or diabetes; it was loneliness.” Chronic loneliness, some say, is like “smoking 15 cigarettes a day.” It “kills more people than obesity.” [For more on this story by Amelia S. Worsley, go to http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/what-everyone-gets-wrong-about-lonely-people-20180322 ]

Emotional distress caused by uncontrollable life events robs us of our creative power. This was the message from Laralyn McWilliams, chief creative officer at Skydance Interactive who, at an emotional talk at GDC 2018, recounted her experience struggling to make games after being diagnosed with incurable lung cancer. “I could not be creative or do my job,” said McWilliams. “I sat on the couch and said to my husband: ‘I am a talentless hack.’ I thought in that moment that I would never create...

This report presents findings from a unique partnership between the University of Michigan and the State that allowed us to match the universe of child maltreatment records in Michigan with educational data on all public school children in the state. We find that roughly 18 percent of third-grade students have been subject to at least one formal investigation for child maltreatment. In some schools, more than fifty percent of third graders have experienced an investigation for maltreatment.

Being a foster parent is not for the faint of heart. A cycle of taking in broken, wounded little hearts, often just for them to get broken and wounded again — all while remaining “unattached” for the sake of their assured departure from your care — is a nearly impossible job for most to fathom undertaking. And all that aside, how do you even begin to explain to a 3-year-old that they have a “new daddy” or “new mommy” in a way that doesn’t completely wreck their perception of what it means to...

The kids are not alright—well, not all of them. In Washington, D.C., the percentage of young black girls entering the juvenile justice system has risen dramatically, even as that of young black boys has decreased. Young black girls are now likely to be arrested at 30 times the rate of white boys and girls together, according to a new report by the advocacy group Rights4Girls and the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative. “Girls of color are dealing with challenges posed by racism but...

About employment, housing, and the military—institutions central to Americans’ social life—Martin Luther King Jr. had plenty to say. But about schools and education, perhaps surprisingly, he said less. One reason may have been timing. The landmark education battle of the civil-rights movement took place when King was at the beginning of his career. The Supreme Court struck down the legality of “separate but equal” public schools in 1954, the year he became a pastor, one year after he got...

In the perennial question of nature versus nurture, a new study suggests an intriguing connection between the two. Salk Institute scientists report in the journal Science that the type of mothering a female mouse provides her pups actually changes their DNA. The work lends support to studies about how childhood environments affect brain development in humans and could provide insights into neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia. "We are taught that our DNA is...

We have yet to create safe space for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) to heal. Of the 50 million adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse in America, only 15 percent of them were identified as victims in childhood. That means that 85 percent of them came into adulthood without ever addressing issues related to their abuse. Isolation comes easy for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Sometimes they isolate themselves because they feel so misunderstood. It is easier to...

It's easy to write-off excessive worries and racing thoughts as symptoms of anxiety. But if you know you're dealing with anxiety, it's important to be aware of where certain fears are really coming from. Although anxiety is different from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the two mental health conditions can show up in similar ways. So how can you tell the difference between signs of post traumatic stress disorder and anxiety? "The main similarity between PTSD and anxiety is that the...

Congress’ spending bill demolishes many of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ budget priorities and proposals. The bill rejects many of her proposed cuts for the department, and instead allocates more money to the Office for Civil Rights, preserves funding for before and after school programs, and keeps in place a grant program that helps provide school-based mental health services. House and Senate leaders released this bill, which would fund the government through September, on Wednesday...

Slavery in the United States was never abolished – it simply changed shape, allowing the government, corporations, and individuals to continue to profit off the oppression and exploitation of men, women, and children since the 13th Amendment of the constitution was ratified in 1865. The 13th Amendment, which legalises slavery in the case of incarceration, has spawned a massive prison industrial complex. Although the US is a mere 5 per cent of the world’s population, it accounts for 25 per...