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The thought of going to a funeral used to be a terrifying prospect for me. Walking into a room filled with sadness and grief evoked — well — an intense desire not to go. Anxiety was all I could feel. It obscured the emotions I wanted to have like sadness and compassion. And, I secretly felt ashamed that I didn’t have “the right feelings." It was not death itself that bothered me--it was being in the presence of grief. Why did sadness make me so anxious? Why did it turn me into a vibrating,...

As Jack Kornfield describes how mindfulness practices empower you to carry on through difficulties in “ Guided Meditations for Difficult Times: A Lamp in the Darkness ,” he includes a wonderful quote from Michael Jordan: “I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my basketball career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life but I still keep going out on the court. And that is why I...

Juvenile justice reform advocates are turning their attention to a House and Senate conference committee after a key bill, a decade-plus in the making, passed yet another legislative hurdle. The Senate passed a reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act ( S 860 ) on Tuesday by a voice vote. The act hadn't been reauthorized since 2002 and was badly in need of an update, juvenile justice advocates have long argued. The bill now heads to a conference committee to be...

Solitary confinement in juvenile facilities remains too widespread, is unnecessary and counterproductive, is unfairly applied and is harmful, a new report says. In addition, experts lament the fact that there’s “a desperate need for better data on disparate treatment within facilities,” said Jessica Feierman, associate director of the Juvenile Law Center and one of the report’s authors. In the report, which aims to bridge the information gap, the center presents raw testimony from people who...

In 2015, a quarter of renter households in the U.S. paid more than half their income toward their rent. That’s just one of the figures that define the affordable housing crisis, a slow-motion catastrophe that, by 2025, may consume more than 15 million Americans. The Senate Finance Committee just held a hearing to figure out what to do about it. “Several people mentioned the 25 percent increase in renters over the last 10 years, which is the largest on record,” said Senator Maria Cantwell of...

In many countries, the United States included, students’ economic backgrounds often determine the quality of the education they receive. Richer students tend to go to schools funded by high property taxes , with top-notch facilities and staff that help them succeed. In districts where poorer students live, students often get shoddy facilities, out-of-date textbooks, and fewer guidance counselors. [For more of this story, written by Alana Semuels, go to ...

The bitches, as Shannon saw it, came in three varieties. She categorized them on her personal blog, in a post titled “Beware the Female BigLaw Partner.” First was the “aggressive bitch”—a certain kind of high-ranking woman at the firm where she worked who didn’t think twice about “verbally assaulting anyone.” When one such partner’s name appeared on caller ID, Shannon told me, “we would just freak out.” Next was the two-faced “passive-aggressive bitch,” whose “subtle, semi-rude emails”...

When patients are discharged from hospitals, it usually means they’ve recovered sufficiently to resume their daily lives. But that’s not the case for patients released from psychiatric facilities. According to a new meta-analysis in JAMA Psychiatry: [For more of this story, written by Sushmita Pathak, go to http://www.ozy.com/acumen/the-risk-that-survives-a-psych-ward-stay/79215]

[For more of this story, by Eli Dreyfus and Eve Asher, go to https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/getting-some-shut-eye-with-anxiety-and-depression]

When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, my family immigrated to the United States as refugees. With little else but their clothes in a hobo bag—my grandmother, grandfather, and all seven of their living children—got on a plane, landed in Honolulu, and then arrived in Yakima, Washington. Their destination was the American dream. The freedom from communism and the livelihood of a better life far from war and its effects. [For more of this story, written by Tina Semko, go to ...

Parents of children with autism experience a greater impact from their child's therapy than once thought, according to new research out of York University's Faculty of Health. Jonathan Weiss, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health and CIHR Chair in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) Treatment and Care Research, discovered that parents who participate in cognitive therapy with their children with autism also experience a real benefit that improves the family...

Steve Mallen thinks the signs first started to show when his son stopped playing the piano. Edward, then 18, was a gifted musician and had long since passed his Grade 8 exams, a series of advanced piano tests. Playing had been a passion for most of his life. But as adulthood beckoned, the boy had never been busier. He had won a place to study geography at the University of Cambridge and was reviewing hard for his final exams. At his school, Edward was head boy and popular among pupils and...