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Editor's Note: In the January 2017 issue, a group of innovators and leaders look back over different realms of therapeutic practice and offer their view of the eureka moments, the mistakes and misdirections, and the inevitable trial-and-error processes that have shaped the evolution of different specialty areas within the field. Here's one reflection. *** Most people think the field of trauma treatment began around 1980, when the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was first...

It is only two small words. But saying ‘thank you’ to others could be the key to beating depression. A new study claims that the most basic act of courtesy can keep the blues at bay as it generates a glow of gratitude for the little things in everyday life. US researchers quizzed 352 men and women aged between 18 and 58 about their personalities. Questionnaires helped build a profile of each participant, revealing the degree to which they often feel depressive or grateful and also how they...

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously Monday to offer city employees up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave, rather than the four weeks they are offered now. Mayor Ed Murray had asked for the change . It was less than two years ago that the council approved the existing benefit for new parents, making Seattle the first city in the Pacific Northwest and one of the first cities in the country to offer paid parental leave. Employees will become eligible for 12 weeks after working for the...

We were well into the third year of our family’s new normal, before I had come to the realization that things really were different for us. That no, all kids really don’t do this -whatever “this” may mean at the moment-and that we were not imagining the stress. We were not imagining the frustration. It took nearly four years to accept that the challenges we were facing couldn’t simply be dealt with by working harder or doing more. It took nearly four years to come to terms with the fact that...

Six women veterans and advocates gather around a conference table in a dingy room tucked away on the second floor of a shabby-but-historic mid-century building on the West Los Angeles campus of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The women are a mix of white and black, younger and older, still-working and presumably retired. They are social workers, case managers, nonprofit representatives and outreach workers to the homeless. It’s a good thing these women aren’t there for the...

It's tough to be a teenager. Hormones kick in, peer pressures escalate and academic expectations loom large. Kids become more aware of their environment in the teen years — down the block and online. The whole mix of changes can increase stress, anxiety and the risk of depression among all teens, research has long shown. But a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics suggests many more teenage girls in the U.S. may be experiencing major depressive episodes at this age than boys. And...

Twelve million children under the age of five rely on childcare each day while their parent(s) work. Two of them are mine. New America’s groundbreaking Care Report illuminated the myriad challenges parents face in securing childcare, among them that demand is too high to meet the staggeringly low supply of high-quality centers. And when high demand meets low supply, as any Econ 101 student can tell you, the price skyrockets. For those of us making it work, there is usually an asterisk hidden...

For much of her childhood, RyAnn Watson has been hospitalized for excruciating flare-ups of sickle cell disease. Now 16, she takes refuge from her pain in an art studio at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. On a recent Friday, she was sketching the sandstone towers of the Smithsonian castle with a burnt-red coloring pen, under the watch of her therapist, Tracy Councill. “It’s more about putting my emotions into the artwork than telling someone about it and making myself upset,” RyAnn...

Juvenile justice in America is akin to a roller coaster ride — when it goes up, it always goes down, and with kids screaming. Just when we learn how to better the system that will make kids better, something comes to tear it down. The trend today is to reach for what works to improve kids’ lives, but looking back at the tracks it becomes clear that there have been other peaks of joy and falls filled with screams. I think more folks now realize a basic truth of effective juvenile justice: how...

Paula Clarke thought the country was under attack. Groggily wiping the sleep from her eyes, she felt the house shake as a SWAT team with automatic rifles tore through the front door and charged into her Bronx home. Helicopters hovered in the predawn sky and flash grenades exploded around her. “I felt like we were being attacked by ISIS or someone, like foreign terrorists,” Clarke said. “It was like a nightmare from which I still have not awoken.” She eventually learned it was not foreign...

This simple yet effective form of deep breathing defuses the stress feedback loop and teaches your brain and body to relax. A great many individuals are disconnected from the sensations and feedback from their bodies. This absence of body awareness may be a result of life experience, such as trauma, or of living in a culture that has embraced a medical model in which body and mind are divided rather than being considered holistically. Two things to keep in mind when practicing intentional...

With the President Trump Reality Show, it’s easy to be distracted by ANGRY ALL-CAPITAL TWEETS or Oval Office tantrums. But resist, and stay focused on matters of life and death. Consider two critical issues: refugees and guns. Trump is going berserk over the former, but wants to ease rules on the latter. So let’s look at the relative risks. In the four decades between 1975 and 2015, terrorists born in the seven nations in Trump’s travel ban killed zero people in America, according to the...