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When longtime former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson filed suit July 6 for sexual harassment against the network’s former boss, Roger Ailes, the public response was less than kind. There were expressed disbelief and rebuttals that she was fabricating her story in retaliation for being fired. Many asked: If it was so bad, why didn’t she come forward earlier? As a trauma psychologist, I know her behavior was consistent with many women who experience various forms of sexual assault. Many women...

The diverse coalition of delegates who attended the Democratic National Convention last week may not have realized they were visiting one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. But even as a child growing up in a gentrifying, white enclave of West Philadelphia, Jonathan Tannen knew that people with his skin color rarely crossed 49th Street. It was the invisible line that separated his neighborhood from majority-black areas in the 1980s. Two decades later, Tannen would spend six years at...

The American Medical Association defines obesity as a disease . That means 35.7 percent of Americans -- those with BMIs over 30 -- are considered ill. That's a lot of sick people. Whether you agree with the AMA's decision or not, it underscores the gravity of the condition. The World Health Organization even considers it a global epidemic . Worldwide, the relationship between wealth and obesity follows a positive trend: as wealth goes up, so too does obesity , according to Dr. James A.

Peace. For the first time in over three decades, I’m (pretty much) at peace. Yeah, I can’t believe it either. It just kinda’ crept up on me. I didn’t try to attain peace. Didn’t grit my teeth and play mind tricks on myself. It just…kinda’…happened. The other day I realized that I was calm, happy, not obsessing anymore. But why? I think it had a lot to do with my therapist giving me permission to stop obsessing about the past. “We’ll deal with it later,” he said, soothingly. In the meantime,...

You know that sinking feeling all too well. You’re expected to make an appearance at an upcoming family gathering, and you just know your sibling will be there — putting you down, as usual. While some parents see bullying among their children as a normal form of sibling rivalry, few people realize that, in many families, it can continue well into adulthood. So, what is it and why does it occur? Sibling bullying can take many forms, but it is always done with the intention of shaming,...

Philadelphia University’s Community and Trauma Counseling program offers a 4-course certificate for master’s-level professionals. The Certificate of Advanced Studies in Trauma Counseling provides an advanced understanding of trauma theory, principles, tools and strategies that support trauma-informed practice with adults and children. A new cohort will begin Late August with enrollment in the first course in the program: Foundations of Trauma Counseling. Please find a complete list of...

National private foundations that focus on poverty have, for years, brought a pretty consistent set of protocols to their community-based work. First, program officers and consulting experts identify root causes and look for possible interventions, focusing on places with a concentration of poor people. Then, program planners study a number of possible approaches in these “places,” based on consultation with these experts and followed by the development of position papers. In the course of...

O nce upon a time, the future of mental health treatment was drugs. The advent of Prozac and whole class of similar medication in the 1990s gave doctors an easy option and big pharma easy money. But 20 years on, the problems have not gone away. In fact, mental illness is much more pervasive, with depression now the world’s second biggest cause of disability. Moreover, a dramatic reduction in drug research and development suggests pills will not be the only – or even the primary – answer to...

John Deasy, the controversial former superintendent who led the Los Angeles Unified School District for three-and-a-half turbulent years, is embarking on a new venture that could prove just as challenging: keeping juvenile offenders from returning to jail. Deasy wants to do that by opening alternative juvenile prisons in Los Angeles and Alameda counties that could include activities such as yoga, meditation, art, counseling, athletics and education. His goal is to reduce recidivism by 50%.

The computer Shyama Rose got for her 14th birthday was a boxy Macintosh Quadra 650. The year was 1994. People didn’t email; there was no Facebook; the founders of Google hadn’t even met. And news of the emerging World Wide Web hadn’t yet made its way inside the gates of Barsana Dham, the religious compound in Austin, Texas, where she lived. The compound sat on a spectacular stretch of lush property and featured a castle-like temple adorned with gold-leaf-covered pillars, marble floors,...

When I was twelve, I was coming home from swimming at my neighbor’s dock when I saw an ambulance’s flashing lights in our driveway. I still remember the asphalt burning my feet as I stood, paralyzed, and watched the paramedics take away my father. It was as if I knew those flashing lights were a harbinger that my childhood was over. At the hospital, a surgeon performed “minor” elective bowel surgery on my young dad. The surgeon made an error, and instead of my father coming home to the...

Children growing up during the Great Recession are believed to have faced a statistically significant uptick in their odds of developing mental or emotional health difficulties, according to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that indicates kids are hardly immune to economic downturns. Researchers found that children's mental health status "declines as economic conditions deteriorate, and this result is pervasive across nearly every subgroup we examine, including...