Ask What Happened, NOT What is Wrong!
"Everytime I talk to a person suffering from PTSD, including depression, anxiety, addiction, and other mental health challenges, I try to find out what happened, not what is wrong. "
Blog
Can Upstream Prevention Make the US Safe from Violent Crime?
New book on Science and Secrets of Ending Violent crime uses the best evidence available to conclude that the US has the knowledge to dramatically reduce violent crime. It shows to how to persuade the public and politicians to make a major shift from mass incarceration to smart investments in proven ¨upstream¨ solutions before crime happens. Action would save thousands of lives, avoid unnecessary trauma and protect women and children.
The Art of Healing Childhood Trauma: Lessons from SNL's Darrell Hammond
I’ve accomplished a lot in my life. But deep inside, I feared I was merely impersonating a normal woman. Here’s how the greatest impersonator in SNL history helped me accept myself — trauma and all.
Claire's Story. Davy learns ways to deal with fear. Part 78.
By K. Hecht, P. Berman & A. Hosack I still don’t want to talk about my mean dad. No one can make me talk about him. Davy is sitting at the small table with crayons again. His mom and Dr. Berman are sitting on each side of him. In the middle of the table is the totally black scary thing Davy and his mommy drew yesterday. Davy cried a lot yesterday and was able to avoid talking about his daddy. But now they are back. His mommy has that firm look on her face- that’s the face that means he...
From Functionalism to Humanism: The Coming Paradigm Shift in Services for People with Mental Health Challenges
The Failure of Functionalism The current service model that has been employed by mental health systems can best be described as “functionalism,” a term generally employed in medical sociology to denote a service model that views illness or disability as a deviance that must be corrected. The individual is subsumed beneath the disability category and her/his ability to “model” what is “normal” becomes the standard for service delivery and individual assessment. Mental health services have...
Even with ‘Red Flags’ in their Youth, Mass Shooters Often Slip Through the Cracks [washingtonpost.com]
By Kevin Sullivan, Valerie Strauss and Emily Davies, The Washington Post, August 6, 2019 Connor Betts, 24, who shot and killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio, before police killed him, was a deeply troubled young man. He had a history of violence against girlfriends and fantasized about murder, keeping a “hit list” of people he wanted to target. High school classmates said that school officials were aware of his behavior years ago, and that as a freshman, he was missing from school for months...
He’s a Veteran of Upheaval, Molded by Ferguson’s Traumas. He’s 7 [nytimes.com]
By Jack Healy and Julie Bosman, The New York Times, August 8, 2019 David Morrison carries the scars of Ferguson’s upheaval. A veteran protester, he has fled gunshots and tear gas, marched, waved signs and played dead on the asphalt in years of activism that unspooled after a white police officer killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown. “I’m so angry!” he shouts. He is 7 years old. This is the inheritance of Ferguson’s children. Five years after they lay in bed listening to...
Who’s Helping The 1.9 Million Women Released From Prisons And Jails Each Year? [witnessla.com]
By Wendy Sawyer, Witness LA, July 30, 2019 Given the dramatic growth of women’s incarceration in recent years, it’s concerning how little attention and how few resources have been directed to meeting the reentry needs of justice-involved women. After all, we know that women have different pathways to incarceration than men, and distinct needs, including the treatment of past trauma and substance use disorders, and more broadly, escaping poverty and meeting the needs of their children and...
The Importance of Prevention in addressing the Opioid Crisis
https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2019/06/importance-prevention-in-addressing-opioid-crisis
680 Undocumented Workers Arrested in Record-Setting Immigration Sweep on the First Day of School [cnn.com]
By Dianne Gallagher, Catherine E. Shoichet and Madeline Holcombe, CNN, August 8, 2019 After immigration authorities rounded up hundreds of workers in a massive sweep at seven Mississippi food processing plants, friends and family members are desperately searching for answers. A crowd waited outside a plant in Morton, Mississippi, on Thursday morning, hoping authorities would release their loved ones. Many had been by later in the afternoon. Video footage from CNN affiliates and Facebook live...
How to Add More Joy to Your Days [psychcentral.com]
By Margarita Tartakovski, PsychCentral, July 9, 2019 It’s safe to say that most of us would love more joy in our lives, particularly when it feels like the hours blend together into one big blur, and we find ourselves feeling blah. Yet, do you know what brings you joy? Sometimes, we can get so swept up in the daily hustle that we forget to ask ourselves this question—and we have no idea about the answer. [ Please click here to read more .]
‘SNL’ Star Darrell Hammond’s Doc About His Repressed Trauma Gets Release Date [variety.com]
By Anna Tingeley, Variety, August 5, 2019 The doc, captured by director Michelle Esrick, portrays the ‘Saturday Night Live’ star’s decades-long struggle with substance abuse, self-harm and misdiagnoses as he rose to fame on the iconic sketch show. Known for his iconic impersonations of Sean Connery, Regis Philbin and former President Bill Clinton, Hammond held the record for the longest tenure on the show (14 seasons) until he was surpassed by Kenan Thompson in 2017. Despite the years of...
Webinar Slides and Recording: Building Resilient Communities with Elaine Miller-Karas
Recorded live August 8, 2019. Find the slides attached below. The 1 hour video recording can be found on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/BUyY0FMjv8s Speaker: Elaine Miller-Karas, MSW, LCSW, Executive Director and Co-founder, Trauma Resource Institute. Host: Carey Sipp, Southeast Community Facilitator, ACEs Connection. Webinar Description: This webinar will explore integrating a biological based model to reduce the impacts of toxic stress for children and adults. It is a model both for...
New school, old school, & the importance of language
I remember my enthusiasm when I first stumbled upon the ACEs study…In my eagerness to learn as much as I could about the emerging trauma-informed movement, I brought this topic up to as many people as I could to learn more. In one of those conversations, something that a colleague with a school-based mental health background said really struck me: “None of this is new--we have been talking about these concepts in school-based mental health for decades. It’s just new language.”
Trends in Health Equity in the United States by Race/Ethnicity, Sex, and Income, 1993-2017 [JAMA]
Results of this analysis suggest that there has been a clear lack of progress on health equity during the past 25 years in the United States . Achieving widely shared goals of improving health equity will require greater effort from public health policy makers , along with their partners in medicine and the sectors that contribute to the social determinants of health. N=5.4 million Average age = 44.5 76% non-Latinx 8.7% black 7.7% Latinx The final sample included: 5 456 006 respondents for...