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In 2014, a Fox News Latino article cited that only 1 in 11 Latina/os seek mental health treatment. Chicana/o Psychology is rarely discussed as recourse to address this situation. In 2004, Dr. Manuel Ramirez outlined the tenets of Chicana/o Psychology , but the roots of Chicana/o Psychology run deeper. In 1977 the book “Chicano Psychology” was published. Still before that was the work of Dr. George I. Sanchez (considered the “Father of Chicana/o Psychology”), whose work in the 1930s shed...

New York's schools will have to teach about mental health in their state-mandated health classes in two years. The 40-year-old mandate for health education already specifically requires teaching about alcohol, drugs, tobacco and the prevention and detection of cancers. Sponsors say the new curriculum will increase the likelihood that students recognize the signs of mental illness in themselves and others and seek help when it's needed. They say many students with emotional or behavioral...

An older, unemployed man with chronic back pain recently visited Dr. Robert Devereaux, a family physician in this Southwest corner of Virginia. Devereaux recalled that months earlier, during a routine exam, he found crushed fragments of painkiller pills inside the patient’s nose. Though he refused to prescribe more, Devereaux worries that the man is still getting the drugs and has not recognized his problem or gotten treatment for his addiction. That story is common here. “There are a lot of...

The Huffington Post feature Alliance for HOPE International 's Camp HOPE America program in a recent post. Thank you, Karianne Gwinn Johansen, for your leadership of Camp HOPE America. You have been so faithful in designing a program that can change the lives of thousands of kids in the years to come. With special thanks to Melissa Jeltsen for spending a week of her life with us at Camp HOPE last summer and seeing our efforts to help children and teens find pathways to hope and healing. Next...

One day, when Peter Chiavetta was just out of college, he was driving down a road in Eden, NY. Before he could even give the slightest conscious thought to his actions, he swerved off the road onto the shoulder. The car that was heading straight at Chiavetta slammed into the vehicle behind him. “I thought I was a good prepared citizen,” recalls Chiavetta. “I had road flares and a two-pound fire extinguisher in the trunk of my car. I’m standing in the middle of the road with my little fire...

"most at-risk kids can be spotted early... ...learning to manage what makes us different and often difficult could change a trajectory that leads to tragedy." writes Maia Szalavitz, the author of "Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction." http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/well/family/the-4-traits-that-put-kids-at-risk-for-addiction.html?_r=0

Almost four million American teenagers have just started their freshman year of high school. Can they learn better ways to deal with all that stress and insecurity? New research suggests they can. Though academic and social pressures continue to pile on in high school, teenagers can be taught effective coping skills to skirt the pitfalls of anxiety and depression. David S. Yeager, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and a leading voice in the growing...

Controversy erupted in 2014 when video of National Football League player Ray Rice violently punched his fiancé (now wife) and dragged her unconscious body from an elevator. Most recently, Deadspin released graphic images of the injuries NFL player Greg Hardy inflicted on his ex-girlfriend. In both instances, NFL officials insisted that, if they had seen the visual evidence of the crime, they would have implemented harsher consequences from the onset. Why are violent images so much more...

There are a lot of things to envy about youth: clear skin, perfect hair, boundless energy. But nothing says young like a good set of telomeres. We’ve all got them, but if you’re past a certain age, you don’t want to think about them too much. Telomeres are the protein caps at the end of chromosomes that act as a sort of mortal fuse: the older you get the shorter they grow, a process that contributes to all manner of age-related diseases and breakdowns. Telomere length can be affected by...

The front door of Nora Nivia Nevarez’s adobe-like house in suburban Albuquerque, New Mexico, opens to blocks and children’s books scattered around the brightly colored carpet, shaped like a puzzle piece. Throughout the afternoon, she keeps a careful eye on her four small charges, ages 4 months to 10 years, by turns reading books and helping them with puzzles. One little boy named Javier cries as his guardian, Guadalupe, picks him up. He’s tired and ready to go home. “I love caring for...

“The great force of history,” James Baldwin once wrote, “comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.” Though written long ago, Baldwin’s words about the power and complexity of history certainly inform an understanding of the new National Museum of African...

The first sign that not everything is normal as you drive down Highway 1806 toward the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota is a checkpoint manned by camouflage-clad National Guard troops. The inspection on Sept. 13 was perfunctory; they simply asked if we knew “what was going on down the road” and then waved us through, even though the car we rode in had “#NoDAPL” chalked on its rear windshield. “What is going on down the road” is a massive camp-in led by the Standing Rock nation,...