When we are in survival mode, optimal amounts of cortisol -- commonly known as the stress hormone -- can be life saving. But abnormally high or prolonged spikes in cortisol -- like what happens when we are constantly stewing over a problem...
California Endowment Present Robert K. Ross tells the story of Claudia, a story about the devastating effects of trauma, and about the healing effects of resilience and courage.
This is an excerpt from AAP SmartBrief, June17, 2014: Exposure to prenatal stress linked to obesity risk in adulthood An analysis of data on nearly 120,000 young men in Denmark found that those born to mothers exposed to stressful situations, such...
Our public media colleagues over at KPCC, Southern California Public Radio, have a fascinating two-part report on the efforts of schools in the Los Angeles area to address the effects of "toxic stress" on student learning. "As researchers work to...
Delinquency in youth predicts a significantly higher rate of violent death in adulthood -- nearly twice the rate of combat troops in wartime Iraq and Afghanistan. Delinquent females -- among the most vulnerable -- died violently at nearly five times...
Increasingly, law enforcement has become the first line of contact for people with serious mental illness in crisis. Approximately 10 percent of police calls involve someone who is mentally ill, and how officers handle these calls can make the...
Young women aged 16 to 24 are most at risk of domestic violence. BBC3's Murdered By My Boyfriend aims to bring the message to schools Alone in her room getting ready for a night out, 19-year-old Ashley Jones pulls up her top and tries to pretend that...
A hearing will be held on June 17 in the California Assembly Health Committee on a resolution to encourage statewide policies to reduce children’s exposure to adverse childhood experiences. California took a page from Wisconsin’s playbook...
This is the first of two articles in the New York Times on new findings on timing and range of maternal mental illness. Postpartum depression isn’t always postpartum. It isn’t even always depression. A fast-growing body of...
.....With shootings happening with alarming frequency in schools, malls, movie theaters and streets across America, people are again asking if video games contribute to gun violence. And do so-called first-person shooter games have a particular impact...
… In "Do Fathers Matter? What Science Is Telling Us About the Parent We've Overlooked," Paul Raeburn attempts to redefine fatherhood for the 21st century. A veteran science journalist, he also wrote "Acquainted With the Night: A Father's Quest...
This is the second of two articles in the New York Times on maternal mental illness. Cindy Wachenheim was someone people didn’t think they had to worry about. She was a levelheaded lawyer working for the State Supreme Court, a favorite aunt who...
This is about a major education paradigm shift. It is NOT about charter schools. The growing number of schools that the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) has handed over to charter operators is sad. The district’s “failing”...
Nora Baladerian is a clinical psychologist who specializes in helping people with disabilities who have been abused, mostly sexually abused. She directs the Disability & Abuse Project, which strives to reduce the risk of abuse, to promote healing, and to seek justice for people with developmental or intellectual disabilities who have been abused. Q. What kind of work do you do that involves ACEs? A. My primary work is providing psychotherapeutic treatment to...
[Fred R. Conrad photo] In an unglamorous pocket of Long Island City, Queens, between two of the nation’s largest public housing projects, dozens of women could tell comparable stories about Sister Tesa. Twenty-seven years ago, answering an open call from an older nun, she started a home for children whose mothers were in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Last year she was honored by the White House. Now, on a drizzly May afternoon, she walked the battered streets of her...