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By Victoria Brownworth, Stanford Social Innovation Review, December 26, 2019 The largest psychiatric facilities in the United States are prisons. It’s a sobering fact: 2.3 million adults are held in America’s prisons and jails, according to 2019 data from the Prison Policy Initiative. Within this statistic, approximately 20 percent of inmates in jails and 15 percent of inmates in prisons have a serious mental illness. There are three times as many mentally ill people housed in jails and...

By Michael Hill, Associated Press, December 22, 2019 Drug overdose patients rushed to some emergency rooms in New York’s Hudson Valley are asked a series of questions: Do you have stable housing? Do you have food? Times and location of overdoses are noted, too. The information is entered into a new overdose-tracking system that provides near real-time glimpses into the ravages of the opioid-fueled drug crisis. The Hudson Valley Interlink Analytic System is among a number of surveillance...

To understand the treatments for complex post-traumatic stress disorder, it is helpful to understand the interaction between neuroplasticity and mindfulness.

By Emma Brown, Your Tango, December 21, 2019 There are days when I can’t tell where I end and my trauma begins. But what I do know is that my trauma doesn’t define me, and neither does yours. I once thought that PTSD was an emotional response to a single, visibly distressing event. However, I now realize it’s so much more. In fact, navigating my life as a domestic violence survivor is like walking through a physical and psychological landmine. My abusive ex has caused me to suffer a variety...

You will be amazed to know how positive sentences will immediately affect the way you think. Your encouraging word may be just what they require. Words of affirmation can be exceedingly beneficial for children of all ages. Affirmation is a strong and holistic method of building a positive mindset and happier children. the key to affirmation is that any word or sentence, when recited regularly or frequently, will result in a positive outcome. In reality, you can use affirmation in any...

Gateway Mountain Center in Truckee, California provides nature-based therapeutic mentoring for youth. Gateway's program, ‘ Whole Hearts, Minds and Bodies ’ is the first nature-based therapeutic program in California to achieve full-service partner contracts with County behavioral health departments and certification as a MediCal provider. Peter Mayfield, founder and Executive Director, spoke with James Moore of Mad In America. To read the interview or listen to the podcast, go to ...

By Lisa Deaderick, The San Diego Tribune, December 22, 2019 Marjorie Saylor remembers a woman who was looking for help leaving her trafficker. The woman was pregnant and waiting for a bed at a shelter to open up, but she had to wait on the street, alone and in the cold. Her trafficker found her and took her with him. “I never heard from her again. She only had a week left to go before her bed opened up, but the two weeks she toughed it out waiting on the street kept her in harm’s reach,”...

By Science Daily, December 19, 2019 Between 30 to 50 percent of youth in the United States diagnosed with an anxiety disorder fail to respond to cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT). A new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, reports that computer-based attention training could reduce anxiety in children and adolescents. "CBT is the leading evidence-based psychosocial treatment," said co-lead author Jeremy Pettit, PhD, a...

By Robert Yolken, Cassie Stallings, Andrea Origoni, et al., Plos One, December 2, 2019 Abstract Background Serious psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have been associated with environmental exposures in early life. Contact with household pets such as cats and dogs can serve as a source of environmental exposure during these time periods. Methods We investigated the relationship between exposure to a household pet cat or dog during the first 12 years of life and...

By Jeffrey Vanderploeg, Hartford Courant, December 22, 2019 The statistics are sobering. Rates of depression, anxiety and suicide among teens are on the rise, and by the time our children reach the age of 17, more than 70 percent will have experienced at least one traumatic event, such as physical or sexual abuse or witnessing serious violence in their home or community. Schools and pediatricians say they are seeing more children struggling, with more intensive needs. Too often, our state’s...

By Science Daily, December 20, 2019 Ten years after the publication of their first plan for powering the world with wind, water, and solar, researchers offer an updated vision of the steps that 143 countries around the world can take to attain 100% clean, renewable energy by the year 2050. The new roadmaps, publishing December 20 in the journal One Earth, follow up on previous work that formed the basis for the energy portion of the U.S. Green New Deal and other state, city, and business...

By Katie Willis, University of Alberta, December 20, 2019 New research from University of Alberta neuroscientists shows that the brains of adolescents struggling with mental-health issues may be wired differently from those of their healthy peers. This collaborative research, led by Anthony Singhal, professor and chair in the Department of Psychology, involved adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17 who had a history of mental-health problems, including depression, anxiety, and ADHD. This...