Publications on Mental Health Topics

Programs to reduce drinking may not work on fraternity members, by Madeline Kennedy, Reuters, May 26 2016.

“College students who are in so-called Greek letter organizations seem to be immune to programs that work for other students to reduce the use and abuse of alcohol, according to a new review of research on the topic. Fraternity members continue to drink as much and as often as usual, even while enrolled in programs aimed at reducing drinking, and they have the same number of alcohol-related problems – such as injury, sexual assault and expulsion - as brethren not involved in programs, the researchers conclude in the journal Health Psychology. ”

People with Intellectual Disability Should Be Careful on Social Media, by Rick Nauert PhD, PsychCentral, May 20 2016.

“New research finds that people with developmental delays, learning disabilities, and other intellectual issues are vulnerable to online victimization. In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers found that adults with Williams syndrome – and who use Facebook and other social networking sites frequently — are especially vulnerable to online victimization. Williams syndrome is a condition characterized by an individual being extremely social and trusting. ”

Magic mushrooms 'promising' in depression, by James Gallagher, BBC News, May 17 2016.

“A hallucinogenic chemical in magic mushrooms shows promise for people with untreatable depression, a short study on just 12 people hints. Eight patients were no longer depressed after the "mystical and spiritual" experience induced by the drug. The findings, in the Lancet Psychiatry, showed five of the patients were still depression-free after three months. Experts cautiously welcomed the findings as "promising, but not completely compelling". There have now been calls for the drug to be tested in larger trials. ”

Future Planning for your Intellectually Disabled Child, by Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D., PsychCentral, May 17 2016.

“If you are in your mid to late 50s or older and have an intellectually disabled adult child living at home, you are part of the first generation whose disabled kids may well outlive them. Advances in neonatal medicine saved your baby’s life. Advances in medical care have made it possible for your child to have a normal or close to normal lifespan. You refused your well-meaning doctor’s advice to institutionalize your intellectually disabled kid in the 1940s, ’50s, or ’60s. You have loved and cared for him (or her) and you’ve done your best to raise him, protect him, and include him fully in family life for 30 to 60+ years. Maybe you are beginning to feel your age. Maybe your health and strength are failing. Your child has been the center of your life for decades and depends on you to be the buffer between him and the world. One day you wake up and realize you are faced with a new and frightening dilemma: Who will provide the same love and care when you are too old or frail or sick to manage or when you are gone? It’s a familiar worry for every parent of an adult child with intellectual disabilities. ”

Help your Intellectually Disabled Child Handle Bullying, by Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D., PsychCentral, May 17 2016.

“The chant is a lie! It may make for a great retort on the playground. It may comfort the adults who teach their children the rhyme to think that their children have a response to ugly taunts. But it does nothing to soothe the wounds and heal the hurts of verbal abuse and exclusion. How do you help your intellectually disabled child handle bullying and bullies? ”

Why Friends Disappear When Crisis Turns Chronic, by Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D., Psych Central, May 16 2016.

“It’s a common experience: Something goes wrong in a family. A child is diagnosed with a chronic illness or a disability. Maybe he or she gets into serious trouble. You’d think friends would draw closer at times like those. Many drift away instead. ”

Teens with Intellectual Disability Have it Harder, by Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D., Psych Central, May 16 2016.

“While about 20 percent of American teenagers between the ages of 13 to 18 are affected by some type of mental disorder to an extent that they have difficulty functioning, teens with intellectual disability are more than twice as likely to develop a mental illness. Double! ”

The untold cost of the opiate epidemic: elder abuse, by Kay Lazar, Boston Globe, May 14 2016.

“"As those drugs tighten their grip on Massachusetts, more adult children addicted to opioids are moving back in with their elderly parents, Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan said. Retired parents, with their monthly Social Security and pension checks, become easy targets for financial, physical, and emotional abuse." ”

The adventures and heartache of a military family on the move, by Joshua Aisen, Boston Globe, May 10 2016.

“"A Navy dad understands his son’s yearning for long-term friends." ”

Two minutes playing this video game could help scientists fight Alzheimer’s, by Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post, May 7 2016.

“[Michael] Hornberger, a dementia researcher at the University of East Anglia in England, is the brain behind an unlikely effort to turn a video game into a tool for research. His game, “Sea Hero Quest,” is aimed at helping to spot early signs of dementia, and it debuted to great fanfare this week. It has already been downloaded some 150,000 times, according to Alzheimer’s Research UK, a nonprofit group that supported the project. If each person who downloaded plays for just two minutes, they’ll supposedly provide researchers with the equivalent of 70 years of lab data on human spatial memory and navigation. ”

How To Teach Children That Failure Is The Secret To Success, by Tara Haelle , NPR, May 6 2016.

“Is failure a positive opportunity to learn and grow, or is it a negative experience that hinders success? How parents answer that question has a big influence on how much children think they can improve their intelligence through hard work, a study says. ”

Psychotherapy should be first choice to treat chronic insomnia, by Andrew M. Seaman, Reuters, May 3 2016.

“People with chronic insomnia should try cognitive behavioral therapy before medications, suggests a prominent group of U.S. doctors.   While the American College of Physicians (ACP) can't say cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) outperforms medications for chronic insomnia, the group does say psychotherapy is less risky than drugs. ”

Cutting and Self-Harm, by Melinda Smith, M.A., Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., and Jennifer Shubin, Helpguide.org, May 2016.

“Self-harm can be a way of coping with problems. It may help you express feelings you can’t put into words, distract you from your life, or release emotional pain. Afterwards, you probably feel better—at least for a little while. But then the painful feelings return, and you feel the urge to hurt yourself again. If you want to stop but don’t know how, remember this: you deserve to feel better, and you can get there without hurting yourself. ”

How One Piece of Paper is Changing Lives of Colorado’s Adult Adoptees, by Kevin Simpson, The Denver Post, Apr 30 2016.

“Colorado law, which initially kept adoption records open in the manner of real estate documents, had sealed those records — including birth certificates — by 1950 and required court action to gain access. ”

Tighter Alcohol Curbs For All Help Reduce Teen Motor Vehicle Deaths, by Katherine Du, NPR, Apr 30 2016.

“Motor vehicle crashes are the leading causes of death for teenagers in the United States, and alcohol is involved in 1 out of 4 of those crashes. The stronger a state's restrictions on alcohol overall, the lower the teen death toll, a study finds. ”