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JANESVILLE – Traffic on Main St. is lazy as Kyle Pucek strolls past tidy homes with wide front porches. “I lost a lot of friends in the last couple years,” Pucek, 41, says matter of factly. He counts 10. A car rolls past and a woman waves at Pucek. The two shout greetings. "That’s Kirsten," Pucek volunteers almost offhandedly, "an ex-heroin addict who’s also in recovery." Pucek grew up with her, and with her fiance, who died of a heroin overdose in 2009. Contacted later, Kirsten Moore added...

To become a police officer in the United States, one almost always has to enroll in an academy for some basic training. The typical academy session lasts 25 weeks, but state governments—which oversee police academies for local and state law enforcement officers—have wide latitude when it comes to choosing the subjects that will be taught in the classrooms. How to properly identify and investigate hate crimes does not seem terribly high on the list of priorities, according to a ProPublica...

Bad moods are no fun; but we all get them from time to time. I sometimes feel down reading the news or forgetting to exercise; others may become moody after a setback at work or a fight with their partner. Now, a new study published in Psychophysiology suggests that bad moods seem to impact the neural underpinnings of empathy, as well, with important implications for our relationships. Past research has shown that our neural wiring allows us to experience what another person is...

I am a Rosen Method Movement Teacher and Bodywork Intern. I have been living a Rosen Method Wellness Plan for 12 years. It has taught me Embodied Self-Awareness and allowed me to heal from trauma. Yesterday I was sitting with a group of my friends connecting after a long time. We began by updating each other about our families and work and then moved to the state of our country. My friends were very emotional and one said that she was so disturbed by the state of our country that she was...

In any culture, children hit by a natural disaster will see family members undergo huge amounts of stress and worry. They may be forced to live in temporary accommodation, and experience many changes to their usual routines and social circles. And on top of all this, many treasured possessions – including family pets – may be lost or damaged forever. For many children, this can result in high levels of anxiety and emotional trauma . This can inevitably lead to changes in a child’s behaviour,...

Ivan Godinez arrived at Sunnyside High School one recent morning in an angry mood, rudely responding to Principal Ryan Maxwell who noticed Godinez was late and asked him if he was going to class. That’s when teacher Felix DeLeon stepped in. “He’s like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ He calmed me down,” Godinez said of DeLeon, who immediately took the teen aside and talked with him privately rather than confronting him in anger. A junior, Godinez has attended several Yakima Valley schools, having moved...

Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) is the silent scourge that hangs like a cloud over countless people’s lives, robbing them of the zest, the warmth, and the connection they should be feeling each and every day. Childhood Emotional Neglect happens when your parents (perhaps unintentionally) fail to respond to your emotional needs enough when they are raising you. Yes, that’s all it takes. [For more on this story by Jonice Webb, go to...

Genentech is excited to launch a new philanthropic initiative, The Resilience Effect , to address childhood adversity and its long-term effects on health. For more than 40 years, our company has pursued groundbreaking science to improve the lives of people facing serious and life-threatening diseases. That’s why, when we learned about the emerging science behind the effects of toxic stress and the connection between early adverse childhood experiences and diseases later in life, we knew we...

On the night of April 29, 2005, Akron, Ohio, police officers found 35-year-old William Hale lying in the doorway of his neighbor’s home, not breathing, unresponsive, and bleeding from several gunshot wounds to the torso. An ambulance rushed Hale to Akron General Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead at 10:12 pm. The accused shooter, a man I’ll call Buddy, claimed he shot Hale in self-defense. But the Summit County Criminal Court found Buddy guilty of manslaughter and sentenced him to...

As the #MeToo movement has gathered steam, women have gone public with accusations of sexual misconduct by professors at dozens of colleges. But one institution in particular has faced reproach as a hotbed of abusive behavior. The Berklee College of Music was described in a recent Boston Globe article as having a "a culture of blatant sexual harassment." The Globe’s characterization did not surprise students or faculty members at the college, many of whom said they knew or had heard about...

The wartime evacuation of Finnish children more than 70 years ago might have been an historical footnote, its cost to human health and happiness lost in the passage of time. More than 70,000 Finnish children were separated from their parents in a frantic rout and whisked away to institutions and foster families in Sweden and Denmark. The aim of this mass migration of unaccompanied children was to shield them from harm, as Finland had become a battleground for clashing Soviet and German...

Who doesn’t want to be thriving in life?! The real question is: how do you get to there? In a recent study, researchers reviewed what was known about how human beings thrive. They examined personal factors and environmental factors and found that there are certain qualities that contribute to a thriving life. Here I’ll discuss 7 pathways to thriving and the character strengths that support them. [For more on this story by Ryan M. Niemiec, go to...