Blog

A s The Chronicle recently reported, a number of institutions have added the topic of student mental health to an already-crowded orientation schedule, using speakers, videos, skits, and an online course to educate students about their own, and one another’s, mental-health issues and available resources. Mental-health concerns (recognizing symptoms, knowing how to get help, etc.) are sharing the lineup with alcohol policies, sexual-assault awareness, library resources, and roommate...

In Alice Miller’s classic book For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence, Miller hammers home her provocative stance that the root causes of ALL violence are a consequence of childhood trauma.

The child may not remember, but the body remembers. Researchers have recently discovered a dangerous biological syndrome caused by abuse and neglect during childhood. As the new documentary Resilience reveals, toxic stress can trigger hormones that wreak havoc on the brains and bodies of children, putting them at a greater risk for disease, homelessness, prison time, and early death. While the broader impacts of poverty worsen the risk, no segment of society is immune. Resilience , however,...

It is now well-known that youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system have high rates of mental health and substance abuse conditions — rates that far exceed those of the general youth population. A multisite study conducted by the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice reported that among youth involved in the juvenile justice system: 70 percent met criteria for a mental health disorder 40 percent met criteria for a substance use disorder 90 percent had been...

Only in this century have science and society come to understand the mental and physical repercussions of a rough childhood. But 18 years after publication of the groundbreaking Adverse Childhood Experiences study and multiple follow-up studies, few resources yet exist to help children contend with or avoid the troubling list of childhood adversity — sexual, verbal and physical abuse; neglect; poverty; community violence; and bullying, among others. These exposures cumulatively scar a...

Children who experience family and environmental stressors, and traumatic experiences, such as poverty, mental illness and exposure to violence, are more likely to be diagnosed with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), according to new research by investigators at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM), titled "Associations Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and ADHD Diagnosis and Severity," published in Academic Pediatrics. ADHD is the most common neurobehavioral...

Dr. Vincent Felitti, a lead researcher behind the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, spoke about the impact childhood trauma can have on people later in life during his keynote address Tuesday at the Handle with Care conference at the Charleston Civic Center. We’ve gone after the suppliers — the pharmacies, the wholesalers and the dealers. And we’re constantly dealing with the symptoms — in the strained criminal justice system, the overcrowded jails and prisons and at the...

Antidepressants don’t work for everyone, but doctors may have found a good way to tell who will respond and who won't Antidepressants can be very effective in treating depression, but the drugs are often a hit or miss; of the 10% of Americans diagnosed with depression, the medications generally work in about half of cases. Even then, finding the right antidepressant can often take months of cycling through different drugs until one starts to alleviate the mood disorder. But in a study...

For 15-year-old Zion Agostini, the start of each school day is a new occasion to navigate a minefield of racial profiling. From an early age, walking home from elementary school with his older brother, Agostini took note of the differential treatment police gave to black people in his community: “I [saw] people get stopped … get harassed … get arrested for minor offenses.” Almost a decade later, Agostini said he now faces the same treatment as a sophomore at Nelson Mandela School for Social...

When she was growing up, Dina Gilio-Whitaker was constantly asked, "How much Indian blood do you have?" She could never figure out how to respond, which is not to say she didn't know who she was. "I knew that I was Native, I knew that I was Colville, I knew my family up there on the reservation," she said recently. "But what I grew up with was a process of not being seen and not being recognized as being Native, because I was completely out of context. [For more of this story, written by...

Paternity leave can make a big difference in a dad's long-term engagement with the child, doctors find. Paid family leave also fosters breastfeeding and reduces the incidence of maternal depression. As part of All Things Considered's series Stretched: Working Parents' Juggling Act , NPR talked with Dr. Benard Dreyer , a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at the New York University School of Medicine and president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, to get a better sense of what the...

My life has been shaped by trauma. My first contact with mental health services was at the age of 12 or 13. Although I didn’t have the words to explain what had happened to me, after years of silence, and of feeling that I didn’t have a voice, my story was pouring out. I was closed down with medication and changes of topic. I still do not have the words to tell my story. Twenty years earlier, my mum’s trauma had led her to sectioning, ECT and a lifetime of contact with mental health...