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In this season of New Year’s resolutions, perhaps we should resolve to improve things for the nearly 20% of Americans who experience mental illnesses and the more than 8% with substance use disorders . Mental illnesses are as disabling as cardiovascular diseases and cancers, and may be just as fatal. People with mental illnesses are more likely to die younger from commonly occurring physical health problems . Mental health inequities are rampant. Not only is the mortality risk higher,...

Rahm Emanuel’s awful 2015 has gone national. Rick Perlstein’s “The Sudden But Well-Deserved Fall of Rahm Emanuel” at The New Yorker went viral, as did a major Washington Post piece on how much credibility the mayor has lost, particularly within the black community to whom he owes much of his electoral success. Did anything go right for Rahm last year? Perhaps one thing: public space. The 606, the Riverwalk, and Northerly Island’s park all opened to...

Taken from: http://peaceaftertrauma.com/healing-tools/

Paper Tigers Screening - Santa Rosa, CA Thursday, January 14, 2016 3:30pm 5:30pm Santa Rosa High School Hosted by Santa Rosa City Schools and Upstream Investments Admission is complimentary and refreshments will be served. Please RSVP here.

Chronic conditions, such as Type II diabetes and hypertension, account for seven in 10 deaths in the United States each year. And by some estimates, public health factors, such as the physical environment we live in, socioeconomic status and ability to access health services, determine 90% of our health. Biomedical sciences and actual medical care – the stuff doctors do – determine the remaining 10% . Clinical medicine can treat patients when they are sick, but public health...

Like most families, mine has been busy ending one financial year and beginning another. As soon as the Christmas decorations are removed, we begin collecting records for the coming tax season, reviewing last year’s expenditures and preparing for next year’s needs. If you own a small business, you probably create a profit and loss statement and a balance sheet to reflect your current position. Wage earners sit around kitchen tables and make plans based upon past performance and...

In the Navajo culture, teachers are revered as "wisdom keepers," entrusted with the young to help them grow and learn. This is how Tia Tsosie Begay approaches her work as a fourth-grade teacher at a small public school on the outskirts of Tucson, Ariz. For Navajos, says Begay, your identity is not just a name; it ties you to your ancestors, which in turn defines you as a person. "My maternal clan is 'water's edge'; my paternal clan is 'water flows together,' " she explains. "Our healing...

Service members suffering from PTSD often feel like they’re wearing a mask. Melissa Walker asks them to make one. Walker, an art therapist and healing arts coordinator with the National Intrepid Center of Excellence ( NICoE ) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center runs an art therapy program in which service members returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD or a traumatic brain injury (TBI) are asked to make papier-mâché masks to express their feelings.

You may have heard that we are born with all the brain cells we’ll ever have. That’s not completely true. After we’re born, the brain continues to develop new cells until around age 2. At that point we mostly have all the brain cells we’ll ever have. However, there’s even an exception to this. There’s a portion of the brain called the hippocampus that is thought to be able to produce new cells with memory and learning. Since science hasn’t yet found...

In a new analysis investigating the effects of postnatal depression (PND) on parenting behaviors, researchers have found perplexing results regarding the effects of the hormone oxytocin on mood in new mothers. Oxytocin, sometimes known as the “cuddle hormone” plays an important role in labor and breast-feeding. It also appears to have significant effects on parenting. The findings show that new moms with naturally higher levels of oxytocin tend to have fewer symptoms of...

Before unloved daughters can begin to heal, they need not only to be able to recognize that they are wounded but also to see how the wounds shape their behaviors. It may seem counterintuitive but this is a process that can take years, not a single epiphany. As one daughter, 39, told me: “ My relationships have been a disaster. Lovers and friends alike complain that I’m too needy, too clingy, and they feel smothered. When they pull back, I cling even more. My therapist pointed...

Solitary confinement consists of placing an inmate alone in a locked room or cell, with minimal or no contact with people other than staff of the correctional facility. A variety of terms are currently used to describe solitary confinement, especially when discussing detained youth. Seclusion. Secure Housing Unit. Special Intervention Unit. Disciplinary Room Time. Segregation. Room confinement. Medical isolation. Reflection time. However, in the eyes of a child locked alone in an empty cell...