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By Matthew Morton and Jha'asryel-Akquil Bishop, The Chronicle of Social Change, March 24, 2020 Imagine you are 20 years old . You’ve been kicked out of your home and have no other stable place to live. According to research by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, you are among the estimated 4 million young people who experience homelessness every year in America. You face extraordinary difficulties that most young people don’t and may not ever have to. Chances are, you first fell into...

By Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, March 24, 2020 From its beginnings in January, the coronavirus outbreak has driven millions of people to shelter at home for long days of anxiousness and boredom. In country after country, people have responded by taking to their balconies, windows, and rooftops to sing to one another, to applaud and show gratitude to their health-care workers, to play music, and to lift one another’s spirits. Collected below are images of some of the musicians and grateful...

Teresa Gil, PhD. will be the special guest for the entire hour this Sunday evening on "Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams" radio program at 8:00 pm Central Time. For over thirty years, Teresa Gil, Ph.D. has been a psychotherapist, professor, and trainer. She has a private practice working with women dealing with addictions and recovery from child abuse and trauma. She is a full professor and teaches Psychology and courses in Social Work. Teresa works as a trainer and consultant...

As I was considering the children sheltering-in-place this morning and reflecting on lessons from my own childhood, I wondered: Can we heal-in-place too? I was born after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, another collective trauma affecting everyone. Yet, it was nevertheless passed on to me by the adults in my life in the form of constant reminders that the U.S. could be blown into bits any second. When I started school, there were constant “hide under the chair” earthquake drills I took to be...

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare providers everywhere are changing how they care for their patients. I asked a few members of the ACEs in Pediatrics community what they’re doing differently. Dr. R.J Gillespie, pediatrician at The Children’s Clinic in Portland, OR. Dr. R.J. Gillespie Gillespie says that, as much as possible, they’re switching to virtual visits, which allows them “to comfort and reassure our patients face-to-face as much as possible without risking their...

ACEs Connection is fueled by a small diverse workforce . Due to the needs of the worldwide ACEs movement , we are strategically located in various regions across the country. Because of this, we are a virtual workforce. Here at ACEs Connection, we are pros at working from home. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, I know that many of you are transitioning from brick and mortar businesses, offices and cubicles to home offices. Working from home under normal circumstances requires adjustment and focus.

The ACEs Connection site contains a wealth of information. Sometimes we say it is the Library of Congress or the Wikipedia of the ACEs Science movement. And the home page of ACEsConnection.com is just “the tip of the ACE-berg” because there is so much behind the home page for this “community of communities” (we now have more than 400 different geographic and interest-based communities .) With the thought in mind that there is so much going on on our site, we’ve decided to help break it down...

By Odessa Stork, The Hofstra Chronicle, March 30, 2020 When I was a senior in high school, one of my classmates died by suicide just a few months before graduation. I remember walking to school with my best friend the day after it happened. As we made our way along the overpass, I looked down at all the cars speeding on through. “Shouldn’t everyone, just, like, stop?” I thought to myself. I was 16 and it was the first time that my world had been seriously turned upside down, so in my brain,...

photo credit: chuttersnap/unsplash.com By Alice M. Kenny (pseudonym) (The article below is an excerpt from my new book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids . I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members.) The emotions adult children of parents with mental illness experience are a mixed bag. Sometimes a jumble. Guilt, loss, grief, and resentment are among the emotions that persist or bubble to the surface in adulthood. Some feel...

For all the uncertainty wrought by the coronavirus, one thing is certain: across the country, every day and night, our frontline healthcare workers are navigating the challenges of this moment with courage and compassion. As many of us are being asked to serve the public health by stepping back — staying home, sheltering in place, and otherwise minimizing our contact with the outside world — you are stepping forward. You — nurses, doctors, EMTs, hospice workers, community health workers,...

We’ve all had our lives changed. While the world begins to reboot into this new reality, it is really really critical to set good mental habits instead of unhealthy ones. As a psychiatrist now sheltering in place in Massachusetts, I’ve been putting out short (5 minute) videos every day related to what is most relevant right now. For each topic, I first start with a little science of what is going on (e.g. how anxiety + social contagion= panic) and then give simple tips that you can start...

The author is a dear friend, he sent this to me last weekend and I think it is well worth the time to read it. Sending very best wishes to all of you. This is something I wrote last weekend: 1. “I discovered that I’m stronger than I thought I was.” 2. “I changed my priorities about what is important in life.” 3. “I established a new path for my life.” These three statements are part of a larger scale measuring Posttraumatic Growth. The media loves to talk about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder...