Overuse of neuroleptics in youth

From MFI:

* PBS: USA national television show PBS Frontline *this* Tuesday, 8
January 2008 will investigate the massive increase of neuroleptic
drugs being given to children.

MENTAL HEALTH PARITY: Researchers Stress Importance Of Out-Of-Network Benefits

In a study published December 18 on the Health Affairs Web site, researchers say that passage of either the Senate or House version of this legislation would constitute a major improvement over the current 1996 Mental Health Parity Act, which only guaranteed equal annual and lifetime payment limits. However, the authors also warn that parity legislation could actually reduce access to MH treatment for some patients if it does not facilitate treatment by providers outside insurers’ networks.

We believe recovery is possible

Our site contains articles, news, recovery techniques and links. We advocate for mental health care systems to adopt the recovery model.

"Hannity's America" TV Show Looks at Psychiatric Drugs & Youth

This is a video from Sunday night, 16 December 2007 via Fox News, of
the television show "Hannity's America" with Doug Kennedy on the
subject of the alleged role of antidepressant psychiatric drugs in
incidents of violence. [This video is not by MFI.]

MindFreedom Campaign: "Youth Voices for Choices in Mental Health"

MindFreedom’s youth campaign has made another step into the digital
world. MindFreedom Youth Coordinator Martin Rafferty joined together
seven different youth, with very different backgrounds, on a panel.

Most youth had labels pasted on them by the mental health care system
and were prescribed many psychiatric drugs. Others escaped
psychiatric attention. Each youth was asked to share their unique
opinion about the current state of the mental health system.

Massachusetts Mental Screening of Youth May Lead to More

Today's Boston Globe has a front page story about how nearly 500,000
Massachusetts youth on Medicaid will be required, starting Monday, to
undergo psychiatric screening. Experts are concerned this will lead
to lots more youth on psychiatric drugs without adequate advocacy,
alternatives, information or rights.

Cutting

Can someone explain to me where the stigma around cutting comes from?

Obviously I am not promoting cutting. It’s not healthy. And if someone’s cutting themselves because they feel like they deserve to be mutilated, well… that’s a different ball game. But I’ve met people who cut as a coping mechanism for stress. Several of them have said the same thing: that it clears their mind, allows their thoughts to stop racing, allows a kind of quiet and stillness. That sounds awfully similar to what I get out of meditating. (And yes, I’d recommend meditation and would NOT recommend cutting.)

Center helps mentally ill in crisis

Until now, people in Milwaukee County who suffered a mental health crisis, especially after-hours, often ended up in one of three places: a hospital emergency room, the county’s psychiatric hospital, or jail. And often they didn’t belong in any of them.

That changed this month with the opening of the Crisis Resource Center on Milwaukee’s south side, a round-the-clock program aimed at stabilizing patients and then connecting them with services in the community they need to guide their own recovery.

A collaboration of a dozen or so organizations that serve people with mental illness, the center is thought to be the first of its kind nationally to pair nurses and peer support specialists - individuals working through their own recovery - to address not just the crisis at hand but the myriad other problems that might bring a person to the center’s doors.

Even Here, Recovery has an Impact

A How to Guide for Designing and Implementing Peer Services in the VA Healthcare System

Presenters: Charles Drebing, Dolly Sadow, Patricia Sweeney, Sherry Roege-Pederson, John Posselt

Oh NO! We've Hired Consumers Presenters: Joshua Koerner & Deborah Max

Peer-Run Programs: Using Outcomes to Facilitate Recovery, Modify Programming, and Sustain Funding Presenters: Renee Kopache, Angela Ostholthoff, Chris Pedoto

A New Wind Direction from Peer Mentorship Fills the Sails of Recovery Presenters: John “JJ” Posselt, Sherry Roege-Pederson, John Derouen

Just...talk

I am 28 years old.

It took me 28 years to figure something out. Something rather simple.

That simple thing is this: to have a conversation with someone, I just have to open my mouth and say whatever I’m thinking.

Sounds ludicrous that it took me so long to figure out that, doesn’t it? And yet it’s true.

That truth hit me like a spiritual revelation this summer. I was walking on my lunchbreak, with a coworker, to the corner pizza shop, and noticed myself thinking about the appearance of the fountain on the square. And without thinking about it, I opened my mouth and said what I was contemplating.

And my coworker responded with a comment.

And we had a conversation.

And that was it.

Alright, maybe someone out there is laughing. Go ahead, because yeah, it’s rather absurd that this was a revelation.

But it’s true–for the previous 28 years, I had thought that the way to have a conversation with a casual acquaintance was to think up something to say. It was very freeing to realize I didn’t have to put all that work into chatty conversations, after all.