Entertainment Industries on Bipolar Disorder

The media and entertainment channels have been criticized in the past for skewing the perception of people who suffer from mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder. Social stigma may be contributed in part by how the public views images of people who have bipolar disorder.
The Entertainment Industries Council, Inc. (EIC) has created an initiative on [...]

More on Medications and ADD

Dr. Rob Lambert is a primary care physician and weighs in on the ADD debate.

Chocolate

Earlier this week I stopped by the drug store to get my husband some throat drops. He had been complaining of a sore throat and had taken a couple of sick days to stay home from work. I found what I was looking for, and lined up at the cashier. There were two lines and both were moving slowly. In my line there were two people ahead of me; the cashier was ringing up a third person at the register.

“Prozac Blues” Addresses Social Implications of Depression

A professor of Women’s Studies at Virginia Tech created a skit called Prozac Blues to tackle the social issues of depression around women’s roles and expectations.
Using those stories, Kilkelly and the other collaborators pulled from their own experiences and those of others to create a theatrical performance addressing issues surrounding depression and the use of [...]

ADHD Drug Debate

My guess is that Ms. Evelyn Pringle does not like the pharma industry because all her investigative reporting is about the evil-doings of pharma. When true, exposing wrongdoing is a good thing, since it will encourage companies to clean up their acts.

I’ll immediately admit that I have worked in the drug industry, have raised issues about some industry practices both when I was an employee and when I became a consultant, and currently work with drug companies as a consultant. For some, this may make me an automatically biased party. I don’t know if I need to argue against that, although I make a point to see both the positive and negative actions that the drug industry has incurred over the years.

Mental Ill More Likely as Victims of Violence

Nathan Welton’s piece shed light on a widespread belief that mentally ill people are instigators of violence, when behavioral health experts say that mentally ill patients are more likely to be victims of violence. No doubt, this piece was written in an aftermath of a shooting, where a Pismo Beach man shot up Denny’s [...]

“Acting As If” to Educate about Mental Illness

In “Roles that shine a light on the dark: Mental Health Players educate public about mental illnesses“, Harriet Comfort is the director of the Mental Health Players, in which actors educate the public about mental illnesses by performing how someone with a particular mental illness may interact with a family member or colleague. Some [...]

Hope and Mental Health

Helga Meyer introduces readers to an emerging field of psychoneuroimmunlogy in The Pueblo Chieftain and the power of the positive placebo called “hope.” According to Ms. Meyer, it is important to fulfill our three basic needs to have something to do, someone to love and something to hope for.
I went to the society’s website at [...]