Mental Health Archive

  I lead a small group of Marin County high schoolers who make peer-to-peer presentations to kids and parents about mental health issues like depression and suicide. We’re called The Marin Teen Mental Health Board, a bit of a mouthful …

In the aftermath of several recent catastrophic events involving guns, Congress has yet to deliver policies to reduce the easy access of guns, increasing the likelihood that additional tragedies of gun violence will continue to occur.  In the wake of …

Federal policies frequently have profound effects on how social workers are able to provide services to children and families yet many practitioners and consumers are often unaware of the policies that are impacting them.  Policies come in the form of …

One of my teachers at Pacifica Graduate Institute called psychotherapy “the hope manufacturing business.” And frankly, if my first meetings with a therapist left me feeling dejected, I’d likely think that person was pretty lousy at her or …

I have long been wary of efforts to explain mental health problems simply and uncritically as illnesses. This important new book confirms that I was right to do so. The author is an anthropologist and psychotherapist, and so is well …

One of the first pieces of jargon I learned in the social work world was "self care.""If you can't take care of yourself, how are you going to take care of your clients?" Indeed. Absolutely. I'm with you. The insistence …

For over two centuries, the mental health field, and psychiatry in particular, has actively cultivated a “brand,” distinguishing itself as a remedy for societal ills, largely by adapting its philosophy and methods to the dominant social agenda. In 1793, when …