As I’ve written and spoken about before, my sister suffers from a bipolar disorder and my nephew from schizoaffective disorder. There has, in fact, been a lot of depression and alcoholism in my family and, traditionally, no one ever spoke about it. It just wasn’t done. The stigma is toxic. And, like millions of others who live with mental illness in their families, I’ve seen what they endure: the struggle of just getting through the day, and the hurt caused every time someone casually describes someone as “crazy,” “nuts,” or “psycho”.

What’s remarkable is not her frankness about this personal history, but her motivation to act, which seems almost like a wholesale rethinking of her career and what it’s meant in popular culture. In Fatal Attraction, for example, she played a woman obsessed with Michael Douglas (those were the days, right Michael?). She loses control of the obsession and becomes terrifying. As Close writes, the movie was a great success, and audiences loved to hate her character.

Alex Forrest is considered by most people to be evil incarnate. People still come up to me saying how much she terrified them. Yet in my research into her behavior, I only ended up empathizing with her. She was a human being in great psychological pain who definitely needed meds. I consulted with several psychiatrists to better understand the “whys” of what she did and learned that she was far more dangerous to herself than to others.

The original ending of Fatal Attraction actually had Alex commit suicide. But that didn’t “test” well. Alex had terrified the audiences and they wanted her punished for it. A tortured and self-destructive Alex was too upsetting. She had to be blown away.

So, we went back and shot the now famous bathroom scene. A knife was put into Alex’s hand, making her a dangerous psychopath. When the wife shot her in self-defense, the audience was given catharsis through bloodshed — Alex’s blood. And everyone felt safe again.

The ending worked. It was thrilling and the movie was a big hit. But it sent a misleading message about the reality of mental illness.

This is a bold admission from a woman who derived so much success from this role, but there’s no escaping what she says. It has long bothered me — and, I suspect, other advocates — that the message there is one of terror and fear.

Not only does Close take on her role in that film, she assesses the entertainment industry as a whole:

Whether it is Norman Bates in Psycho, Jack Torrance in The Shining, or Kathy Bates’ portrayal of Annie Wilkes in Misery, scriptwriters invariably tell us that the mentally ill are dangerous threats who must be contained, if not destroyed. It makes for thrilling entertainment.

There are some notable exceptions, of course — Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, or Russell Crowe’s portrayal of John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. But more often than not, the movie or TV version of someone suffering from a mental disorder is a sociopath who must be stopped.

I like to think that her speaking out will change this. As she so eloquently says, silence is the problem. Read more of her elegant prose here. It is well worth it. There you’ll find links to the initiative she’s promoting.

Thank you, Glenn, for speaking out against silence. You rock.

Despite the Dept. of Justice’s [scathing] report on Ancora it maintains full Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations accreditation . The kick in the head is that JCAHO did its site inspection on January 9, 2009 and the DOJ did its inspection from January 12 to January 15, 2009. Apparently JCAHO perceived a completely different institution. Kings County Hospital’s Behavioral Health Department maintained full JCAHO accreditation despite the death of Esmin Green, its 2009 DOJ report, and a lawsuit filed in 2007 . Connecticut Valley Hospital similarly maintained full accreditation despite its August 2007 DOJ report .

Someday a reporter will consider what JCAHO accreditation means when it comes to mental hospitals and whose interests JCAHO is putting first, i.e. the hospitals who pay for the accreditation or the patients whose misfortune it is to be in these institutions.

To get a sense of what it’s going to be about, go here for the article, which offers an online video interview with Joe Pantoliano, who’s featured in the story. (Full disclosure: I was interviewed for the show, but I don’t think I’ll be mentioned.) On the page with Pantoliano’s story, there’s a poll: “Should people with mental illnesses be required to take medication?” Now, why the hell would that be the question related to this piece? Here are the potential answers:

No. It should be a patient’s choice whether or not to accept medication.
72%

Yes. When people refuse to take medications, it can be dangerous.
28%

I’m distressed that even 28 percent would agree to that fatuous statement. But then again, that’s a big focus of the piece that’s online right now: whether Mad Pride is “safe.” I’m not going to comment further until I see the TV show; maybe that false dichotomy — Mad Pride vs. taking meds — won’t be the setup. I hope not, because it’s really kind of stupid.

Psycho Donuts has taken donuts to the next demented level. We bid a fond farewell to the tired, round ring of lameness, and the drab, time-weathered environment of donut past. Psycho Donuts has taken the neighborhood donut and put it on medication, and given it shock treatment.

Psycho Donuts are very unique and, well, crazy. Our name comes with a commitment to not only be the craziest/fun donut experience you’ll ever have, but one of the most unique places in the South Bay (see blog).

Try our signature Smores Donut; or for something different, how about a Green Tea Donut? Even if you’re not certifiably insane yourself, you’ll still find a handful of donuts from the past.

As a donut lover, this is an issue close to my heart. I mean, a Green Tea Donut? Is that even legal? I’ll stick with Boston Kreme, thank you, and yes, I’ll spell it that way until I die.

But the “Nutcase” display case and the padded cell in the store don’t sit well with many mental health advocates, who fear the store is stigmatizing, especially the folks at NAMI’s StigmaNet. Yet to tell you the truth, the more I think about it, the less I care. Wait — don’t hate me. It’s just that there are so many other things that are more important, I think, and the fact that this, of all issues — a single store in a single town — is generating so much controversy, seems kind of limited to me.

For instance, I got some other mental-health-related news from some people via email while I was on vacation, and without blogging about it further, I’ll just give you the broad strokes (no attribution because I’m not sure if my tipsters want it):

Also in California, L.A.’s homeless lose out in settlement

Recent news quote: “The secretary of defense is required to have a plan in place by September 2013 to increase military and civilian mental health personnel available to our troops and their families.”

Antidepressant use doubles in US, study finds

N.J. psychiatric hospitals to release 300 patients under lawsuit settlement

Suicides rising in US military

American Medical Association study: Adults near WTC disaster still being diagnosed with asthma, PTSD

I could go on and on. Every day I see headlines I worry about, and get emails from people who are suffering right now. Those people don’t give a shit if there’s a “bipolar” donut (pictured). They just want to know: Is there anything that’s going to ever make me feel better? Can I survive this? Why can’t I get out of bed? Can you help me? Can anyone help?

Personal urgency and large-scale issues slap me in the face in a way this donuts thing just doesn’t. Yet the comments keep coming. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong.

ECT, checkered past and all, is making a quiet comeback

Doesn’t that sound kind of familiar? That’s because you’ve read it before — numerous times. I’d say the most recent comeback article was last year in Newsweek:

Shock therapy makes a quiet comeback

Or how about the AP:

Despite Infamy, Shock Therapy Makes a Comeback

How about this article from Maclean’s from a couple years ago:

Electroshock Therapy Making a Comeback

How about Time magazine in 1979?:

Comeback for Shock Therapy?

Or the New York Times in 1990?:

Health; The Quiet Comeback of Electroshock Therapy

This one is from four years ago:

Shock therapy makes comeback but remains controversial

You get the idea.

What do all these articles have in common? The suggestion that despite its gruesome reputation, due to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (a PR nightmare the APA still can’t get wake up from), it’s safe and — here’s the kicker — enormously effective. The signposts in the articles are all the same. There’s very little deviation from the boilerplate, which you can see in the headlines alone.

When is someone going to write an honest article about ECT that stuffs the “comeback” nonsense up the APA’s ass, where it belongs? Oh, wait, someone wrote a book about it, published by Rutgers University Press.

Folks, if you want to understand this industry, read Doctors of Deception by Linda Andre. ECT is just as fucked up as Big Pharma, if not more so, as big business goes.

Sorry I sound cynical; we had some layoffs here today, and pay cuts and furloughs and the other crap that goes along with a dying industry (journalism, not ECT). So I’m feeling down. But hey, if I can turn it into righteous anger, why not? It has to be good for something.

We’ll all miss Steven so much, and I’ll say more about that later. For now, I’m wishing the best to all family and friends who are hurting. That’s what Steven really cared about in the end, though he was very passionately annoyed by knitting, as well.

Steven was often told he was anti-American. I loved his passion, and he cracked us the fuck up every day. This video was part of a series he did for PW called Steven Wells’ America, in which he took sacred cows and basically grilled them for dinner. Below, he reflects on the religiosity of an America that voted for Bush a second time (Steven was a staunch atheist). Toward the end he smiles a bit, so you know that he knows he’s being ridiculous. And that’s part of what was so cute about Steven — he’d rant, but then laugh at himself.

Here’s my column from this week. I know people will say I’m a stick in the mud, but I stand by my comments. I just wish I had more room to make my case. Let me know your thoughts.

In the wake of actor David Carradine’s hanging last week, various theories have surfaced about cause of death, none more bizarre than that of Carradine family lawyer Mark Geragos, who told Larry King: “David was very interested in investigating and disclosing secret societies … And so there is a suspicion that if there was some foul play, that may be the first area they should look.”

I have another idea: Look at Carradine’s recent appearance on Fox’s execrable show Mental, which might have made him self-destructive, at the very least. 


On the show, Carradine plays an 
author named Gideon who’s been 
admitted to a psychiatric institution in L.A. Speechless and wheelchair-bound, Gideon is visited by his blond supermodel daughter, who depends on Director of Mental Health Services Jack Gallagher—the Errol Flynn of psych administrators—to puzzle out her 
father’s catatonia. 


As part of this venture, Gideon is cradled in a swimming pool by a large African-American orderly. This isn’t enough for Gallagher: He jumps into the pool—clothes on—to do the cradling himself. That’s just the kind of guy he is; in Mental’s pilot, he disrobes in the hospital lobby to subdue a violent, naked paranoid schizophrenic. 


Poor David Carradine spends most of his episode with his head lolling like a 
giant flower on a skinny stem. He’s forced to emote, somewhat, when Gallagher yells at him about guilt and judgment, at which point his character emerges from the catatonia and grrs like Tony the Tiger. 


Carradine’s storyline, explicated by cut-rate CGI and embarrassing biblical references, is typical of Mental, which is boring, amateurish and feebly scripted. I’m guessing it won’t last long. But for the moment, it’s the only network TV show about mental illness—an opportunity that’s tragically squandered.

Gallagher, played by Chris Vance, is the least busy (and least irritated) hospital administrator I’ve ever seen. He deals with one patient at a time, and has enough freedom in his schedule to break into a patient’s home to learn more about him. He discovers that the patient, Vincent (van Gogh—get it?), is an artist, so he takes him off meds and channels his creativity instead. Now ensconced in a private room, Vincent draws and the pastels work their magic. Happens at Bellevue every day.


This episode also features a patient who’s been diagnosed with “Dead Cat Syndrome”—which won’t be found in any book, I assure you—because he’s hoarded cats then put them in his freezer. The police come when it’s revealed he’s been storing his dead wife in the freezer, too. A pretty psychiatrist shakes her head sadly as he’s taken away: Just another day.


The second episode is about an attractive and successful white couple—she’s a homemaker; he’s a doctor—with a shared psychotic disorder that causes her body to manifest pregnancy at seven months. Gallagher manages to break through the shared delusion by illicitly performing a fake surgery on the wife in the husband’s presence. The operating room and its staff are remarkably available for this theatrical presentation, and because the husband loves the wife, they are both brought back to utter sanity. No meds, no therapy, just love. 


Some would say there’s nothing wrong with these goofy storylines; they’re obviously over-the-top since any hospital administrator who’d push a pharma rep into a stairwell would be fired rather than have sweaty sex with a supermodel. 
But most Americans know nothing about the reality of psychiatric hospitals—and this show won’t help. The institution in Mental is so clean, so filled with kindly, attractive doctors and patients, so quiet, so sane, it’s the Canyon Ranch of asylums.


Here are some quick-hit realities that are so far nowhere to be seen on Mental, network TV’s only show about mental illness:

Hey, maybe those crazy people have it pretty good! 


African-Americans are 200 percent more likely to have schizophrenia than white people. 


One third of all homeless people suffer from untreated psychiatric illnesses. 


There are more people with mental illness in jails and prisons than in hospitals. 


At least 16 percent of incarcerated 
people suffer from serious mental illness.


People with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia have higher mortality rates than the general population, and are more likely to suffer from cardiac illnesses, diabetes and obesity. 

These are sobering facts with large-scale societal implications. 


The homelessness among people with schizophrenia is connected to socioeconomic conditions that potentially share responsibility for the etiology of the illness. 


The high rate of incarceration is the fault of an overburdened criminal justice system unequipped to serve as a de facto mental healthcare system. 


The mortality and physical illnesses among the severely mentally ill are often due to metabolic effects of overused antipsychotics. 


So here’s what reality looks like: understaffed wards with very sick people, many of them minorities, many of them overweight, who are doped up with medication, shuffled in and out of impotent “therapy” groups, and released when insurance runs out—generally in three days—whether they’re well or not. 


They don’t have private rooms. They don’t receive individual attention. They’re not intriguing mysteries to these hospitals; they’re burdens and profit points. 


How’s that for a fun TV show? Sorry, America, serious mental illness isn’t entertaining; we don’t go in and get tended to by multiple doctors searching for clues as though they’re on CSI: Loony Bin. 


You can bet if Fox had a show called Chemo set in an oncology ward, producers would feel an obligation to verisimilitude and gravity. But Fox wouldn’t dare do such a show, of course. Because cancer is serious. 


I’m sad to see that mainstream media still seems to see people with mental illness as figures of fun. I, for one, am not laughing.

]]> http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/17/the-trouble-with-spikol-print-edition-foxs-mental/feed/ 11 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/16/depression-confession-alec-baldwin/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/16/depression-confession-alec-baldwin/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:29:14 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3211 From People magazine:

It was the private voicemail message not meant to be shared and yet ended up being heard by nearly everyone – Alec Baldwin’s angry April 2007 tirade against his daughter, Ireland, accusing the then-11-year-old of being a “rude little pig” who needed to have her “ass straightened out” after she had “humiliated me for the last time.”

Only now, as the Emmy-winning 30 Rock star admits in a candid interview with Playboy for its July/August issue (on newsstands and online Friday), after the phone message was exposed, he contemplated killing himself.

…

Describing his thoughts of killing himself as “very serious,” Baldwin, 51, says, “I spoke to a lot of professionals, who helped me … If I committed suicide, [Kim Basinger's side] would have considered that a victory. Destroying me was their avowed goal.”

His self-destructive state of mind was such, recalls Baldwin, that he also offered to quit 30 Rock and actually went ahead and – briefly – dropped his agent, who also represented Basinger.

I find him quite delightful, personally.

Alec Baldwin Was Suicidal over Angry Voicemail to Daughter

]]> http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/16/depression-confession-alec-baldwin/feed/ 0 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/16/mental-and-obsessed/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/16/mental-and-obsessed/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:30:01 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3209 My column this week — out tomorrow — is about the TV show Mental. I have so many objections to the show, it took a long time to write. I could only fit in one of my central points, which is that … Well, I’ll let you read it tomorrow.

This was on NAMI’s Twitter feed recently:

Watch “MENTAL” on FOX-TV Tuesday 9:00 PM ET. Does it stigmatize or open minds? NAMI is monitoring. Send comments to smarch@nami.org.

There are also a couple feeds about the new A&E show Obsessed, which documents real people with real illness. Though some of its elements are sensationalized, I actually appreciate that the show will raise an awareness of what some people grapple with. Though Nidia’s OCD is incredibly extreme, I think any person with OCD will recognize themselves in it (at least I did).

The show also advocates Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as the most effective treatment for anxiety disorders, which is unusual in a world of Valium, Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, etc. The doctors explain things fairly well, though of course judging by the first episode, the show is pretty much like OCD: Extreme Makeover. But based only on the first episode, I believe that it will ultimately help the public understand the secret shame and fear many people suffer in silence with.

]]> http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/16/mental-and-obsessed/feed/ 0 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/11/this-show-is-making-me-crazy/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/11/this-show-is-making-me-crazy/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:54:56 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3207 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/11/this-show-is-making-me-crazy/feed/ 14 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/11/omg-new-twitter-feed-you-might-love-to-hate/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/11/omg-new-twitter-feed-you-might-love-to-hate/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:35:42 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3203
I say that because one of my favorite pastimes is hating Twitter feeds, so no offense meant to the newest launch: a Twitter feed from Mental Health America. So far, the updates are about their current conference:

1. Check out photos from the Centennial Conference at www.flickr.com/photos/menta…!

2. Check in during the Conference (June 10-13) to see what George Stephanopoulos, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and more had to share with us!

3. Mental Health America’s Centennial Conference is 2 Days away!

Pretty scintillating stuff. That’s the problem with Twitter. It brings out the boring in everyone.

Everyone, that is, except for the guy who’s listening the classic rock station WMGK and has a Twitter feed called mgkadnauseum. As ‘MGK is one of my guilty pleasures, I find gems like this — “WMGK is giving away free J. Geils Band tickets. Do you think they will play Centerfold?” — endlessly entertaining. (Thanks to Philebrity for the find.)

]]> http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/11/omg-new-twitter-feed-you-might-love-to-hate/feed/ 1 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/02/going-off-a-med-want-to-be-on-tv/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/02/going-off-a-med-want-to-be-on-tv/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:09:18 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3164 Are you going off one of your meds? Would you like to do a video diary of the withdrawal process for a major TV show? I’m looking for a person to help someone out, and it seems like it could be a good opportunity. Not exploitative, but interesting. Contact me personally if you:

1. are planning to go off med(s)
2. are interested in alternative methods for coping with illness, such as exercise and holistic interventions
3. are willing to share your story of withdrawal and coping — even if it’s awful and embarrassing — with the American public

Email me at lspikol@philadelphiaweekly.com

]]> http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/02/going-off-a-med-want-to-be-on-tv/feed/ 2 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/01/poor-susan-boyle/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/01/poor-susan-boyle/#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:03:55 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3158 The star of Britain’s Got Talent, who shocked the world by being ugly yet talented, is having a kind of breakdown from all the stress and pressure and media savagery. She’s in a mental health clinic now, where, her brother reports, he suggested she went to have some tea and relax. (I’ve never been in a mental health clinic in the U.S. where having tea and relaxing were on the agenda, so I’m eager to go crazy on my next trip to London.) In case you’re not familiar with Boyle’s tale, here is some info on her loss:

Embedded video from <a href=”http://www.cnn.com/video” mce_href=”http://www.cnn.com/video”>CNN Video</a>

Judge Piers Morgan on Susan’s issues:

Questions are being asked about who is responsible for her mini breakdown. Her brother tries to explain, including his belief that she misses her cat, Pebbles:

I hope she feels better soon.

]]> http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/06/01/poor-susan-boyle/feed/ 4 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/26/philadelphia-where-newspapers-go-to-die/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/26/philadelphia-where-newspapers-go-to-die/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 18:31:40 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3147 My poor profession. My poor town. The combination of the two comes together in spectacular fashion in “Will Philadelphia be the place where the American newspaper dies?” from the guardian online.

Philadelphia has all modern America can offer, for better or worse: wealth, crime, politics, sports, art and culture. But what it might not have soon is a newspaper.

It is running in a race no one wants to win: which major US city will be the first to lose all its daily papers? Los Angeles, Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, Miami, Denver and Newark are just a few of the other reluctant participants. The impact of losing all newspapers in these cities is potentially profound; many fear it would be a blow to American democracy. They worry that the watchdog role the press has played will be removed. The bedrock on which much of civic society has been built since colonial times will start to crumble. Yet one of these cities could lose all print news within a year.

Emphasis mine because I’m just pointing out: Philadelphia Weekly, City Paper, Al Dia, Impacto, Metro, South Philly Review, Northeast News Gleaner, Philadelphia Business Journal, Philadelphia Gay News, Philadelphia Tribune, Jewish Exponent, Public Record, Mt. Airy News, El Sol, Legal Intelligencer, Weekly Press, Defenestrator, Germantown Courier, Chestnut Hill Local, Northeast Times, Roxborough Review, Fishtown Star, The Spirit … I’m forgetting stuff, but that’s a start. I’m not saying every one of these papers is excellent. But they are in print and they’re still employing writers and editors, etc., and they continue to supply the community with information and news.

These smaller papers matter to some people. Some are niche publications, sure. Justin Rigali isn’t going to be reading the Exponent anytime soon. But come on. You can still get those hands dirty with newsprint a little bit.

]]> http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/26/philadelphia-where-newspapers-go-to-die/feed/ 1 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/26/voulez-vous-texte-avec-moi-ce-soir/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/26/voulez-vous-texte-avec-moi-ce-soir/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 15:24:25 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3143 One time I found a guy’s cell phone on the pavement and I wanted to return it to him. So I looked to see who he’d last called and easily found someone to contact. But then … my curiosity got the better of me. Here in my hand I had someone’s life in miniature, and yes, I looked at his photos.

I guess I thought maybe he had a cat and there’d be photos of his cat. If someone found my phone they’d see photos of my hamster (R.I.P., Popcorn), my sugar gliders and my dog. So why not have a quick Cute Fix? What I found on the phone was all porn. Raunchy porn of men doing things to other men, with closeups. Still photos, mind you. Which made me feel so guilty. I mean, what kind of monster was I? Violating someone’s privacy that way? It was terrible. It vitiated the Good Samaritan vibe I felt when I went to the guy’s house to return his phone. I shamefully handed it over. I wanted to apologize, as well as say, “Your life looks a hell of a lot more fun than mine is.”

Random story, I know. But the world of cell phones is so interesting. The first cell phone my family had was huge. Not quite this bad, but close.

Nowadays, they’re slim and chic and people have porn on them. But there are perils, especially for the mental health of the American adolescent. Take this excerpt from a recent New York Times article:

American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company — almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier.

The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation. …

“Among the jobs of adolescence are to separate from your parents, and to find the peace and quiet to become the person you decide you want to be,” she said. “Texting hits directly at both those jobs.”

Psychologists expect to see teenagers break free from their parents as they grow into autonomous adults, Professor Turkle went on, “but if technology makes something like staying in touch very, very easy, that’s harder to do; now you have adolescents who are texting their mothers 15 times a day, asking things like, ‘Should I get the red shoes or the blue shoes?’ ”

As for peace and quiet, she said, “if something next to you is vibrating every couple of minutes, it makes it very difficult to be in that state of mind.

“If you’re being deluged by constant communication, the pressure to answer immediately is quite high,” she added. “So if you’re in the middle of a thought, forget it.”

Michael Hausauer, a psychotherapist in Oakland, Calif., said teenagers had a “terrific interest in knowing what’s going on in the lives of their peers, coupled with a terrific anxiety about being out of the loop.” For that reason, he said, the rapid rise in texting has potential for great benefit and great harm.

“Texting can be an enormous tool,” he said. “It offers companionship and the promise of connectedness. At the same time, texting can make a youngster feel frightened and overly exposed.”

]]> http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/26/voulez-vous-texte-avec-moi-ce-soir/feed/ 0 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/20/codey-will-transform-system/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/20/codey-will-transform-system/#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 18:54:05 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3132 The headline at NJPoliticker.com reads: “CODEY BILLS WOULD TRANSFORM PATIENT CARE AT STATE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS”

Explanation:

A package of bills sponsored by Senate President Richard J. Codey that are designed to protect patient safety and improve employee training and oversight at state psychiatric hospitals was approved yesterday by the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee. … Sen. Codey worked closely with the Public Advocate’s office in drafting these bills, in part, to address a number of injuries and deaths that had arisen recently at state facilities such as Ancora Psychiatric Hospital.
Bill S2492, would require the Department of Human Services (DHS) to establish a training program for staff members who work directly with patients at state psychiatric hospitals in order to ensure the delivery of safe, secure, and therapeutic care.  Utilizing best practices in patient treatment, the curriculum would include topics such as state and federal reporting requirements, patient safety, disease prevention, health wellness activities, anger management, skilled decision-making and how to deal effectively with life-threatening emergencies. … The bill would require DHS to establish an on-site educational assessment and remedial instruction program at each state psychiatric hospital in order to evaluate the proficiency of all staff members who work directly with patients.

The bill would also require the commissioner of DHS to establish minimum educational standards for staff members at a hospital who work or will work directly with patients. … Employees already working directly with patients at the time of the bill’s enactment would be required to undergo an evaluation to determine if they meet the educational standards or require remedial instruction through the on-site education program.Any employee that refuses to participate in the training program or fails to meet the educational standards and refuses to participate in remedial instruction, would be terminated from employment at the hospital. …

The second bill, S2493, would require current and future employees of state psychiatric hospitals, developmental centers and veterans’ memorial homes to undergo drug testing for controlled dangerous substances as a condition of employment.

The last bill in the package, S2494, would require DHS to report the number of physical assaults and deaths that occur at state psychiatric hospitals. The report would be a public record, posted on the official DHS website, and updated quarterly, but would not contain any identifying information about patients or staff members.

As a longtime fan of Sen. Codey’s commitment to mental health matters, I do think it’s a good move. But is it transformative? As an astute TTWS reader notes:

It’s hard to see how these three bills alone will transform patient care at New Jersey’s state psychiatric hospitals which includes Ancora, let alone insure the care long required by law, New Jersey Statutes Annotated 30:4-27.1(c), It is the policy of this State that persons in the public mental health system receive inpatient treatment and rehabilitation services in accordance with the highest professional standards and which will enable those hospitalized persons to return to their community as soon as it is clinically appropriate.

Too often words and deeds fail to intersect at our nation’s psychiatric hospitals. Transform and its variants are now used so frequently that any change is considered transformative. More recently at another New Jersey state psychiatric hospital where a new building was going to lead to transformation (click here, paragraph 5), the reality belied the representations, ex. Developing therapeutic alliances between patients and staff remains a challenge, with differences in race, ethnicity, social class and education creating a ‘them versus us’ scenario.

“When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” Humpty Dumpty

]]> http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/20/codey-will-transform-system/feed/ 4 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/12/the-trouble-with-depression/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/12/the-trouble-with-depression/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 14:20:39 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3098
I used to do Google news searches for the word “depression” to kind of get a sense of what was happening in the world of sadness. (For a while it was a Google alert, but I got tired of being alerted all the time.) About four months ago, I noticed a change: The word is now appearing frequently in reference to stories about the economy, as in the Great Depression. Though I personally feel I’ve suffered through many a Great Depression of my own, that’s not what these news articles are referring to.

Today I found a double whammy: an article about the recession and resultant depression, which is not only concordant in terms of themes, but also rhymes. The major mental health charity organization in Britain, Mind, released a study that says that men are more prone than women to recession-related blues. Yet men are less likely to tell someone about it and get help. From BBC.com:

Paul Farmer, chief executive at Mind, said: “The recession is clearly having a detrimental impact on the nation’s mental health, but men in particular are struggling with the emotional impact.

“Being a breadwinner is something that is still crucial to the male psyche so if a man loses his job he loses a large part of his identity putting his mental wellbeing in jeopardy.

“The problem is that too many men wrongly believe that admitting mental distress makes them weak and this kind of self stigma can cost lives.”

Stephen Fry, our beloved, is supporting Mind’s campaign to educate men. One thing that’s notably different in Britain: the admirable insistence on therapy. Peter Cooper, of the British Psychological Society, was quoted as saying: “The type of help that men need includes psychotherapy but what they are also desperate for is pragmatic practical help.”

No mention of meds. Jolly well done.

Men ’suffering recession blues’

]]> http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/12/the-trouble-with-depression/feed/ 2 http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/06/coming-soon-to-a-tv-screen-near-you-you/ http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/trouble/2009/05/06/coming-soon-to-a-tv-screen-near-you-you/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 21:40:07 +0000 liz http://trouble.pwblogs.com/?p=3086 Sounds like A&E is doing the reality thing with crazies, this time. From a press release:

A&E explores the world of individuals suffering from extreme anxiety disorders, including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder and Hoarding, and tells the stories of their struggles to overcome them in the new original nonfiction series “Obsessed.” The eleven episode, one-hour series debuts Monday, May 25 at 10pm ET/PT following the season premiere of the Emmy-nominated “Intervention.”

“The series sheds a light on the vast world of anxiety disorders, while offering those who suffer from these debilitating afflictions a path to recovery,” said Robert Sharenow, Senior Vice President, Nonfiction and Alternative Programming, A&E Network and BIO. “Like ‘Intervention,’ Obsessed takes an honest and unflinching look at a difficult subject, programming that has come to resonate with our viewers and that underscores the essence of our brand.”

The essence of our brand? That makes me feel icky.

Of course, the cases are very extreme, or it wouldn’t be fun:

In the series opener, Helen, a single mother of three is tormented every day by her OCD as it’s making her life a nightmare. Her anxiety was spiked when her father died in a car accident. She has extreme panic attacks while driving and she obsessively puts on her father’s bloody clothes from that fatal night. Through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, (CBT) widely described as the most effective treatment for OCD, Helen must face her fears and try to come to terms with her father’s death and her inability to drive. Meanwhile, Scott is a germaphobe who doesn’t keep a trashcan in his house, doesn’t have any pictures on the wall, washes his hands 50 times a day and sleeps on the sofa because it takes him too long to make his bed in the morning. His OCD has caused him to be desperately alone and he must face his fears through CBT in hopes that he can have a successful relationship.

So let me amend my header, here: Coming Soon to a TV Screen Near You: People Who Are Just a Skosh Stranger Than You Could Ever Be.

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