Investigations
When Gayness was a Crime and a Mental Illness: One Man’s Journey from Involuntary Confinement to Pride
This is the story of Gene Ampon, a gay California teen who was arrested in the sixties and sent to a psychiatric hospital to be “cured” of homosexuality — and the movement to pride and resilience that helped save him.
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Arts & Culture
Youth Mental Illness: Four Young People’s Views on New Documentary
A new PBS documentary aims to show how commonplace and universal youth mental struggles really are — and to encourage young people to get help.
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Policy Tracker
Beltway Update: Bipartisan Gun Violence Package – with Big Money for Mental Health – Passes the Senate
It’s been years since any major gun control or mental health reforms have come out of Congress. But on Thursday, a gun-violence prevention package with $15 million in mental health funding was passed by the Senate on a 65-33 vote. The bill will be taken up by the House of Representative on Friday.
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Solutions Lab
Can Peer Support Help Unhoused Portlanders in Crisis?
Service organizations in Portland, Oregon, hope to expand a program that supports unhoused locals living with substance use or behavioral health challenges. The plan: employ six to eight peer support specialists to provide counseling services.
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News
Death rates increased the most during pandemic for people with mental illness and brain disorders, Medicare data shows
The death rate for people with schizophrenia increased more than any other group during the pandemic, along with many excess deaths from other mental illnesses and brain-related disorders.
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Research Roundup
Diagnosis by TikTok?
A new paper investigates the accuracy and uptake of TikTok videos about ADHD. Spoiler alert: accuracy is low, uptake is, well, viral. We also look at AI-based linguistic tools to measure thought disorder and – who knew? – the relationship of birth spacing to oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).
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Essays & Interviews
Finally, an American President Gets Serious About Mental Health
In the face of pressing economic issues and foreign policy crises, President Biden delivered a State of the Union address this week that offered important recognition of another issue that is impacting all Americans – our mental health and addiction crisis. It comes on top of a robust set of proposals on mental health his administration…
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Youthful Advisers Help Shape a Mental Health Program for Their Peers
A new peer support program, designed by its participants, offers standalone health and wellness sites to those 12 to 25.
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The Confess Project: Barbers Help Black Men Talk About Mental Health
The barbershop is the cornerstone of the Black male community. What better place to offer mental health counseling?
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Schools Earn Poor Marks When It Comes to Kids’ Mental Health
A coalition of mental health advocacy organizations released a report card, rating each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. on their school mental health policies. The group didn’t give out grades, but if they did, there wouldn’t be any As.
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More Latino Men Dying By Suicide Even as National Rate Declines
U.S. suicide rates fell slightly in 2019 and again in 2020, the CDC reported last month. But there were some stark outliers. Notably, suicides among Latino men increased by nearly 6 percent.
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“Hiding in Plain Sight” Takes Us Inside the Youth Mental Health Crisis
This documentary looks at the youth mental health crisis through the eyes of more than 20 young Americans who have struggled with mental illness.
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What They’re Saying: Mental Health Advocates on the Bipartisan Gun Violence Package
On Jan. 21, a bipartisan group of Senators announced the details of a gun violence legislative package that also commits almost $15 billion over the coming years to funding mental health services. Leading mental health advocates are praising the proposed legislation. Here’s a…
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What’s Behind the Protests Against Schools Trying to Boost Kids’ Mental Health?
A close look at protests over mental health programs at school suggest that the powerful forces driving them are anything but grassroots.
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Librarians’ Mental Health Threatened By Book Bans, Abuse And Harassment
Some librarians used to make jokes about Fahrenheit 451 as they pushed back on threats of censorship. But now it hits too close to home.
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TikTok’s Narcissism Obsession, and What It Says About Us
Narcissism as a topic is breaking out on TikTok with billions of page views. The NarcTok community is teeming with therapists and “healers” of all kinds, along with self-identified survivors.
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We Interrupt This Program to Bring You #BlackJoy
We Black people—Black Americans in this case—know hard times, but our lives also sparkle with joy. Black joy, and not just Black trauma, is our inheritance.
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When Positivity Becomes Toxic
We are in the #GoodVibesOnly age, and it’s kind of a bummer. The book Toxic Positivity points the way toward authenticity.
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What to Do When the World Is Ending
I am part of a generation that feels, constantly, and even in the most mundane moments, that the world is ending. Almost every article I read these days begins with the same preamble listing all of the overlapping crises, topped off by the…
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Solutions Lab
As youth mental health crisis rages, Michigan schools work to bolster students’ sense of connection
The pandemic intensified a long-festering youth mental health crisis and left schools searching for answers. In Michigan, 600 schools have adopted a social-emotional learning curriculum known as TRAILS – Transforming…
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Investigations
Trial by Fire
California’s firefighters describe a broken and depleted fire service suffering a hidden, smoldering crisis. Across the state, Cal Fire crews that fight wildfires opened up to tell CalMatters their heart-wrenching stories — exhaustion on the firelines, weeks on duty without respite, suicidal thoughts, never-ending trauma and the terror and pain of seeing their colleagues injured…
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Peer Hub
A Short-Term Home Where People in Crisis Can Avoid the Hospital
Nothing about the brown clapboard house a few blocks off Main Street in Cartersville, Georgia, suggests it’s anything out of the ordinary. There’s no sign, or bustle of people – just an American flag hanging from a post and boxes of white petunias on the front porch. The unassuming house is actually the Bartow County…
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Arts & Culture
Sam Quinones on How Fentanyl and Meth Hijacked Our Country
Sam Quinones offers a powerful journalistic account of how fentanyl and P2P meth came to ravage our country and users’ psyches – and how people addicted can recover.
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Policy Tracker
The 988 Crisis Hotline is Coming. Will States Answer the Call?
With the deadline for launching the 988 line just 7 months away, only a few states have enacted legislation to create and fund call centers and other services.
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A Historic Week for Mental Health
A new look at the extent of mental illness and use of mental health services in children. LGBTQ adults have high rates of adverse childhood experiences. News findings from studies of early psychosis are cautionary in some cases and encouraging in others.
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News
New Ruling Undermines Battle to Require Parity in Insurance Coverage for Mental Health
The ruling is a major blow to efforts to require health insurers to cover care for mental health and substance use treatment in ways that are broadly equivalent to that for medical care.
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Essays & Interviews
To Prevent Mass Shootings, Stop Hunting for Motive, Start Investigating Shooters’ History of Childhood Adversity
Searching for a motive as a way to prevent mass shootings will just get you a useless answer to the wrong question.The right question is: What happened to a child to turn him into a killer spouting racist hate?
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