When I first pitched a series of stories exploring access to mental health care in the wake of state budget cuts, I expected to encounter some difficulty finding subjects.
It’s difficult to deal with any kind of illness when it hits. But when it affects your emotional and psychological health, it’s often impossible to even describe.
An opinion piece, borne of personal experience and a decade of mental health reporting, arguing in favor of many proposed changes to the DSM-5 that would allow early intervention for common mental disorders.
This was my final post as a blogger for Psychology Today.com. After two years and 110,000 page views, its editors decided my contributions "no longer met their editorial needs." Coincidence? You decide.
Seven years after voters passed Proposition 63 -- the landmark legislation that was supposed to radically improve mental health care in the state -- California is facing a deepening statewide mental health crisis. As the state struggles under the weight of a lingering recession and an enormous deficit, county mental health programs are often failing to provide care for even the sickest patients. In many cases, the minimal safety net that used to exist is disintegrating.
A community’s mental health is difficult to quantify: It’s highly dependent on self-reporting and deeply entwined with cultural context. While physical health problems are easily spotted, mental health issues are harder to see – and often harder to fix.
West Virginia children with autism would have a much easier time getting treatment under legislation passed Thursday by the House of Delegates.
Serious depression is a growing problem for multicultural seniors. But unlike older whites, ethnic people 50-plus are blocked from treatment by poverty, limited or no insurance, lack of programs geared for them—and the stigma of mental problems that permeates many cultures. New America media senior editor Paul Kleyman begins his occasional series on mental challenges for ethnic seniors with this article on treatable depression.
When work and life collide: Reporting on an emotionally-charged story at an emotionally-charged time
One of the happiest moments of 2009 for me personally was when I found out I received a fellowship from the California Endowment to produce a video series on teen suicide.
