BATTLE OF THE SEXES

Women “more likely to have serious mental health problems than men"
That’s quite a headline. The story, in the Washington Post, says: “Women in every age group in the United States were more likely than men to have serious mental health problems, according to federal health statistics released Thursday.”

Laura Pratt, an epidemiologist and one of the authors of the report from the National Center for Health Statistics, is quoted as saying: “As I’m sure you are aware, we see this in major depression as well, but I don’t know that anyone has ever come up with a definitive answer of why that is,” she said.

Is it really true? Or does misogyny manage to infiltrate supposedly “objective” research? Is this just further perpetuation of prejudice against “the weaker sex”?

Three things to consider:
• Perhaps some symptoms that in women are seen as signs of a “serious mental health problem” are more likely to be accommodated in men with different labels: “eccentric”; “a character”; “driven”; “ruthless”; “thrill-seeking” or whatever. It’s always a good idea to look at who is being labelled—and who is the labeller. As David Pilgrim points out, the greater the difference in power between the two, the more serious the diagnosis that is likely to be given. There are figures that show, for instance, that black people of African and Caribbean heritage are six times more likely to be sectioned in the U.K. than white people. Do we conclude that the former are inherently six times more likely than the latter to have “serious mental health problems”? No, we do not. Just six times more vulnerable to abuses of power at the hands of an oppressive system. Back in the day, women who didn’t conform to a tightly-defined social stereotype were diagnosed with “hysteria.” Such prejudice lives on. If you want real hysteria, read some of the online venom directed at powerful women like presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

• To a large extent, mental ill-health is a sane response to an insane world. If you are one of the have-nots, if you find yourself on the lower rungs of the ladder of power, if you are disenfranchised, isolated, alienated, bound by economic, social and cultural chains, how could you not experience psychological distress? One simple indicator of an uneven playing field in terms of gender is the pay gap: in the U.K. women earn 21 percent less than men, and there are comparable figures in most “advanced” nations.

• We do know that women seek psychological support a lot more than men. Roughly two-thirds of clients receiving help through the government’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies scheme are women (62 percent in 2012/13). The gender split in secondary mental health care, for more complex issues, is less pronounced—56 percent female in 2012/2013). Perhaps these differences are no surprise given our stereotypically gendered histories. Women ask for help. Men find it harder. Boys don’t cry—but that doesn’t mean they don’t suffer. Men are more than three times as likely than women in the U.K. to be alcohol-dependent. And three times more likely to commit suicide.
--John Barton


U.K. NEWS

Mental health services in Scotland get £85m funding boost
From BBC News:

Mental health services are to receive an extra £85m for improvements over the next five years, the Scottish government has announced.
Some of the fund will be used to provide more care for children and young people.
There has been a 35% increase in those starting treatment with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the past two years.
Scottish labour described the funding increase as "pure spin".
Ministers previously revealed an extra £15m for mental health innovation.
The additional cash will also be used to promote better wellbeing through physical activity, improving patients' rights, to help GPs treat those suffering from mental health problems and providing services in community settings.


Heart failure patients with depression are five times more likely to die
From The Independent:

Heart failure patients who are depressed are five times more likely to die from their condition within a year, a study presented at the European Society of Cardiology says.
Those who were not depressed had an 80 per cent lower risk of mortality, causing scientists to call for counselling for those with heart failure.
Professor John Cleland, chief investigator of the study and professor of cardiology at Imperial College London and the University of Hull, said: “Our results show that depression is strongly associated with death during the year following discharge from hospital after an admission for the exacerbation of heart failure; we expect that the link persists beyond one year.”
He added: “Patients with heart failure are at high risk of recurrent hospital admissions and death. Approximately 25 per cent of patients admitted to hospital with heart failure are readmitted for a variety of reasons within one month.
“Within one year, most patients will have had one or more readmissions and almost half will have died.”
Depression is common after heart failure and affects 20 to 40 per cent of patients.


U.S.A. NEWS

Anxiety more prevalent than all forms of cancer combined
From Huffington Post:

As many as 4.3 million American adults who work full-time have experienced an anxiety disorder in the past year, according to a new study.
Researchers analyzed data from the 2008 to 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health's Mental Health Surveillance Study and found that nearly 3.7 percent of U.S. employees working full time may have suffered from the mental health issue, which is categorized by constant and intense worry or fear. The findings were published in a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
This is the first time the organization conducted this particular report analyzing anxiety and employment, SAMHSA press officer Tamara Ward told The Huffington Post. The data also found that nearly 13 million American adults overall -- more than 5 percent of the U.S. population -- had an anxiety disorder within the past year.
To put that in perspective, the data suggests that anxiety is nearly eight times more prevalent in the U.S. than all forms of cancer.
Despite clear evidence that anxiety is common, there's still stigma attached. Only 25 percent of people who have experienced mental health problems feel that others are understanding toward them, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Research suggests that fear of judgment can prevent people with mental health disorders from seeking treatment. But experts stress that reaching out for help for anxiety can significantly reduce physical symptoms and help people get to a better place emotionally.


Serious mental health problems are declining among America's youth, according to report
From Huffington Post:

Contrary to public perception and horrific cases that make headlines, serious mental problems are declining among the nation's youth, and there has been a big rise in how many are getting help, a new study finds.
The study is mostly good news: More children and teens are taking mental health medicines than ever before, but more also are getting therapy, not just pills. The biggest rise in treatment rates has been among the most troubled kids.
"There's a concern out there that a lot of children and adolescents are receiving mental health treatments, particularly medications, that they don't need," especially for conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, said the study's leader, Dr. Mark Olfson, a psychiatrist at Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.
Instead, the results suggest "that at least in some ways, we're moving in the right direction," by getting help to kids who need it most, he said.
The dark cloud: More than half of severely troubled kids get no help at all.

Demi Lovato is the face of mental health in new campaign
Former child actress Lovato is a singer, X-Factor judge and “bipolar disorder” advocate with a history of depression, self-harm and eating disorders. She is of course a blessing to big pharmaceutical companies who can co-opt her in their tireless quest to reduce the stigma of mental illness and bring joy to the world (ie. pathologise everyone and sell more drugs). From the Washington Times:

When Demi Lovato was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she was actually relieved.
“Growing up, I felt very, very depressed,” she said. “Even though I was playing concerts and living out my dream, I couldn’t tell you why I was upset.”
After a family intervention, she sought treatment and learned she has a mental illness.
“I remember smiling and thinking great, OK, so there’s not anything wrong with me as a person,” she said in a recent interview. “It’s actually just a condition that I have, and I can do something to fix it. I don’t have to be like this forever.”
Ms. Lovato is sharing her story and encouraging others to do the same through “Be Vocal: Speak Up For Mental Health,” an initiative launched Thursday by a pharmaceutical company, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and other mental-health advocacy groups.
Its aim is to improve treatment options at all levels and erase the stigma around mental illnesses.


WORLD NEWS

Saudi Arabia: helping drug addicts through the phone
From Arab News:

The National Center for Addiction Counseling (NCAC) currently has 15 people answering calls from members of the public who are addicted to drugs, or with family members that are afflicted.
According to a report in a local newspaper, they work for 14 hours a day and guarantee confidentiality. The advice provided includes directing people to treatment centers and hospitals, and how family members should deal with an addict.
The NCAC is one of the few centers that provide counseling over the telephone. It has been set up at the headquarters of the general secretariat of the National Commission for Drug Control on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif, deputy premier and interior minister. Prince Mohammed is also the president of the NCDC.
The counselors explain how the law deals with drug addicts. This is to help those addicts fearing legal repercussions, to seek treatment at specialized centers around the country.
They provide families advice on how to deal quickly with addicts who have lost complete control, refuse treatment and are a danger to themselves and others.


Australia: Online chat rooms could be future of remote mental health, experts says
From ABC Online:

Online treatment programs are being flagged as a solution to the high rates of suicide in remote and rural Australia.
Mental health experts say people living in remote, regional and rural parts of Australia are more vulnerable to mental health problems because of poor socio-economic conditions and a lack of accessible services.
The Mental Health Commission's chief executive David Butt said bad housing, high unemployment and chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease all add up to increased levels of psychological distress.
"Access to health services, access to employment, education, all the other things that enable you to have a contributing life are really much lower," he said.
As a result, suicide rates are 66 per cent higher out of the cities and Indigenous Australians living remotely are three times more likely to commit suicide than non-Indigenous city dwellers.

“MENTAL" HEALTH

“I think, therefore I am.” Cogito, ergo sum. From this absolute, penned in 1637, René Descartes laid the table for the predominant Western belief that the “self” is a mind that inhabits a physical body, but is separate from it, like a ghost in the machine.

Four centuries later, such “Cartesian dualism” has given rise to an NHS that completely atomises each human patient that walks through the surgery door. The patient is either having a mental problem or a physical problem. If the former, prescribe drugs. If the latter, examine the dysfuntional body part. There is seemingly no overlap between the two on the GP’s flowchart. Even in neuropsychiatric wards where the two elements supposedly come together, patients are divided into those whose symptoms have an “organic” origin (ie. physical) or are “non-organic” (ie. psychological), with different approaches for both. Really, the NHS should take a dose of its own medicine and have some CBT for such “black and white thinking.”

What of the man suffering from chronic headaches since the death of his partner? Or the woman having a major existential crisis as a result of a diagnosis of cancer? Or the high-achiever who, on the morning of an important meeting, wakes up one day unable to walk?

The fact is, we are neither our minds, nor our bodies, but a complex whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. We ignore the mysterious interplay between those parts at our peril. As the book Why Do People Get Ill? argues, a patient is a gestalt and could better be treated in a more holistic manner. We are psychosomatic beings. Eastern medicine gets this; the western kind does not.
—John Barton


Dropping the word 'mental' from 'mental health'
From Huffington Post:

There are many polarizing words that are used when it comes to describing mental health: "Crazy," "insane," "nutcase." All of them are wrong and perpetuate a stigma. So Eric Norwine, a mental health advocate and producer of the film "Walking Man," is offering a different, more holistic solution -- and frankly, one that makes sense.

Norwine told HuffPost Live host Nancy Redd that one way we can eliminate the stereotype is to stop singling out mental health as its own category and consider it a part of our overall health.

"I think that ... the brain is the most complicated organ in the body and it's the one we forgive the least when it breaks," he said. "That makes no sense. You would never tell someone with a broken leg to run."


U.K. NEWS

David Tennant to play 'acid-Marxist' psychiatrist RD Laing in biopic
From The Guardian:

David Tennant is to play RD Laing, known as the ‘acid Marxist’ and ‘high priest of anti-psychiatry’, in a new film about the controversial 1960s residential treatment centre Kingsley Hall.

Titled Metanoia, the biopic will chronicle the infamous Scottish psychiatrist’s efforts to create a safe haven for people diagnosed with psychosis and schizophrenia, where there were no locks on the doors and no antipsychotic drugs were administered, at his site on Powis Road in London’s East End. Kingsley Hall opened to residents in 1965 and continued to operate through the height of the flower power movement until 1970. Laing was known for advocating the medical use of LSD, still legal at the time of the centre’s opening, and argued for the breaking down of divisions between patient and health professional. 

Writer-director Robert Mullan, the author of three books about Laing, told Screen: “In the late 1960s, and throughout the 70s, RD Laing was seen as the high priest of anti-psychiatry and the so-called ‘acid Marxist’ – lauded by supporters for his daring and experimental work with disturbed people.

“In truth, Laing simply tried harder than other psychiatrists to sympathetically understand the cracked minds of the people who came to see him. He gave them time and tried to see the world from their point of view. His books sold all over the world and his reputation was global.”

Former Doctor Who Tennant, who will star opposite Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss in the film, told Screen he had “long been fascinated by the life and work of RD Laing”. He said: “This is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate and discover this important man and I am honoured and thrilled to be involved in telling this story. Robert Mullan’s passion for the subject is inspiring and the presence of the brilliant Elisabeth Moss makes this something I cannot wait to start work on.”


The case for independent investigation of deaths in mental health institutions
From Open Democracy:

INQUEST is a charity which provides help to people bereaved by a death in custody or detention in England and Wales. Earlier this year we published a report on mental health deaths, drawing upon our work with families, and our statistical monitoring and policy work.

The single most important factor highlighted by this report was the absence of a pre-inquest investigation mechanism. Reliance upon the NHS Trusts’ internal inquiry has often been problematic, since the death may have been caused or contributed to by the failures of the hospital’s staff or procedures.

Without the pre-inquest support of an independent investigatory body coroners may be unable properly to investigate systemic failings or to provide insight or guidance on the prevention of future deaths.

Bereaved families often struggle to be involved in the internal investigations and face barriers to disclosure of basic information and relevant documents. Families have described an atmosphere of “them against us” and “a battle to the end”. It does not inspire family or public confidence when an organisation investigates itself over a death in which it may be implicated.

In the past year political parties have amplified their commitments to improving mental health care. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have called for mental health conditions to be given equal priority to physical health, while Labour has vowed to invest in child and youth mental health services. And last year a statutory duty of candour placed a legal duty on health and social care providers to be open with patients or their families when things go wrong.

All this is welcome. The starting point must be a post-death investigative framework that is independent.

• Man restrained under Mental Health Act with a towel over his head died after 'excessive police force' (mirror.co.uk)


Practice mindfulness says charity
From The Independent:

A mental health charity has suggested that mindfulness treatments should be more widely available on the NHS, after revealing the results of a new YouGov survey.

Originally an ancient Buddhist practice, mindfulness is a form of therapy aimed at increasing people’s awareness of themselves, their emotions and the environment around them, through meditation, yoga and breathing.

As part of Mental Health Awareness week, the Mental Health Foundation has called for the NHS to make the practice available in all areas of the country to help those suffering from anxiety, stress, and depression.

According to a new survey, that is a significant number of us.

YouGov and the Mental Health foundation have reported that 29 per cent of people are stressed; whilst 24 per cent suffer from anxiety and 17 per cent from depression.

In addition, the survey, which looked at over 2,000 British adults, reports that nearly half of workers struggle to switch off from work, and that nearly two thirds of people would be likely to take part in activities that reduce stress if given the option.

Mental Health Foundation CEO, Jenny Edwards CBE, said:

"Mindfulness is one of the most encouraging practices to support good mental health.

"Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy is recommended by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and endorsed in the Chief Medical Officer’s Mental Health report, for reducing the risk of recurrent depression, cutting relapse rates in half.

"However, the evidence to date is that only a handful of Clinical Commissioning Groups make Mindfulness available in their area," she added.

U.S.A. NEWS

How can couples rebuild trust after an affair?
A 12-minute NPR radio report on relationships, trust and adultery featuring the marvelous Esther Perel, New York-based Belgian psychotherapist and author of Mating in Captivity. 

Perel on trust:
“It is one of the most magnificent experiences one can have. It is an experience among friends. It is an experience from a child to a parent and a parent to a child. It allows me to know that I am not alone. That is one of the most fundamental experiences that come with trust is: I am not alone. In archetypal language, you could say that once we are thrown out of Eden, we are on a quest for trust. For that solid ground. For that sense that tomorrow will arrive when today ends.”

And on affairs:
“I look at affairs from a dual perspective. Hurt and betrayal on one side. Growth and self-discovery on the other. What it did to you, and what it meant for me. And so when a couple comes to me, in the aftermath of an affair, I will often tell them this: Today, in the West, most of us are going to have two or three relationships, or marriages. And some of us are going to do it with the same person. Your first marriage is over. Would you like to create a second one, together?”


A therapeutic role for ecstasy and other psychedelic drugs?
Medical Daily:

Prior to 1985, psychiatrists in the United States and elsewhere legally used MDMA as a prescription drug to intensify the effectiveness of psychotherapy. A new study may help MDMA, now an illicit club drug referred to as ecstasy or molly, reclaim its former good reputation. MDMA, the researchers believe, may help reduce self-criticism and increase self-compassion when combined with other forms of therapy.

The Drug Enforcement Administration approved the first clinical trial using MDMA along with psychotherapy to treat anxiety among people with life-threatening illnesses, Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday. Earlier this month, the Journal of Psychopharmacology published an analysis of data provided by 135,000 random participants — including 19,000 who reported using LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline — and found the use of psychedelics does not increase the risk of developing mental health problems. Other recent studies found MDMA-assisted psychotherapy would not cause harm to post-traumatic stress disorder patients and might even be useful for those who get no help from other treatments. 

It appears more than a few researchers are revisiting the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs. One such researcher, Dr. Sunjeev K. Kamboj, a senior lecturer in psychology at University College London, wondered about the similarities between ecstasy and Eastern meditation practices. Specifically, both contribute to a compassionate mindset, leading Kamboj to theorize that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy might increase pro-social attitudes toward the self.

Textual healing: A new therapy trend on the rise
From abc27:

Through Talkspace, a therapist is a text away. According to CNN, the startup has raised more than $13 million in financing, a sign the innovative business may have found a new way to deliver a service to the tech-oriented contingent of the public.

The startup is designed as an easy, transparent service – following a trend of recent startups. Users are paired with a psychotherapist and can send text messages to them any time, any day, for $25 a week. Talkspace also offers couples therapy for $149 a month.

Roni Frank, co-founder of Talkspace, said a lot of people are intimidated by the face-to-face nature of traditional therapy, and despite efforts from many in the mental health community, there still is an overarching stigma around mental health.

“It’s always easier to text. It feels so normal,” Frank told CNN. “There is a healthy distance when you are texting.”

Alex Finkelstein, general partner at Spark Capital, which is working with Talkspace, says the concept of on-demand therapy fills a major need for many people.

“There’s a massive need for therapy on-demand,” Finkelstein told CNN. “You could be in the middle of an eating disorder episode or a marriage dispute, and you can literally be communicating with your therapist in minutes.”

Roni Frank, along with her husband, Oren, co-founded Talkspace in 2012.

Talkspace hopes to infiltrate big markets, including China, and partner with American universities to work with students struggling with mental health issues.

“We have so many college students reaching out,” Roni Frank told CNN. “The mission is to bring therapy to a billion people around the world.”


How the army is overhauling services to help soldiers with PTSD
From ThinkProgress:

Even though fewer troops are now going into war zones, Army officials are still struggling to connect soldiers with the appropriate treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder amid a surge in PTSD cases in recent years. However, an impending overhaul of the Army’s mental health care system could help extend immediate, personalized care to those who need it most.

The proposed reforms would bring an influx of mental health specialists to meet the growing demand among soldiers. On-base intensive mental health resources would replace private psychiatric hospitals, and counseling teams would work closely with troops. Doctors who tag along with soldiers in these units regularly meet with commanders to discuss the progress of the people whom they consider to be high-risk cases.

Mental trauma counts among the top issues affecting members of the Armed Forces. Last July, a national survey of more than 2,000 members of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America — which includes members of the Army, Marines, Air Force, and Navy — found that more than 60 percent of respondents said they have been diagnosed with PTSD or traumatic brain injuries. More than 30 percent of respondents also said they have thought about taking their own lives since joining the military.
 

More kids getting mental health treatment
From CBS News:

The number of U.S. children and teens being treated for mental health issues has risen by about 50 percent in the past 20 years -- with most of those kids having relatively mild symptoms, a new study finds.

The research, published in the May 21 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, comes at a time of growing concern over young people's mental health treatment.

In particular, some worry that kids with milder issues are being overtreated with antidepressants, stimulants (such as those used for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and antipsychotic drugs, said lead researcher Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City.

According to Olfson, his findings suggest that kids with less serious symptoms account for a large share of young people getting mental health care -- whether that means medication or "talk therapy."

"But we don't know if that's a positive or a negative development," said Olfson. "When you're looking at trends across the whole U.S., you can't tell who does or doesn't 'need' treatment."

And at the other end of the spectrum, he said, there are plenty of kids with more severe symptoms who are not getting treatment at all.

So, the story is more complicated than "U.S. kids are being overtreated," Olfson noted.


May is Mental Health Awareness Month--here's why companies should care
From Forbes:

Most people spend the majority of their waking hours working. During those long hours, the office setting either promotes good mental health or contributes to poor emotional well-being. Despite the large role that office culture plays in employee well-being, most companies rarely – if ever – mention the subject of mental health.

Employers certainly can’t prevent all mental health problems. Genetics and past traumatic experiences are just a couple of the factors that can influence a person’s mental health. But there are steps employers can take to reduce stress and promote resilience.

• Taking a 'mental health day': Your rights in the workplace (Fox News)

Amanda Seyfried: anxiety caused her to seek counseling after admitting she was 'drunk' on Letterman
From The Inquisitr:

Amanda Seyfried has suffered from anxiety attacks that go beyond the typical butterflies-in-the-tummy stage fright. The actress says that at one point, she even got drunk prior to a televised interview because she thought it might help alleviate her anxiety, reported the Daily Mail.

The turning point occurred in 2012, when Amanda was nervous about an interview with David Letterman. Seyfried resorted to booze in an attempt to blast her nerves. But when she realized that alcohol wasn’t the solution for her extreme anxiety, the actress sought professional counseling.

Then age 29, Amanda had been scheduled on the Letterman show to talk about Les Miserables. Instead of publicizing the show, however, she earned attention for her broadcast confession that she was “pretty drunk” from gulping whisky shots.

Although she thought drinking whisky was fun at the time, watching it after the show aired made her recognize that she needed help.

“It made it fun for me, but then I watched it and was like ‘That is not what I want to promote about myself,” said Amanda.

Seyfried also has opened up about her generalized anxiety when it comes to live stage performances, reported Theater Mania.


WORLD NEWS

Australia: Early intervention key to men's mental health efforts
From ABC Online:

More than 1.3 million men in Australia experience mental health problems every year. Too few of them seek help because of the stigma that still exists around the issue. Now, there’s a push to focus on early intervention strategies, write Lynne Malcolm and Olivia Willis.

Men suffer from mental health problems at very similar rates to women, but are far less likely to seek professional help.

They are overrepresented in the group of people who act out under stress, and have significantly higher rates of suicide when compared to women.

Max Birchwood, professor of youth mental health at the University of Warwick, says one the biggest barriers is that young men do not feel comfortable discussing their emotions.  

‘Wellbeing is a problem because people don’t develop the concepts very well in their minds, they don’t communicate, it’s not part of everyday discourse,’ he says.

‘One thing we know for absolutely sure, young people, particularly young males, do not seek help.’


Cambodia: the legacy of the Khmer Rouge
From VOA Learning English:

Cambodia has some of the world’s worst mental health statistics. Experts say the large number of cases is partly a result of Khmer Rouge rule in the 1970s.

The Cambodian government spends little on mental health services. The World Health Organization says such services are, in its words, “critically neglected.”

Experts do not believe that will change anytime soon, because few Cambodian students are interested in psychiatry as a career -- they have little or no interest in the treatment and prevention of mental disorders.

Most Cambodians live in rural areas. But few mental health services are provided there. So people must go to psychiatric centers in cities, like the Khmer-Soviet Hospital in Phnom Penh. It is one of the busiest clinics in the country.

Yem Sobotra is the director of the clinic. He says that, 15 years ago, it cared for between 70 and 150 patients every day. When our reporter visited recently, the daily average was 400. The clinic has just 10 psychiatrists and 10 nurses or aides. So most patients are treated for just a few minutes and leave with a bottle of pills.

Delighted Danes, frolicsome Finns
You would think that with so many governments around the world struggling with similar issues—200-plus grand petri dishes—that there would be more consensus over the best way to run a country.

What system seems to work best? Where are people happiest?

In looking for answers, the Gallup organisation surveyed people across 158 countries about their happiness. In the latest edition of the resulting annual World Happiness Report (http://worldhappiness.report), the 10 happiest countries in the world were deemed to be:

1.       Switzerland
2.      Iceland
3.      Denmark
4.      Norway
5.      Canada 
6.      Finland 
7.      Netherlands 
8.      Sweden 
9.      New Zealand 
10.    Australia 

If you were born into any of these prosperous, well-run, generally egalitarian nations, you should be thankful—it could have been so much worse. It could have been bottom-of-the-pile Syria, Burundi or Togo for you. The U.S. is 15th on the list; the U.K. 21st.

So what do the top-10 have in common? What makes the Swiss and the Swedes smile? Why so many cheerful Canadians, delighted Danes, frolicsome Finns?

The 6 keys to happiness
The report identifies six key factors which contribute to the happiness ranking: “The six factors are GDP per capita, healthy years of life expectancy, social support (as measured by having someone to count on in times of trouble), trust (as measured by a perceived absence of corruption in government and business), perceived freedom to make life decisions, and generosity (as measured by recent donations, adjusted for differences in income).”

A crucial ingredient that cuts across these criteria, the X-factor, is the concept of “social capital,” which is defined as: “the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively.”

Social capital describes the extent of trust, social support, and pro-sociality that exists. These things are the mark of an evolved human society—the antithesis of the kind of Ayn Rand law-of-the-jungle dystopia that is so prevalent in many parts of the world.

Writes sustainable development advocate Jeffrey D. Sachs in the World Happiness Report: “When social capital is high, individuals are more prepared to incur such individual costs for the greater good; and when most people in society behave in that manner, society as a whole benefits in higher economic productivity, stronger social insurance, greater societal resilience to natural hazards, and greater mutual care.”

Almost no-one can keep a straight face when the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Mayor of London—old Etonians David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson—inevitably utter the party line: “We’re all in this together.” We live in a deeply divided world—a world where 85 people have the same wealth of the poorest half of the global population, 3.5 billion people. But in egalitarian, truly democratic nations with high levels of social capital, the words are slightly easier to swallow.

The happiest nations are awash with social capital:

• The Scandinavian system or “Nordic model” of government features high taxes, a large, well-run welfare state, a high standard of free education and healthcare, and low levels of inequality. The machine works for betterment of the people, not the other way round. (In John Rawls “A Theory of Justice,” he demonstrates through his “original position” experiment that if people don’t know how they will end up in an imaginary society, they will generally opt for a fair, redistributive political and economic system that treats all fairly, maximising the prospects of the least well-off.) The Nordic model is a system that appears to make people happy: Denmark and its close cousin Iceland, plus Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands, are all in the top-8 happiest nations in the world. Why isn’t such a superior form of governance the rule rather than the exception? (“Yes,” people say, “but these are countries with small populations and low immigration”—as though water, sunlight and soil were only good for some trees but not others.)

• According to the World Happiness Report: “66% of respondents in the Netherlands and 61% in Sweden answered that most people can be trusted, compared with just 35% in the US and 28% in Russia. Moreover, comparing the extent of trust in the 1981-84 sampling period with the recent period, trust rose in Sweden (from 57 to 61%), while it declined in the United States (from 45 to 35%).”

• Scandinavian cities tend to do well in the famous “lost wallet” experiments in which full wallets are left lying around to see how many get returned or handed in.

• The happiest nation, Switzerland, meanwhile, is the closest state in the world to a direct democracy. There are referendums on town, city, district and national level. They don’t just scrawl an X on a ballot paper once every 5 years. The Swiss really have a say in how their country is run. They are invested in their government, and vice versa.

Blame the victims
The World Happiness Report thus reveals that our mental state is highly dependent on the kind of society we live in, and our place within it. This should be obvious. We already knew that: there is a longstanding, strong correlation between low social “class” and mental health problems.

Yet in the West, there’s a tendency to blame the victims of unhappiness or other mental distresses for their own suffering. The rationale is that these unfortunate people need to pull themselves together, think more positively, be tougher, develop better strategies, stop whining or whatever. Or have 6 sessions of CBT—that should be enough to right their faulty thinking and behaviour, to make them see the error of their ways.

The late British clinical psychologist David Smail called this wishful thinking or “magical voluntarism.” The reality, he argued, is that our problems are caused by external circumstances, the harshness of living, an oppressive, unjust society. Aside from the likes of Erich Fromm, Harry Stack Sullivan, Karen Horney and the social environment psychologists, society’s role in mental dis-ease has generally been overlooked by a profession that for Smail is too often part of the problem rather than the solution.

Psychology, he says, has become part of the machinery of capitalism, co-opted to locate distress in the individual and so take the spotlight away from social iniquity, hierarchical structures and machiavellian manoeuvres in the corridors of power. Writes Smail: “I can think of no mainstream approach to psychological therapy which doesn’t harbour at its core a humourless authoritarianism, a moralistic urge to control, that has the ultimate effect of causing infinitely more pain than it could ever conceivably hope to cure.”

As in Bhutan, with its concept of “Gross National Happiness,” the U.K. government’s utterances and election promises around mental health are perhaps less about a genuine concern for the public’s wellbeing and more about public relations. The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme is welcome, but partly helps to window dress the real agenda: cutting back on public services and serving the needs of the powerful rather than the powerless. Likewise, it's easier for politicians in India to call for counselling for suicidal farmers than to give them a fair deal. Meanwhile, in the U.S., a powerful elite peddles the myth of the “American Dream”—anybody can become anything they desire, and if they don’t they’ve only got themselves to blame—as though a profoundly unequal playing field were an irrelevance.

People are unhappy? Well, continue flogging until morale improves. Or let them eat cake.

Perhaps Smail goes too far. “There is no such thing as an autonomous individual,” he writes. But we of course do have personal power. A lot. More than we realize sometimes. Regardless of our circumstances, we always have choices, as Viktor Frankl so eloquently described. The caged bird can still sing. There is a role for talking therapies.

As Sartre wrote: “Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.”

MED ALERT

“Take your pills dear.” Do we really know if they’re doing us any good? There is no control version of us not taking the meds for comparison, and if there are any benefits maybe they’re just down to the all-powerful placebo effect. According to Peter Gøtzsche in a debate in the British Medical Journal, “we could stop almost all psychotropic drugs without causing harm.” Meanwhile, new research shows that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy can be as effective or more effective for some kinds of psychological distress. Are we overprescribed? Are we at the mercy of a powerful pill-pushing pharmaceutical industry?


Anti-depressants and other psychiatric drugs do more harm than good says expert
From The Independent‎:

The negative effects of psychiatric drugs, including those used to treat depression and dementia, outweigh the positives, an expert on clinical trials has suggested.

Professor Peter Gøtzsche, the director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, has argued that the “minimal” benefits of psychiatric drugs are not enough to justify the deaths of more than a million people aged over 65 in the Western world each year.

In a controversial article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), he went on to say that drug trials do not accurately evaluate the side effects of taking many types of medication at once, and said that deaths in such trials are under-reported.

Citing a study by the US’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA), he said he estimated that there are 15 times more suicides among people than is claimed.

... “Given their lack of benefit, I estimate we could stop almost all psychotropic drugs without causing harm - by dropping all antidepressants, ADHD drugs, and dementia drugs (as the small effects are probably the result of unblinding bias) and using only a fraction of the antipsychotics and benzodiazepines we currently use,” he wrote.

He added: “This would lead to healthier and more long lived populations. Because psychotropic drugs are immensely harmful when used long-term, they should almost exclusively be used in acute situations and always with a firm plan for tapering off, which can be difficult for many patients.


With one billion prescriptions written every year, it's time to wean ourselves off the drugs
Janet-Street Porter in The Independent:

Medication has reached a shocking level in the UK: the NHS in England dishes out one billion prescriptions a year to half of the population, 2.7 million items every single day. Add to that the cost of blood tests and millions of routine exploratory procedures and you can see how the NHS could be chucking away money it can’t afford.

One reason for this surge in costs is the way the NHS is structured: hospitals receive funds based on the number of procedures they perform, and GPs get rewarded according to the number of people they diagnose and treatments they prescribe. This seems utterly misguided. Surely it encourages patients to expect miracle cures when (a lot of the time) we could be adopting healthier lifestyles and better pain management. Every time we go to the doctors we want a magic bit of paper or another appointment, instead of being more realistic.

Mindfulness: an effective mental health treatment but not a panacea
From The Guardian:

It may be an ancient Buddhist practice, co-opted and misrepresented by celebrity practitioners, but scientists and health practitioners have found that mindfulness has specific benefits for mental health patients. The medical profession, too, is beginning to take it seriously.

Consultant psychiatrist Dr Florian Ruths explains why: “MBCT [mindfulness based cognitive therapy] is a powerful intervention –it isn’t fluffy or alternative. The MBCT course is based on solid scientific research, and Nice [the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence] has recommended it since 2005 for keeping patients with recurrent depressive vulnerability depression-free.”

Last month, research found that MBCT may be as effective as medication for treating recurrent depression, and may work even better than medication for patients with a history of childhood abuse.

The Oxford Mindfulness Centre, part of the University of Oxford’s department of psychiatry, has found that the MBCT course reduces the risk of relapse into depression by 44%. There is emerging evidence to suggest MBCT is also effective for treating generalised anxiety disorder, stress and other mental health conditions. Cancer patients have also benefitted from it.

But despite these findings, mindfulness isn’t appropriate for some patient groups as Dr Christina Surawy, a clinical psychologist, warns: “MBCT isn’t suitable for patients who are in the grip of a drug or alcohol dependency, as they won’t be able to fully engage with the therapy. Also, patients who are recently bereaved may find MBCT too overwhelming.” Ruths echoes these concerns, adding that it is not useful for patients during an episode of severe depression. These patients should wait until they recover to a mild or moderate state before engaging with MBCT.

• Mindfulness isn't going to cure our mental health crisis, and we need to stop pretending like it could (The Independent)


U.K. NEWS

Surge in young people seeking help for exam stress
From The Guardian:

The number of young people in Britain seeking counselling over exam stress has increased by 200% in recent years, according to the child protection campaigners NSPCC, with worry over education one of the leading causes of concern for children.

The NSPCC said last year that its ChildLine service received record numbers of approaches from students worried about exams, with a tripling in the number of those receiving counselling over exam stress specifically.

In 2013-14 ChildLine said it received more than 34,000 approaches from young people over school worries such as revision, workloads, problems with teachers and other issues, putting education into the top 10 of most frequent concerns among users for the first time.

Where school and education was given as a young person’s main concern, more than half of subsequent counselling sessions dealt with exam stress specifically, a 200% increase compared with 2012-13.

The NSPCC also said that there were also more than 87,500 visits to ChildLine’s website over the same issue.


Cuts are 'driving people to the edge'
From The Guardian:

The day before last week’s election, leaked minutes from the meeting of a key mental health steering group, the Crisis Care Concordat, warned of an NHS “system failure” that was leading to large numbers of people in mental distress turning to A&E for help, due to inadequate community-based mental health services. Concerns were also raised about how many patients, especially young people, were being admitted to hospitals miles away from home because of mental health bed shortages.

It was a stark indication of the increased pressure on emergency healthcare over the previous five years but also, according to Mark Winstanley, the chief executive of the charity Rethink Mental Illness, a reminder that insufficient funding of mental health services for people in crisis was “costing lives”.

Winstanley, who has been in the job since October 2014, points out that despite the previous government’s promises of increased investment in mental health until 2020, budgets were cut and services “badly funded and overstretched”. With the Conservatives securing an overall majority, the situation will deteriorate yet further if firm commitments are not quickly forthcoming, he concludes. “For too many people with mental illness, going to A&E is the only way they can get care if they’re going through a crisis. In many parts of the country there are no suitable crisis services available, full stop.”

With mental health beds reduced by 8% since 2010, Winstanley warns there is no time to lose and that without action more people will have to travel miles for a appropriate care. “Even worse, thousands of people, including children, end up in police cells each year because they can’t get the treatment they need,” he says.


Mental health awareness week 2015 - a few things to keep in mind
From Yvette Caster writing in Metro:

It’s Mental Health Awareness week and the Mental Health Foundation wants us all to think about mindfulness.

This is all well and good – I’ve got nothing against people meditating on their lunch breaks or turning off their phones to appreciate their quinoa salad.

But, as someone who is bipolar, I can’t help but think there are some things that deserve the limelight more – things that everyone should be aware of when it comes to mental health.

Like the fact that, according to Mind, 75 per cent of people with mental health problems get no help at all. None.

They’re just struggling on, regardless, trying to get through every day.

Or the fact that, in its pre-election manifesto, the Conservative Party said it would increase funding for mental health care.

That’s something to look forward to, then, given that, during the last government, mental health trusts in England had their budgets cut by 8 per cent aka nearly £600million while referrals to community mental health teams increased by nearly 20 per cent.

MORE: 14 things you only know if you’ve gone mad

 
I work in mental health but colleagues don't understand my depression
It’s a curious paradox that the so-called caring professions can be so uncaring in the treatment of their own. Psychotherapists conduct petty, unempathic public feuds with each other. A mental health charity is ruthless with its staff. There are endless tales of cruelty by HR managers. Here a mental health nurse details a personal experience of depression—and colleagues’ reactions. From The Guardian:

It’s extremely difficult to describe the experience of depression to those who are lucky enough to have not experienced it. I’ve been a qualified mental health nurse for 20 years and have worked in various jobs in middle clinical and operational management. Yet, despite my clinical experience, I was ill-prepared for depression when it hit me in 2001. I ignored my increasingly difficult symptoms through shame until eventually I was overwhelmed. I broke down completely – and then of course everyone knew.

There are only a handful of senior managers that I feel that I can trust now. My experience of receiving services from the trust I work for is mixed. Most of the clinical care has been very good. Over the past couple of years, however, I’ve seen these core services slowly erode through budgetary restrictions. I used to be able to book directly to see my psychiatrist and therapist in a discrete social services clinic away from work and my consultant kept my case notes to protect my confidentiality. These days I have to ensure that I’m booked to be seen at my GP practice and worry that my online records will be viewed by others. During my last, and worst, breakdown I had several appointments at a hospital where I’d been a service manager. I’d made it clear that I didn’t want to be seen there but felt so wretched and desperate for help that I went. It was a demoralising and dehumanising experience. A constant flow of staff who I’d worked with walked past me. Those who saw me looked uncomfortable and didn’t acknowledge me. Having to shout through a glass screen because the receptionist couldn’t hear me left me feeling at worst like a criminal and at best like I’d hit rock bottom.


Call for international LGBT psychology and counselling standards
From the British Psychological Society:

Collaborating counselling psychologists at Regent’s University London, Dr Markus Bidell and Professor Martin Milton have called for the development of international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) psychology and psychotherapy standards.

Both academics say that LGBT people encounter serious mental health disparities that can be critically worsened by discriminatory and prejudicial LGBT policies and human rights violations.

In an international symposium at the British Psychology Society’s Annual Conference in Liverpool earlier this week, Dr Bidell and Professor Milton highlighted the psychosocial problems negatively impacting many LGBT individuals, along with the historic and current role of psychologists in addressing LGBT civil rights in the UK and US.

Most significantly, they added, prejudice and discriminatory policies in many countries are directly connected to mental health problems and civil rights violations experienced by many LGBT people.


Mental health mission for Leicestershire officer
From Leicestershire Police:

A Leicestershire Police officer is to spend the next three weeks in the USA and Canada learning about emergency response to mental health crisis, after being awarded the prestigious Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship.

This week, during Mental Health Awareness Week, PC Alex Crisp, who is currently working in the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner as the mental health partnership development manager, will travel to Memphis, Tennessee to meet the Memphis Crisis Intervention Team(CIT).

CIT is a specialised unit made up of police from each precinct in the area. They are called upon to respond to incidents that present officers with complex issues relating to mental health.

Alex will then head to LA to meet officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and take part in their Mental Health Intervention Training, a 36-hour intensive course that covers all aspects of mental illness and crisis intervention.

Next he will travel to Vancouver to visit an initiative very similar to Leicestershire Police’s own mental health triage car, which sees an officer and a nurse working together in a police response car to provide on-site assessment and intervention for people with psychiatric problems. Known as Car 87, the program is a partnership between the Vancouver Police Department and the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, and has been running since 1984.

Whilst there he will also spend time with the assertive community treatment team, that takes treatments to people in the community, and the assertive outreach team - a group of nurses, social workers, psychiatrists and officers that work together to support people who suffer from addictions and mental health and help them transition from emergency department care to appropriate community services.

Finally he will spend three days in Portland, Maine with the Portland Police Department, which has a mental health coordinator who manages a behavioural health response program and facilitates crisis intervention training.

“Providing better services for those in need is a big passion of mine so I’m extremely honoured to have been given the opportunity to find out about mental health response provision in other countries,” said Alex.

U.S.A. NEWS

Man who shot Ronald Reagan seeks release from mental health hospital
From The Guardian:

The man who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 should be released from a mental health hospital, his lawyer argued in federal court on Tuesday, while prosecutors said he should only be freed under tight restrictions.

John Hinckley Jr, who shot Reagan and three others, no longer suffers from the personality disorder that led him to try to kill the president, his attorney Barry Levine said during final arguments of a hearing in US district court.

“Every witness agrees that the risk of danger is decidedly low,” Levine told US district judge Paul Friedman.

Hinckley, who turns 60 this month, spends 17 days a month at his mother’s home in Williamsburg, Virginia. He spends the rest of the time at Saint Elizabeths hospital in Washington DC, where he was institutionalized in 1982 after a jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.


A prescription for mental health in America
From Huffington Post:

The future for the next 10 years of mental health in America will not derive from sudden breakthroughs in decoding our DNA or fashioning designer drugs that are categorically different from what we have now -- though either or both would of course be welcome. A sanguine future is possible if we do what we know now a lot better (quality) and deliver what we know now to a lot more people (access).

The greatest gains we can achieve in the next 10 years in public mental health will derive from closing the gap between what we know and what we do in both mental health and the addictions. The "science to practice" gap, as it has been called, is the (hard to imagine but real) fact that advances in medical practice (in general medicine as well as psychiatry) are typically years in going from "bench (lab) to bedside."
 
• May is Mental Health Month: One sister's story - San Jose Mercury News

• 10 ways to protect your mental health - Marie Claire.co.uk (blog)

• 4 myths about mental health in the US - A 3-minute video from AJ+/Facebook


McCray ties mental health to income inequality
Chirlane McCray, wife of New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, on the impact of divided societies on mental health. From Capital New York:

In her latest public appearance, first lady Chirlane McCray on Monday detailed the importance of the city's mental health services in an interview with HuffPost Live.

McCray tied mental health services to broader issues of race, income inequality, and homelessness, and she reiterated her own family's struggles with mental health. Her father suffered from depression, and her daughter has admitted to using drugs to quiet her anxiety, said McCray, who called for an end to the stigma that surrounds mental illness.

McCray has raised her own profile of late to help combat that stigma.

After carefully selecting her media appearances during a quiet first year, McCray has done three interviews in the past week, including a rare question-and-answer session with New York City reporters, and an interview on NPR.

On Monday, she connected her mental health efforts to income equality, the signature cause of her husband, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is positioning himself as a national spokesman on the issue.

“What we're doing right now with our multiple agency approach is showing how housing, education, incarceration is connected everything else,” McCray said during the HuffPost Live interview.

McCray said the nation's most pressing problem is income inequality, which compounds the difficulty many face when trying to deal with mental illness.

“It's very hard, when you have poverty on top of everything else, it's not healthy for anyone,” McCray said.

McCray also commented on racial disparities, citing a study that said African-Americans are 20 percent more likely to report a mental illness, but, she said, they also find it more difficult to access appropriate services.

"Here’s what that means in real life," she wrote in an op-ed for The Root. "Millions of African Americans suffer from a mental-health condition and do not get the treatment they need to live a full and productive life."

McCray's public relations blitz comes after the de Blasio administration announced plans to spend $54.4 million in new funding this year for mental health and social service programs. There is a promise of $78.3 million in fiscal year 2017.

The money, which is set to be funded annually through the budget, will be used to hire social workers and counselors at agencies across the city, including providing mental health services in all contracted family shelters and the city's five justice centers, which serve domestic violence victims.

WORLD NEWS

Canada: ‘Sad but rad': Fashion brand aims to get people talking about mental health
From Today.com:

A new fashion brand is trying to spark a conversation about mental health — and it starts with our clothes.

Wear Your Label's T-shirts and tank tops feature slogans like "Self-care isn't selfish" and "Sad but rad," and the founders told TODAY.com their goal is to reduce the stigma around issues like depression, anxiety and eating disorders.

"Mental illness is invisible — you can't see it," co-founder Kyle MacNevin said. "When you break your arm, you get a cast. It's a symbol to the world that something happened and you're getting better. We try to do that with our clothing. So it says, I'm going through something, but I'm working on it."

MacNevin, 22, and co-founder Kayley Reed, 21, started selling the clothes about eight months ago. They came up with the idea for Wear Your Label last year, while students at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, where they met and connected over their shared struggle with mental illness — Reed is recovering from anorexia nervosa and MacNevin struggled with anxiety disorder and ADHD.

"It was something that I was really shy about, and really reluctant to tell anyone about for a really long time," Reed said. "It wasn't until I met Kyle, who has been really open about his mental health experiences, that I became open about my experiences."


Australia: $200 voucher for troubled couples to use for relationship counselling dumped
From the Daily Mail:

In a bid to slow down Australia’s spiralling divorce rate, which sees one in three marriages end in divorce, former Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews came up with the romantic notion of giving $200 counselling vouchers to 100,000 couples who wanted advice in 2014. 

However, Mr Andrews’ interest in saving married couples relationships wasn’t purely a heartfelt move – it came at the same time it was revealed divorce and family breakdowns cost the economy more than $14 billion a year. 

Only around 10,000 couples actually registered for the scheme and 90 per cent of the vouchers remain unused.

“There Must Be A Better World Somewhere"

Sometimes I wonder
Just what am I fighting for?
I win some battles
But I always lose the war
I keep right on stumblin'
In this no-man's land out here

But I know
Mmmmm yes, I know
There must be a better world somewhere

Flying high
Some joker clips my wings
Just because he gets a kick
Out of doing those kind of things
I keep on fallin' in space
Or just hangin' in mid-air

But I know
Ohh yes, I know
There has just got to be a better world somewhere

Every woman I want
Only wants herself
Everybody I love
Seems to love somebody else
And every woman
Got a license to break my heart
And every love, oh it's over
Over before it gets a chance to start

If it ain't dead
Maybe in the here after
Instead of tears
I'll learn all about laughter
But meanwhile I'm stuck out here

It just ain't fair, but I know
I said I know
Oh yes, I know
There must be a better world somewhere
There's just gotta be
Gotta be a better world somewhere

General Election blues

Traumatised by the election result? A psychotherapist's recovery guide
Philippa Perry offers some post-election hangover remedies in The Guardian:

Don’t write anyone off as plain evil. Let’s stop assuming the worst of our so-called enemies. We need to learn to empathise and to make an effort to understand the feelings beneath the behaviour of people who voted for rightwing parties. It’s tempting to write them off as uncaring, selfish or persecutory, but that won’t solve anything. I need to feel what it’s like to believe that someone is after all my money and resources and imagine what it’s like to think people coming into this country will not add to our resources but take them away. Hating the electorate for being stupid, however satisfying in the short-term, will make things much worse. I think probably everyone means well in their own way. If I think that, I start to feel more upbeat and less despairing.


David Cameron: ensure our NHS is safe
Sign the petition from action.sumofus.org:

The people have spoken. More than two-thirds of voters in key marginal constituencies have sent a strong message to David Cameron to protect the NHS from being sold out to corporate interests under the secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal.
But despite these clear words from us, David Cameron has refused to come out publicly in defence of our NHS. As it stands, TTIP would give US corporations unprecedented access to the NHS and irrevocably cement the sell-out of the NHS to corporate interests.


Only less austerity will improve our mental health
From The Guardian:

This is the first election ever in which mental health has been considered a subject worthy of mainstream political discussion. The Lib Dems take the lead in this regard (closely followed by the Greens) with “equal care for mental health” being one of the five policy priorities featured on the front page of their manifesto, along with a promise of extra funding for the NHS.

In their Manifesto for the Mind, the Lib Dems set out in detail how their promise of an additional £500m a year over the course of the next parliament will be used to end “discrimination against mental health”, through better access to services, improvements in pre- and postnatal care, investment in children’s mental health, prevention, research and tackling stigma.

The Labour and Conservative promises are very much vaguer, indeed so vague in places as to be all but meaningless – the Conservatives’ pledge to ensure “that there are therapists in every part of the country providing treatment for those who need it” tops my personal piffle list. What does seem clear, however, is that politicians have finally clocked on to the fact that mental health is an issue of importance to many voters and, with more and more people prepared to speak out about their experiences, one that they can ill afford to ignore. Cinderella may not yet have made it to the ball, but she’s not about to go back into the scullery. his is the first election ever in which mental health has been considered a subject worthy of mainstream political discussion. The Lib Dems take the lead in this regard (closely followed by the Greens) with “equal care for mental health” being one of the five policy priorities featured on the front page of their manifesto, along with a promise of extra funding for the NHS.

In their Manifesto for the Mind, the Lib Dems set out in detail how their promise of an additional £500m a year over the course of the next parliament will be used to end “discrimination against mental health”, through better access to services, improvements in pre- and postnatal care, investment in children’s mental health, prevention, research and tackling stigma.

The Labour and Conservative promises are very much vaguer, indeed so vague in places as to be all but meaningless – the Conservatives’ pledge to ensure “that there are therapists in every part of the country providing treatment for those who need it” tops my personal piffle list. What does seem clear, however, is that politicians have finally clocked on to the fact that mental health is an issue of importance to many voters and, with more and more people prepared to speak out about their experiences, one that they can ill afford to ignore. Cinderella may not yet have made it to the ball, but she’s not about to go back into the scullery.


Morning after blues: post-election playlists
From The Guardian:

What is the mood music of the nation, this post-election morning? Depends who you voted for, really. With that in mind we have been compiling post-election playlists for supporters of the Tories, the Lib Dems, Labour and the SNP. No science has gone into this – each playlist is a ragbag of emotions, and lyrics are not to be taken as literal comment on each party’s fortunes. Well, not every lyric. And we are not suggesting that these artists are supporters of the relevant parties. While we at the Guardian might wish we could include a certain George Jones song in their playlist – Your Heart Turned Left and I Was on the Right – that was not to be. Perhaps, actually, this might be more apposite. Let us know which songs you would add to each playlist and we’ll update them later.

 • Vote with your feet: how (and where) to escape the election result (The Guardian)


Why elections are bad for your health
From Spectator.co.uk:

How common is this obsessive behaviour at election time, and how much damage can it do? While some degree of worry is normal – particularly about events which will potentially affect our own lives – when it reaches a level this extreme (in a small minority of people, but more than you might think) it is to the detriment of sleep, healthy eating, exercising and face-to-face contact with other people.

Of course journalists and politicians become totally consumed by elections – especially one as nail-biting as this. But if you focus on something all the time it becomes intrusive. Once a thought becomes an obsession it can make us feel as if we aren’t in charge of our own minds.


U.K. news

The crisis in children's mental health services: an NHS insider speaks
An anonymous report from the frontlines, in The Guardian:

The crisis has, in recent weeks, finally made it to the front pages. Troubling statistics are everywhere: one in 10 children will encounter a mental health problem of some kind, three quarters of which will go untreated; Camhs budgets reduced by up to 94% in some parts of the country. The steep increase in self-harm and in-patient admissions, the lack of beds resulting in children being seen on adult psychiatric wards, preposterous waiting times, increased referral thresholds and unacceptable national variations have all been brought to attention in recent weeks, with the promise that a further £1.25bn will be ploughed into mental health services during the next five years.

But whatever the promises made in the heat of a general election campaign, adequately funded services feel a remote prospect. On an ordinary day, staff work late and eat their sandwiches in front of computer screens. There are regular complaints that clinical time is increasingly eaten up by administration; but it is also true that our cases are often of such a complexity and level of risk that we want to make sure every decision is in writing. Sickness rates can be high and the lure of private practice grows: how much mental disturbance can we digest, in circumstances where we feel the quality of our work is at risk of compromise, without becoming ill ourselves?


NHS ‘system failure' puts pressure on A&E wards
From The Guardian:

Large numbers of people with mental health issues are ending up in A&E wards because of “system failure”, according to leaked minutes of a government-attended steering group.

The meeting heard that people with mental illness are presenting themselves at emergency wards because of inadequate provision for them in the community.

The minutes from the mental health crisis care concordat steering group, attended by health minister Norman Lamb, suggest that the failure to treat mental health patients properly is contributing to pressure at A&E wards in NHS hospitals in England, which have missed the target of 95% of people to be seen within four hours for 93 weeks in a row.

Reviews: 'Welcome To Me' shows humor, heartbreak in mental health struggle
From Forbes:

Films about mental health are already dealing with a touchy subject that requires a deft hand and sensitivity. When the film is a comedy, the difficulties are compounded and the need for sensitivity is even greater. The comedy-drama Welcome To Me manages to walk that fine line, driven by a remarkable lead performance from Kristen Wiig that proves her talents extend well beyond comedy. It tells the story of a woman with severe personality disorders who wins the lottery and stops taking her medication in order to pursue her dream of making her own talk show (in which she relives the most painful moments of her past, cooks food, takes naps, and neuters animals). Things go exactly as badly as you think they will. It’s not an easy sell to audiences, except that it’s wonderful and funny and heartbreaking in so many ways you rarely get from mainstream cinema. And again, the performance from Wiig makes it all worth the price of admission even if nothing else happened on screen around her.

 • Kristen Wiig on mental health, comedy and 'Ghostbusters' (Reuters)

'Creatures of a Day: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy' by Irvin D. Yalom
From the Washington Post:

In his new book, “Creatures of a Day,” Irvin D. Yalom, author of the best-selling “Love’s Executioner,” makes a compelling case for returning to the essence of what has always made any brand of psychotherapy effective: the therapist’s ability to connect and collaborate with his or her patients, making them feel safe and valued. This isn’t by-the-book learning, Yalom contends. Rather, the relationship comes only from preferring the “full-bodied, multidimensional individual facing us in our office” over formal diagnoses.

The book uses 10 case studies from Yalom’s therapy sessions to illustrate epiphanies on both sides of the patient-therapist relationship, with each case touching upon a single central concept: the ephemerality of life. How we manage the pursuit of a happy one in spite of fleeting youth, squandered opportunities and loss determines how much we’re affected by the prospect of our own death. 
“The amount of death terror experienced,” Yalom writes, “is closely related to the amount of life unlived.”

• Yalom: ‘Creatures Of A Day: And Other Tales Of Psychotherapy' (Radio interview with grandfatherly-voiced Yalom on WAMC)


World news

Earthquake-devastated Nepal struggles to heal its emotional scars
From the Hindustan Times:

Millions of quake survivors in Nepal are experiencing “phantom tremors” and other anxieties, in continuing anguish that experts describe as classic symptoms of post traumatic disorder that the country will struggle to deal with. 

Nepal has just 90 trained psychiatrists and 300 psychologists. Consider their task: Health experts estimate that about two million Nepalis will probably require basic post traumatic stress disorder counselling. Of these, at least 20% could require short-term medication, according to the Psychiatry Association of Nepal.

“These are conservative figures,” Dr Saroj Prasad Ojha, president of the association, told HT.

“Whichever way you look at it, we are not equipped to deal with this challenge. The infrastructure is grossly inadequate.”

• In Nepal, psychosocial counselling goes on the radio (UNICEF)

• New UN guide aims to address mental health needs in humanitarian emergencies (UN News Centre)

• Nepal Earthquake Appeal - oxfam.org.uk‎ (www.oxfam.org.uk/nepal_appeal‎)


Nigeria: Hundreds freed from Boko Haram require counselling
From AllAfrica.com:

Hundreds of women and children held by the militant group Boko Haram have been rescued by the Nigerian army in recent weeks. UNFPA is providing support to the freed women and girls in Borno and Adamawa states, and, as the military steps up its offensive against the insurgents, UNFPA is strengthening its services in anticipation of additional freed hostages.

Last week saw a major influx of rescued women and girls, including 293 women and girls who were rescued on 28 April 2015. Many of those released from Boko Haram have been brought to camps, where thousands of community members are seeking shelter from the ongoing unrest.

UNFPA, in close collaboration with the Borno State Ministry of Health, mobilized and deployed health workers to camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) in north-eastern Nigeria. There, they are providing psychosocial support and health services to the rescued women and girls, as well as to family and community members.

"A large number of girls and women rescued from Boko Haram have been found to be pregnant," said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "We do not know yet the total number of pregnant girls among those rescued. The screening is still ongoing."
 

Turkey: Obligatory counseling for domestic violence perpetrators
From Daily Sabah:

To fight domestic violence, the government is preparing to introduce compulsory psychiatric treatment for people convicted for domestic violence. New regulations will allow the Family and Social Policies Ministry to handle the treatment, which was previously mandatory only when ordered by a court.

Minister Ayşenur İslam said repeat offenders in domestic violence cases sometimes eventually end up killing their spouses, and the treatment aims to prevent a repeat of acts of violence. İslam said the violence was not confined to acts against women, but rather it was a social problem. "Violence targeting women also targets children. A child who grows up in a family suffering from domestic violence turns to violence when he [or she] becomes an adolescent. So, it passes from one generation to the next," she said. Her ministry will now launch a comprehensive study to examine the profile of those resorting to domestic violence and those who do not.

Units of the ministry specializing in domestic violence cases will assess the psychological condition of offenders, and they will undergo treatment for anger management, addiction and other factors that may have led to the crimes they committed.


Saudi Arabia: Using art therapy to open the minds of jihadists
From Pacific Standard:

Of all the problems therapists have been tasked with solving, altering the mindsets of committed jihadists is one of the toughest and most important. In Saudi Arabia, which has more experience with this problem than any other nation, they have found a simple tool provides invaluable assistance in this challenging process: Paint brushes.

In the journal The Arts in Psychotherapy, Awad Alyami of King Saud University, who serves as senior art therapist at the Mohammed Bin Nayef Center for Counseling and Care in Riyadh, provides a fascinating first-person report on his and his colleagues' work with former radical fighters, including men who had been held for many years at Guantanamo Bay.

He offers evidence that art therapy is "an efficacious approach in counterterrorism," and a vital part of the larger effort to integrating former radicals back into Saudi society. He describes the trial-and-error process that led to the current approach, and the ways he and his colleagues adapted Western concepts to serve a Saudi population.

General Election

Manifesto watch: Where parties stand on issues relating to counselling and psychotherapy

The BACP—The U.K.’s leading counselling professional body—does a good job of outlining the commitments and election promises from the main parties with respect to mental health services, with links to their manifestos. From www.bacp.co.uk:

Over the last week or so, the political parties have published their manifestos for May's general election. It has been extremely positive to see how many of these manifestos have succeeded in addressing at least one of our key policy areas. 

Over the last 12 months we have been proactively campaigning to stakeholders, influencers and the Government on behalf of our members. Our key campaign areas include parity of esteem, counselling in schools and improving access to counselling. These manifestos demonstrate the positive influence that our work in these areas has had on the political agenda.

BACP’s Chief Executive, Hadyn Williams, says:

“There is real cause for celebration in the manifestos of the main political parties. It is extremely encouraging to see that our lobbying activities have been so successful and that politicians are recognising the importance of counselling and psychotherapy in such a significant way.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the next Government following the election to develop further the plans laid out in their manifesto.”

• Vice links up with Mind for mental health project (The Guardian): “The Vice Guide to Mental Health” is aimed at raising the profile of mental health issues in the runup to the UK general election.

• Mind’s General Election site (Mind): We want the next generation of MPs to make mental health a priority.

• The General Election: Anyone but “Camilibegg" (world of therapy): Human and chimpanzee DNA is 99 percent the same. How infinitesimally small then the difference between Miliband, Cameron and Clegg?
 

U.K. news

Mental health charities can help people where the NHS cannot
From The Guardian‎:

With one in four people suffering from mental health problems each year, and one in 10 young people, the challenges facing services are significant. This is a sizeable population and a range of responses is needed for their treatment, including community-based options.

The role of the voluntary and community organisations in supporting mental health conditions is well established. These organisations are rooted in their communities, are trusted by the people they work with, have a long history of social action and user-led interventions, sit outside of clinical settings, and are able to offer significant and effective levels of support.

The NHS Five Year Forward View explicitly refers to the voluntary and charitable sector as having an important role in helping to meet key challenges facing the health and social care system, and it argues for a new relationship with patients and communities.


U.S.A. news

Crunch on campus
Wall Street Journal:

Universities are hiring more social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists as demand for campus mental-health services rises. But persistent budget gaps mean that students in some cases foot much of the cost of the positions.

Students at George Washington University will be charged an additional $1,667 in tuition next year, a jump of 3.4%. More than $830,000 of the resulting new revenue will pay for mental-health services.

Regents at the University of California system are weighing a plan to hire 70 additional psychologists—a 40% increase—and 20 more psychiatrists—a 60% jump—to keep up with the demand at counseling centers across its 10 campuses. Administrators estimate the annual cost of the hires would top $17.4 million, and they plan to raise a mandatory annual student services fee to $1,242 from $972 by the 2019-2020 academic year to cover some of the expense.

“The demand [by students] so outpaces the supply of appointments that it’s very hard to get a weekly appointment, even for students having pretty serious symptoms that interfere with their academic function,” said Elizabeth Gong-Guy, executive director of counseling and psychological services at UCLA and president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors.


Survey: Majority of Texans affected by mental health issues
From the Brownsville Herald:

More than half of all Texans have been affected by mental health issues, either at home or at work, yet one in three would not know where to go if they or a family member needed help with a mental health condition, a survey conducted last summer among randomly selected Texas voters shows.

Baselice and Associates, Inc. conducted the Texas Mental Health Survey for the Dallas-based Meadows Health Policy Institute to measure awareness and knowledge of mental health among Texans, and to gauge if more or less attention or more or less spending should be directed toward mental health issues in Texas.

Key findings indicate that:

>> Seventy-six percent of Texans have a friend or family member who has experienced a mental health issue.

>> Nine in 10 Texans believe it is harder for people to talk about a mental health condition than about a physical health issue.

>> Sixty-seven percent of Texans believe that more state and local funds should be spent addressing mental health.

>> Thirty-one percent of Texans would not know where to go if they or a family member needed help with a mental health condition.

>> Thirty-three percent of Texans would consider a career as a mental health professional.


Effects of bullying even worse than effects of abuse by adults
From Forbes:

According to a new study, those bullied by peers often suffer even worse long-term mental health outcomes than those maltreated by adults early in life.

The effects of both sorts of abuse are well-documented, but this is the first study to examine whether bullying, on its own, results in dire psychological problems later in life on par or worse than maltreatment by adults. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define “maltreatment” as including “acts of commission” (child abuse) and “acts of omission” (child neglect).

Researchers presenting at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego examined data from more than 4,000 participants in the UK ALSPAC study (Avon Longtitudinal Study of Parents and Children) and 1,273 participants from the U.S. Great Smoky Mountain Study. The studies collectively provide data on both bullying by peers and maltreatment by adults at intervals occurring early in life (between 8 weeks and 16 years) and mental health outcomes between the ages of 18 and 25.

After adjusting for a variety of other factors, the results showed that children who were bullied, but not maltreated by adults, suffered worse outcomes later on than those maltreated by adults but not bullied.


MHA Partnership with THE LOVE EFFECT
From Mental Health America:

Mental Health America has formed an exciting new collaboration with THE LOVE EFFECT Organization. Founded by filmmakers and actors Drue Metz, Tyler Atkins, and Ari Blinder THE LOVE EFFECT is both a powerful film and a campaign to raise awareness on depression, suicide and most uniquely: LOVE.

Check out their campaign here: http://kck.st/1HeHrj7 Mental Health America has formed an exciting new collaboration with THE LOVE EFFECT Organization. Founded by filmmakers and actors Drue Metz, Tyler Atkins, and Ari Blinder THE LOVE EFFECT is both a powerful film and a campaign to raise awareness on depression, suicide and most uniquely: LOVE.

Check out their campaign here: http://kck.st/1HeHrj7


A stroll in Ikea: The ultimate test of a relationship
From International Business Times:

A clinical psychologist has started using Ikea for communication exercises after finding most couples end up arguing during a visit to the Swedish store.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the California State University in Los Angeles says a trip to Ikea stores, "literally becomes a map of a relationship nightmare."

According to Dr. Durvasula, as couples stroll through the different picture perfect indoor layouts at Ikea, differences over colours and other interiors' choices often lead to long personal arguments.


World news

United Arab Emirates: Employees fear disclosing mental health issues to bosses
From The National:
 
Workers are keeping mental health issues from their employers for fear that an admission may harm their careers.

Experts are calling for better strategies to change outdated attitudes to mental health in the workplace and to provide a better way for employees to disclose any medical issues. Dr Deema Sihweil, a psychologist at Carbone Clinic, Dubai, said patients feared telling their employers about a mental illness as it would, they thought, mark them out as weak.

“It is an extremely common occurrence for patients to seek psychological services without informing their employers, for fear of being ostracised, held back from promotions, or even fired,” she said.

Jared Alden, a psychotherapist, said employers often had a “shopper’s mindset”.

“They might think of their workers as easily replaced and thus why bother with an employee that might need accommodating,” said Mr Alden, of the German Neuroscience Centre in Dubai Healthcare City.

“Most people think that depression and anxiety are very hard to treat, when the truth is most things in mental health can be treated very effectively.


India: Early counselling key in helping youth combat stress
From the Times of India:

Youth finding it difficult to cope with academic stress, relationship problems and family pressures would do well to receive early counseling at the school and higher secondary level. Problems of stress are common among most young people and intervention should start early on, senior psychiatrist at Hospicio hospital Dr Doreen Dias says. "Young people don't want to visit a psychiatrist and many of their issues can be addressed by counselors at the school and higher secondary level. The counselors can then refer cases of those with severe mental illness symptoms to us. Unfortunately, we don't have this kind of referral system. As a result, youth's problems come to the fore only once parents bring them to us after the problem has gotten worse and after they have noticed a change in their eating and sleeping habits."

The youth lead stressful lives today, rushing from five hours of school to four hours of tuitions with a mere two hour break. "Their schedules are so packed that there's little time for recreation and relaxation. Recreation hours too are scheduled and a child is expected to excel there as well. All these are contributing factors," she says.