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Weekly news round-up #36

24/7/2015

 
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BE A MAN

Help is a four-letter word: men and suicide

News comes this week that the suicide rate for middle-age men with mental health issues has risen by 73 percent since 2006. “The problem is not simply that they don’t seek help – they are already under mental health care – so we have to understand better the stresses men in this age group face,” says Louis Appleby, formerly the government’s mental health tsar and who leads the national suicide prevention strategy.

This is in keeping with a general significant rise in male suicide over the past decade—although curiously not in Scotland, which has seen a decline—while the incidence for women has remained constant. The male suicide rate is the highest since 2001. The suicide rate among men aged 45-59, 25.1 per 100,000, is the highest for this group since 1981.

So the question is why? There are plenty of economic reasons: the recession, falling income, “zero-hour” contracting, debt, unemployment.

But there is another reason. Judging by the way he tends to be represented in our culture, a “real man” is supposed to be: strong, logical, heterosexual, attractive, virile, successful, young, deep, powerful, wealthy, rugged, hard, active, white, decisive, potent, funny, brave, knowledgeable, determined, ambitious, autonomous, rational, unemotional (though anger is desirable in certain circumstances). And under no circumstances is he to ask for directions. Ever.

“Eros” dominates the female psyche, while males are governed by “Logos.” From an early age, little boys learn they must “repudiate all that is soft, vulnerable, playful, maternal and ‘feminine’ ” writes Andrew Samuels.

Many grow up to remain as little boys sequestered in grown-up bodies, destined to labour under the limitations of what Moore and Gillette call “Boy psychology.”

“Boy psychology is everywhere around us, and its marks are easy to see,” they write in King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. “Among them are abusive and violent acting-out behaviors against others, both men and women; passivity and weakness, the inability to act effectively and creatively in one’s own life and to engender life and creativity in others (both men and women).”

Men learn to keep their relationships with other men on a superficial level. Acceptable topics: sports, cars, humour, women (as sex objects); unacceptable ones: sadness, loneliness, confusion, despair, love, joy, beauty, wonder. And men’s relationships with women stereotypically revolve around conquest and control. Writes Meg Barker: “This can mean that they don’t have a close, supportive relationship with anyone.”

To be whole, we must learn to embrace all aspects of our selves, and for men that means the female archetype within, what Jung called the anima, while at the same time not diminishing the strength of our true malehood, which some of the more extreme branches of feminist philosophy would like to completely eradicate or, perhaps we might say, emasculate.

Part of being human is acknowledging your vulnerability, your suffering, your sadness, your despair. Admitting your weakness—and asking for help—paradoxically requires great strength.

The consequences of not doing so are dire: Men are more than three times as likely than women in the U.K. to commit suicide, or be alcohol-dependent. Men are 20 times more likely to be sent to prison.

Increasingly, there seems to be less of a stigma about seeking help. Almost one person in five in the U.K. has consulted a counsellor or psychotherapist. Maybe you’ve considered it but are not sure. Watch this short film written and narrated by Alain de Botton. And try it. Sometimes in life you have to take a risk.

Most of my counselling clients are men. They are all different, but they all want a richer, fuller, more meaningful, more colourful life. They want to love and be loved. It’s not always easy. But they fight for it, every day. I think of each of them as incredibly courageous.

Real men ask for help.
—John Barton

PictureMen are more likely to seek help in a bottle, with usually terrible results.
Help!
• If you are feeling suicidal, or if you know someone who is, please:
—talk to someone: a family member, friend, colleague and your GP:
—call the Samaritans: tel: 08457-90-90-90: www.samaritans.org;
—go to the section on suicidal feelings at Mind's website to understand more about what might be going on with you, causes and ways of coping;
—click on my Help page and find access to other immediate support.


U.K. NEWS

Funding fears as mental health demand soars
Times Higher Education:

A 132 per cent rise in the number of students declaring a mental health problem has sparked fears that government funding cuts may force universities to make “increasingly tough decisions” about the support they can provide.

An analysis of Higher Education Statistics Agency records found that nearly 18,000 students at English higher education providers said that they had a mental health problem in 2012-13, compared with fewer than 8,000 in 2008-09.

The research, carried out for the Higher Education Funding Council for England, says that the most selective institutions experienced a much bigger rise, averaging 157 per cent, compared with universities with lower entry requirements, where the increase was 104 per cent.

This means that 1.4 per cent of all students in England declared a mental health problem in 2012-13, with specialist and elite institutions again experiencing higher rates than less selective universities.


Pupils' mental health tops head teachers' concerns
BBC News:

Head teachers are more concerned with pupils' mental health than any other issue related to well-being, a survey of 1,180 school leaders suggests.

Two-thirds of head teachers polled for management support service, The Key, named mental health as the top concern.

Domestic violence and cyberbullying were the next biggest concerns, named by 58% and 55% of heads respectively.

Brian Lightman, leader of the ASCL heads' union, said it was difficult for heads to obtain support for pupils.

"There certainly has been an increase in the number of pupils who are displaying different types of mental health problems," he said.

"It's often arising from difficult home backgrounds or a form of abuse or other types of mental health issues such as ADHD."

He said all of this required support, which head teachers were finding it hard to access from local child mental health services.


24 hour mental health care will cover every A&E unit
Express.co.uk:

AROUND-the-clock mental health care will be provided at all accident and emergency departments within the next five years.

The move signals another victory for the Sunday Express mental health crusade, which called on the Government to broaden the range and access to acute and crisis services for those in need.

In the NHS mandate between the Government and NHS England, which sets out the ambitions for the health service, it states that access to crisis services for an individual must be “at all times as accessible, responsive and as high quality as other health emergency services”.

This includes ensuring the provision of adequate liaison psychiatry services in emergency departments.

NHS England has adopted these aims in its business plan for the next two years. This year £30million will be spent on effective models of liaison psychiatry in a greater number of acute hospitals.

However, by 2020 it is expected that all acute trusts will have liaison mental health services in place for all ages “appropriate to the size, acuity and specialty of the hospital.”


Doctor brands NHS 'appalling' after her mother left mental health unit and burned herself to death
Mirror.co.uk:

A doctor has blasted the “appalling” NHS after her mother was allowed to walk out of a mental health unit and burn herself to death.

Tragic Angela Rich, 61, was left to stroll from the centre in Tamworth, Staffs, in 2013 despite repeatedly telling staff that she planned to set herself ablaze.

Angela was later found on fire under a railway bridge by a dog walker.

She was airlifted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham but had suffered extensive burns across her entire body and died later that day from her severe injuries.

Dr Naomi Rich, 43, said: “As a doctor myself, a carer for my mother and also as a patient at the same mental health trust as my mother, I have seen psychiatric care from several angles and have witnessed appalling care which I believe needs to change radically from within the NHS.”


U.S.A. NEWS

What to do during a mental health crisis
U.S. News & World Report:

All American youngsters know the rules: Don't take candy from strangers, play nice in the sandbox and call 911 during an emergency.

But what if the emergency is related to mental health?

More than 4 million people visited the emergency room due to a mental health condition from 2009 to 2010, according to the latest data from the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That same year, Americans made 63.3 million visits to doctors offices, hospitals and emergency rooms for what were eventually diagnosed as mental disorders, the CDC also found. "The reality is, a mental health crisis is a common occurrence," says Paolo del Vecchio, who directs the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Center for Mental Health Services.


WORLD NEWS

Portugal wants women seeking abortion to get counseling 
World Magazine:

A new legislative bill in Portugal could require women to get counseling before abortions and cover part of the expense themselves.

In 2007, Portugal passed an abortion law that allowed women to have a state-funded abortion up to the 10th week of pregnancy. But under the new amendment proposed Wednesday by center-right lawmakers, women would be charged the equivalent of up to a $55 to have an abortion. They also would be required to get psychological and social counseling and attend family planning sessions before ending their pregnancies. The legislation still needs a final presidential approval.


Canada: Time spent on social networking sites linked to mental health problems in teens
AlphaGalileo:

A new study indicates that adolescents who use social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for more than 2 hours each day are more likely to report poor mental health, high psychological distress, suicidal thoughts, and an unmet need for mental health support. These findings send an important message to parents and suggest an opportunity to increase mental health support service offerings on these sites, as described in an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2015.0055) website until August 22, 2015.
Hugues Sampasa-Kanyinga, MD and Rosamund Lewis, MD, Ottawa Public Health (Ottawa, Canada) analyzed data on students in grades 7-12 from the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey. About 25% of students reported using social networking sites for more than 2 hours daily.


One in five relationships suffering problems relating to porn viewing, says Relationships Australia
NEWS.com.au:

ONE in five Australian couples battle with intimacy problems triggered by internet porn, according to research from Relationships Australia. 

The national counselling service has found readily accessible online porn is leading to a breakdown of trust and an erosion of intimacy in about 21 per cent of all relationships.

Pornography consumption is also increasingly being cited as a reason for marriage breakdowns.


VIEWPOINTS

Depression didn't kill 5 servicemen in Chattanooga
Scott Greer in the Daily Caller:

He was depressed.

He drank too much.

He was going through a rough patch.

Those are the current talking points for explaining what led Muhammad Abdulazeez to take the lives of five American servicemen in Chattanooga, Tenn. last week. In spite of the substantial evidence that points to Islamic extremism as Abdulazeez’s inspiration, the young man’s supposed mental health problems has received far more attention in recent days.

As the Associated Press reports, Abdulazeez’s family says there is no explanation for his horrific crime, except that their son was feeling sad. For evidence of the young man’s substance problem and mental instability, they said his trip to Jordan last year was taken to get his life back in order.

And as we all know, most depressed people with drinking problems don’t seek counseling, they fly over to a region with a strong element of religious extremism to get help.

While it is appropriate to report the family’s side of the terror attack, it is incredible for the media to serve as the Muslim family’s public relations agency and to report the parents’ side as the likely truth.


Dementia 101: Therapy can help
Kyrié Sue Carpenter in Huffington Post:

Choosing to participate in psychotherapy can be a difficult decision. It's easy to make a list of excuses to put it off -- it costs too much, I don't want to pay someone to listen to me, my problems aren't that big. Besides, what do they know about me that I don't already know? And what will my friends and family think? Adding a diagnosis of dementia does not make these common doubts go away, it may even intensify them. However, therapy CAN be helpful, even to someone who does not remember it.

Psychotherapy creates a container through which understanding can be reached, meaning can be made, and personal development actualized. All of this is also possible for someone with a diagnosis of dementia. Sarah Robinson, in her doctoral dissertation Alzheimer's the Difficult Transition, broke down which types of therapy have proved most effective with different stages of dementia. (For more in-depth information and resources I highly recommend reading her dissertation in it's entirety.) These broad categories can give those diagnosed with dementia, and those caring for them, a starting place to seek support.


The power of transforming your story in psychotherapy
Dr. Gary Trosclair in Huffington Post:

Whether we're aware of it or not, we live our lives based on certain fundamental stories we tell ourselves: stories about how we came to be who we are, stories about what life and people are like, and stories about the best way to live. Some of these stories work well for us, others don't. Part of our work in therapy is to connect the dots between the different aspects of our lives to determine the patterns and themes that have evolved so that we are aware of the stories we live by -- and so that we can create better ones if we need to.

Here's what I mean by connecting the dots: Notice the similarities between the events you discuss each week in your sessions, the experiences you have in your sessions, and the stories that emerge in your dreams. As you connect the dots the bigger picture will begin to emerge. If you can identify two or three themes that have the most impact on you, that will help you to connect your work in session with life outside of session.

Weekly news round-up #32

27/6/2015

 
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“This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts,” President Obama said. “When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free.”

Same-sex marriage has been legal in England, Scotland and Wales since 2014.

A significant proportion of humanity is gay—the U.K. government puts the estimate at 5-7 percent of the population—and there’s no reason to suppose this hasn’t been so since time immemorial. Yet for centuries, it was illegal. As long ago as 1290 homosexuality was mentioned in English common law as a punishable offence. It wasn’t decriminalized until 1967.

The world of psychotherapy has been no more enlightened—it perhaps has even been somewhat reactionary, lagging behind society and clinging to the old social “norms" for as long as possible. Homosexuality was long seen as aberrant, a pathology, a mental illness. It was only removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as recently 1973, and even made a brief reappearance—“ego-dystonic homosexuality”—in 1980. Beliefs in “conversion therapy” persist today, though there’s a rising chorus of complaints—and lawsuits—against it.

Common sense will prevail. But there’s a long way to go. It’s still illegal to be gay in 75 countries and still punishable by death in 10. In the civilized west, meanwhile, plenty of countries don’t yet allow same sex marriage—including Northern Ireland—and homophobia is hardly a thing of the past. This all has a profound effect on mental health. Studies show for instance a greater prevalence of psychiatric complaints among gay people in states where same-sex marriage was banned compared to those in states where it wasn’t. This should not be a surprise—it’s hardly a revelation that oppression is not great for psychological well-being.

We all deserve “equal dignity in the eyes of the law,” as one of the 5 “yes” judges, Justice Anthony Kennedy, put it in his closing argument. We all deserve the opportunity “not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions.”

There are hundreds of millions of people on this earth who are attracted to the opposite sex, and hundreds of millions who are attracted to the same sex. This simple fact of life is so basic, so incontrovertable, so banal, that you wonder what all the fuss is about. Can’t we all just live and let live?
—John Barton
 

Supreme Court decision really good for health
From Huffington Post:

The Supreme Court of the United States made a historic ruling on same-sex marriage on Friday, voting 5 to 4 in favor of legalizing all unions. Not only does this allow everyone to marry the person they love, regardless of sexual orientation, but it's also a step forward for mental health in a community that's often stigmatized.

The SCOTUS decision is a leap in the right direction -- especially when it comes to boosting the mental health of LGBT individuals.

According to the American Psychological Association, marriage boosts psychosocial and mental health due to the moral, social and even economic support extended to married couples in our society -- and denial of those rights may impose certain risks when it comes to well-being. A 2012 University of California, Los Angeles study found that psychological distress is lower among gay, lesbian and bisexual couples who are allowed to be legally married, compared with those in unions that are not legally recognized.

In other words, science suggests that letting people marry who they want boosts mental and maybe even physical health.

The UCLA study isn't the only evidence that champions legalized same-sex marriage for this reason. Around 2004, when state bans on same-sex marriage started to peak, the National Institutes of Mental Health conducted a survey that examined respondents' mental health. Results showed gay, lesbian or bisexual individuals who lived in states where their unions were banned experienced a notable increase in psychiatric disorders, NPR reported, including mood disorders and alcohol-use disorder.


U.K. NEWS

Black and minority ethnic people are shortchanged by mental health services
From The Guardian:

Ramone is in his mid-20s and with his family emigrated to the UK around 10 years ago from eastern Europe. He developed a severe mental illness that requires long-term care, but is not eligible for treatment. This means that when he becomes extremely ill, he is sectioned (usually by the police) and admitted to a mental health unit where he is medicated to a point where he can be released, with no care afterwards. This pattern has repeated itself for six years.

People from some black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds are more likely to use crisis mental health care. Racism, poor mental health services and stigma are often cited as the reasons for this inequality. However, once in crisis care, many people like Ramone find the care they are offered does not work for them. His was one of dozens of stories we collected at the Race Equality Foundation to show the experiences of BME people, and was used as evidence by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in their review of mental health crisis care.

What we found mirrored much of the CQC’s findings. People had generally had bad experiences in a crisis system that left them feeling disempowered. They often didn’t believe staff would be caring and compassionate. When asked whether they had complained, they normally responded that they felt nothing would change as a result.

 
Male matters: 'Psychologists should lead the way on male mental health'
From Telegraph.co.uk:

A group of Britain's most senior psychologists are so concerned about the unique – and increasingly fatal – problems facing modern men, they are urgently calling for a dedicated Male Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society.

Although there has been a women's section of the BPS since 1988, there is no male equivalent, even though “vast public health issues” face men, including the fact they are three to four times more likely to commit suicide.

Today, eminent psychologists and keynote speakers will gather at the second annual Male Psychology Conference at University College London to address this pressing matter.

To meet criteria, a mere one per cent of BPS members – around 500 signatures – must vote for it. As 300 have already done so, that means a mere 200 further signatures are needed to make their dream a reality.


Mental health problems rise among teenagers
From The Times:

Teenagers are suffering growing problems with mental health, reporting difficulties with sleep, anxiety and eating disorders, according to two studies.

One study found that more than a third of older teenagers had suffered sleeplessness in recent months as they wrestled with anxious thoughts and stress. A second found that eating disorder admissions in under-19s had almost tripled in ten years.


U.S.A. NEWS

Could brain scans help guide treatment for OCD?
From HealthDay:

Psychotherapy can help some people avoid the disruptive behaviors linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and a new study suggests that brain scans can help spot those patients for whom the therapy will be most effective.

The treatment is called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It works by placing patients in controlled situations where they are exposed to anxiety-causing stimuli, so that they gradually learn to deal better with these situations.

"Cognitive behavioral therapy is in many cases very effective, at least in the short term," said Dr. Jamie Feusner, an associate professor of psychiatry at University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the Semel Institute's Adult OCD Program.

However, the treatment is "costly, time-consuming, difficult for patients and, in many areas, not available," Feusner noted in a UCLA news release. So, "if someone will end up having their symptoms return [after treatment], it would be useful to know before they get treatment," he reasoned.


SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

“A victory for love”

Schopenhauer said all truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

One such supposedly controversial truth is the idea that regardless of gender, two consenting adults should be allowed to marry each other. This hardly earth-shattering concept took a massive step towards becoming self-evident when America’s Supreme Court declared on Friday that same-sex marriages are now legal in all 50 states, with 5 of the 9 court judges ruling that any attempt to ban them is now unconstitutional. The narrow majority was hailed as a “victory for love.”
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Horses that heal: how equine therapy is helping people find peace of mind
From The Guardian:

It’s Saturday night in downtown Long Beach, California, and laughter can be heard from the streets below. Sarah Smith is sprawled on her bed, diligently peeling through sociology notes, preparing for her impending exams. An acoustic guitar rests against her bed, and a colorful gay-pride flag is pinned next to her bookshelf.

At first glance, Sarah comes across as a typical college student – but her serious blue eyes sometimes betray a history of violence, abandonment and emotional trauma.

...Horses make great companions for psychotherapy because they can mirror and respond to human behavior. Being herding animals, they rely on an acute stream of sensory data to sense safety or danger; they can also hear the human heartbeat within four feet, and research on heart-rate variability indicates that horses have a profound ability to synchronize their own heartbeat with that of human beings. When people are introduced to the herd environment for therapy, horses respond within the same spectrum of physical and emotional responses that govern their own behavior, allowing therapists an insight into the inner psychology of the client.

Clouds hung dramatically low above the stables of Ortega Equestrian Centre in San Juan Capistrano and in the main arena, a herd of three mares donated by the nonprofit Otra Mas were awaiting Sarah’s arrival.

The program director, Carol Caddes, is a horse lover and licensed marriage and family therapist with over 20 years of experience. Sarah, for her part, had very little experience with horses and had never undergone any form of emotional treatment outside of medication and traditional office-based talk-therapy.


WORLD NEWS

South Africa: Counselling on wheels in Khayelitsha
From AllAfrica.com:

"It will be like an emotional ambulance." This is the vision of 28-year-old Banetsi Mphunga: a mobile psychology clinic in Khayelitsha which will see kids in the township receive free help dealing with psychological trauma.

"I grew up in Khayelitsha. I am a registered counsellor by profession. The idea of the mobile clinic started after realising the need for psychological services here in the township. I realised this from the kids that I worked with in a previous programme; it was an after school care programme. I was a programme manager for psycho-social skills, high school level, which is the group that is most vulnerable when it comes to substance abuse and gangsterism."

Mphunga said while working with children he found that some had problems that needed psychological interventions. "They always manifested in front of other children and I had to constantly intervene.”

...Mphunga said he was familiar with the kinds of problems that today's youth face especially when it comes to substance abuse. "I also experimented with drugs while growing up, I started smoking weed and then from there I did mandrax, but luckily I managed to stop before I became an addict and before my family found out. But these days, kids are not that lucky."

Mphunga bought a green Volkswagen Microbus popularly known as iCaraCara, in May. He has already used it for a study group consisting of four kids. "A Combi is more or less the same size of the rooms that I have viewed that I would be using and running the practise from.”


Yoga can cure India's rising mental health issues
From NDTV:

Leading mental health experts have advocated Yoga as an efficacious tool for managing rising mental health issues in India, a statement said ahead of the International Yoga Day.

Crediting Yoga as an effective tool in holistic maintenance of health, Sunil Mittal, a senior psychiatrist at Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioral Science (CIMBS), New Delhi, said Yoga is beneficial as an "adjunct to mainline treatment".

"Yoga can be an effective preventive tool in fighting stress and other mental health concerns, and while Yoga may not be an alternate to medical intervention, it can be beneficial as an adjunct to mainline treatment," he said.

Sharing the experience of his team at CIMBS, Mittal added: "Yoga and medical intervention can compliment each other well." "By combining the two, we have seen positive outcomes in the over-all well-being of our patients," he said.

 
VIEWPOINT

Do I need therapy? How do I find a good therapist?
From Judith S. Beck PhD in the Huffington Post:

You may not need therapy if you are weathering the trials and tribulations life throws at you pretty well. If you are basically emotionally healthy, have good problem-solving skills and call on a support network when you need help, you are probably already dealing with your challenges effectively.

You certainly should consider therapy if you have psychological problems, psychiatric symptoms, a medical condition with psychological components, difficulty implementing a health care plan, disturbances in your relationships or your functioning or other pressing difficulties you can't resolve on your own or within your social network.

You may find therapy desirable, however, to improve your life: to identify your core values, set goals, reduce stress, function more effectively, get unstuck, gain a different perspective, solve or cope better with a problem, accept an unmodifiable situation, make an important decision, improve your mood or get you started in making lifestyle or relationship changes -- that is, if you (even with the help of family and friends) don't seem to be able to bring about or sustain the changes you want to make. Or if you're uncertain about what changes you should make.

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Schwarzenegger: marriage counselling the ‘biggest mistake I’ve ever made’
From www.thestar.com:

Schwarzenegger, 67, opened up to Howard Stern about the collapse of his marriage — and the counselling that didn’t help.

“This was without any doubt the biggest setback and the biggest failure,” the former governor said of his split with Maria Shriver. “. . . You really feel like: ‘I’m to blame for it. It was me that screwed up.’ You can’t point the finger at anyone else.”

Stern said that when he was divorced in 2001 — from a wife he paid tribute to in the 1997 film “Howard Stern: Private Parts” — he saw a psychiatrist. “Did you seek out therapy?” he asked Schwarzenegger.

“Yes,” Schwarzenegger said. “. . . It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made because that guy was so full of s---.”

Schwarzenegger said Shriver talked him into counselling, but he was met with “nonsense talk” that was “counterproductive to our future relationship.”

“Maria talked me into it,” Schwarzenegger said. “I went and I felt instinctively maybe I shouldn’t go because I know I screwed up. I don’t have to go to anyone to have him explain to me anything. I apologized to Maria. I apologized to the kids and then tried to move forward.”

Schwarzenegger made it clear that this was not a Tom Cruise-like rant against psychiatry.

“I think people should get help when they need help,” he said. “. . . I’m not against that, but in my particular case it was not helpful.”

Schwarzenegger said his family is now in a much better place, recounting a story in which he was met with balloons and gifts from his four children by Shriver and Shriver herself at a premiere of the new “Terminator” film.

“That is the relationship I was really looking forward to after this complicated bump,” he said.

Stern said he was moved “almost to tears” by Schwarzenegger’s success in repairing his relationship with his family.

Weekly news round-up

5/6/2015

 
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CAITLYN JENNER

I’ve heard lots of different reactions from friends and family to the Vanity Fair cover of former Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner, who has been rechristened as a woman called Caitlyn. They range from “beautiful,” “amazing” to “train wreck,” “horror show” and everything in between.
Some people might find it hard to understand the desire to change genders, just as it can be hard to understand the desire to believe in religion X, vote for political party Y, or indulge in hobby Z. But in a civil society, we fully respect the rights of people to do these things (within the law), and we abhor discrimination, prejudice and all forms of attack.
Transgenderism is as old as the hills, but only now, thanks to people like Jenner, Leelah Alcorn, former boxing promoter Frank Moloney, Chaz Bono, Eddie Izzard, Danny La Rue, Chelsea Manning, Jan Morris and Grayson Perry, is it becoming widely accepted and understood as a vibrant and valid thread in the tapestry of modern culture. Jenner’s very public transformation empowers all kinds of different people to accept and be proud of who they are.
One thing that didn’t change in the gender reassignment process: Jenner’s courage.
—John Barton

Kim Kardashian may have broken the internet, but Caitlyn Jenner united it
From The Guardian:

Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover was expected to create a controversial, watercooler cultural moment, but it turned into something much more extraordinary. Because the image of Caitlyn Jenner – winner of an Olympic gold medal as a man named Bruce, and member of the Kardashians, the family pop culture loves to hate – brought no controversy, only applause. Kim Kardashian may have broken the internet, but Caitlyn Jenner did something even more astonishing. She united it.

Jenner, Annie Leibovitz and Vanity Fair produced an image that won the world over. And this, in a society where acceptance and understanding of transgender issues – while progressing – is still in its infancy. The magazine is not yet on newsstands, and while the interview is available online for digital subscribers, the overwhelming majority of comment has been based on the cover image. In it, Jenner wears an ivory satin corset, so that her cinched waist, falling just above the coverline (“Call me Caitlyn”) forms the central focus. An hourglass woman’s body in white, in a 1950s cut bodice, surely references Marilyn Monroe – in the minds of Leibovitz and the Vanity Fair art directors, anyway, if not of Jenner. Monroe stands for all-Americanism, for blue-chip Hollywood glamour (as opposed, perhaps, to the modern Kardashian brand of fame), for ultimate femininity and for vulnerability. But while Jenner’s hands are out of shot, behind her back, the photo spotlights the strong muscles of her arms and thighs, reminding us of those Olympic medals, and serving as an antidote to the unguarded, exposed, Monroe-ish appeal of her corsetted waist and coy, expression, half-turned from the camera.

In guidelines reissued yesterday, the media-monitoring organisation GLAAD warns against “superficial critiques of a transgender person’s femininity or masculinity. Commenting on how well a transgender person conforms to conventional standards of femininity or masculinity is reductive and insulting.” I hope it does not break these guidelines to say that the cover image draws on the iconography of strong American women. Jessica Lange, to whom many have noticed a resemblance, has had a four-decade acting career. (Next spring, Lange will return to Broadway, starring alongside Gabriel Byrne in a revival of the Eugene O’Neill play A Long Day’s Journey Into Night.) Cindy Crawford, of whom Jenner’s Coke-can curls and athletic body are also reminiscent, has sustained a modelling career since the 1980s, and most recently starred as the take-no-prisoners Headmistress in the music video for Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood. Lena Dunham captured the spirit of the image immediately after its release, when she tweeted: “I just want Caitlyn Jenner to take me out and teach me how to drive a stick shift in heels.”

• Caitlyn Jenner's Big Début (The New Yorker)

• Here's what I learned after creating Caitlyn Jenner Twitter bot @she_not_he (The Independent)
 

PICKS OF THE WEEK

What is Impostor Syndrome?
Can’t take a compliment? Feel like a fake? Convinced you’ll be unmasked at any moment? From quickanddirtytips.com:

Impostor Syndrome is a pervasive feeling of self-doubt, insecurity, or fraudulence despite often overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  It strikes smart, successful individuals.  It often rears its head after an especially notable accomplishment, like admission to a prestigious university, public acclaim, winning an award, or earning a promotion. 

Impostor Syndrome doesn’t discriminate: people of every demographic suffer from feeling like a fraud, though minorities and women are hardest-hit.   

Impostor syndrome comes in 3 flavors:
Type #1: “I’m a fake.”
Type #2: “I got lucky.” 
Type #3: “Oh, this old thing?”


How does psychotherapy really work?
From Psychology Today:

Psychotherapy is a strange process. Two people get together and they talk. Somehow through this conversation, one of them offers help and the other receives it. From an outsider’s perspective, there are all sorts of ideas about how this so-called “talking cure” works—most of them, by the way, are not true. One is that your therapist knows all the answers. Another is that he or she will tell you what to do. Another is that people listen to their therapists because therapists have it all together—also, not true. While we might wish for therapy to work in these ways, that’s not how it works at all.

The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, understood something about the mystery of how an interpersonal encounter can change someone’s life. In his Letters to A Young Poet, he wrote, “Ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most important matters, we are unspeakably alone; and many things must happen, many things must go right, a whole constellation of events must be fulfilled, for one human being to successfully advise or help another.”

The psychoanalyst, Wilfred Bion, took it one step further. He wrote, “When two people meet, an emotional storm is created.” I like this idea because it begins to convey something of the way in which psychotherapy is an alive, dynamic, turbulent process, not just a sterile exchange of ideas or mechanical prescription for behavior change. Therapy is a vital process, a charged experience. Its power to transform and bring about lasting personal change cannot really be understood from psychology textbooks or experimental research, necessary and helpful as these methods are.


U.K. NEWS

Government quells fears it could scrap coalition’s mental health funding pledge
Promises, promises. From Community Care:

The Conservative government will invest the extra £1.25bn in children’s mental health services over the next parliament that was promised by the coalition prior to the election, the Department of Health has said.

The funding pledge was included in the coalition’s 2015-16 budget proposals set out in March. But the Conservatives election victory means that chancellor George Osborne will announce an ‘emergency budget’ in July that will replace the coalition plans with his party’s own spending commitments.

Mental health organisations feared that the Chancellor could scrap the coalition’s promise of more investment in mental health services for children and new mothers but the Department of Health insists that the funding will be made available.

A DH spokesperson said: “Our commitment to mental health is clear — we are investing £1.25 billion over the next five years and we expect local commissioners to give real terms funding increases [for mental health] this year.”

The DH issued the statement in response to a report from six leading mental health organisations that warned that services are “heading for a real crisis” without urgent action on funding.
 

Frequently bullied kids 'twice as likely' to be depressed at 18
From Medical News Today:

A study of just under 4,000 teenagers in the UK has found that bullying - "victimization by peers" - during adolescence is associated with a higher risk of depression in young adulthood.

The study published in The BMJ was led by experimental psychologist Prof. Lucy Bowes of the University of Oxford in the UK.

It had a longitudinal observational design to examine the relationship between bullying at 13 years of age and depression at 18 years of age.

A survey about bullying was completed at the younger age, and a computer-based clinical assessment of depression was completed as the 3,898 participants entered adulthood in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a UK community-based birth cohort.

A dose-response relationship was observed between increasing amounts of adolescent bullying and depression in later years:

• In the group of teenagers who had reported no victimization at all, just over 5% went on to have depression

• A greater burden of the mental ill health was seen among the teenagers who had reported being bullied at 13 years of age between one and three times in a 6-month period - 7.1% had depression at 18

• The proportion of depressed people at this age rose to 14.8% in the teenagers who had reported being bullied by their peers more than once a week.


Glan Clwyd Hospital: Mental health care was 'horrific'
From BBC News:

The leader of the Welsh Conservatives has called for a full inquiry into the NHS after a damning report into care at a mental health unit in Denbighshire.

Andrew RT Davies said assurances were needed that there could be no similar failings elsewhere after "institutional abuse" was found at the Tawel Fan ward at Glan Clwyd Hospital in Bodelwyddan.

Families described patients being treated like animals in a zoo.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has since apologised.

Mr Davies called on the Welsh government to establish a Keogh-style inquiry - set up following the Mid-Staffordshire Hospital scandal - and hold a "full and frank" debate in the assembly to ensure measures have been put in place to protect the NHS in Wales from a repeat of the problems at Tawel Fan.

"We have to have action to make sure this doesn't happen again," he told BBC Radio Wales.

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Big White Wall: Expanding mental health access through the digital sphere
From Health Affairs:

There is a preponderance of evidence that conventional approaches to the provision of mental health care do not meet the needs of a large portion of the population. Due to limitations of scale alone, there is an inherent misalignment between the number of individuals who can benefit from mental health assistance and the availability of traditional services.

Yet scale is not the only issue. Stigma, accessibility, and medical models of treatment are equal deterrents to seeking help. Poor mental health impacts us all and carries a huge socio-economic cost. Technology offers a solution and is already helping those experiencing depression, anxiety, and other such problems to lead healthier, more productive, happier lives.

Big White Wall (BWW)—a digital and behavioral health and well-being service facilitated by health care professionals—is one of these solutions. In the organization’s name, “big” recognizes the infinite nature of human emotion; “white” conveys the blank canvas the service provides; and, “wall” symbolizes shelter and support, as well as the barriers we sometimes need to break through to improve mental health.

We developed BWW in the United Kingdom in 2007, and in 2013, it was designated a High Impact Innovation by the National Health Service (NHS). In 2014, it became the first digital mental health service to receive Care Quality Commission registration, and in 2015, it was formally endorsed by the National Health Service (NHS) and promoted through NHS Choices.

Big White Wall expanded to Australasia in 2011, and to the United States in 2014. Our experience has shown that providing a wide range of behavioral health self-management services, anonymized peer support, and immediate access to evidence-based tools via a digital platform empowers people to seek assistance for their mental health challenges for the first time.

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U.S.A. NEWS 

Clinton's campaign will make substance abuse, mental health key issues
From the Washington Post:

Hillary Rodham Clinton's policy advisers held discussions with stakeholders in Iowa and New Hampshire who are involved in helping people dealing with substance abuse and mental illness, as Clinton looks to make those issues a large part of her 2016 presidential campaign.

Clinton senior policy advisers Ann O'Leary and Maya Harris participated in Google hangouts Thursday and Friday with treatment providers, law enforcement officers, local politicians and others in Iowa and New Hampshire, a Clinton aide said. The groups discussed the scourge of opiate addiction, which is decimating New Hampshire and is a growing problem in Iowa, and the use of methamphetamines in Iowa.


Group sues to close Jewish gay counselling service
More death throes of the ridiculous “pray the gay away” practice known as “conversion therapy.” From Breitbart News:

Jury selection begins today in a trial that pits a $340 million left-wing group against a small Jewish non-profit. The result could be the closing of all counseling services in New Jersey that aim to help those with unwanted same-sex desires.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is using New Jersey’s strong Consumer Protection Act to sue a group called Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing (JONAH) that refers men and women to psychological counselors working in the field known as “sexual orientation change efforts.”

SPLC claims JONAH defrauded four men by telling them their same-sex desires could be treated and they could become purely or largely heterosexual. The case is a blueprint for how SPLC intends to go after similar counseling services around the country. Indeed, SPLC and a group called Truth Wins Out, run by gay activist Wayne Besson, have spearheaded a legislative effort to outlaw counseling services to minors with unwanted same-sex attraction. They have been successful in California and New Jersey, which now outlaw the practice.

The case that will be heard over the next month in Superior Court for Hudson County, New Jersey, focuses on the claims of four men who voluntarily approached JONAH to help them with unwanted same-sex attraction. None of them self-identified as gay at the time and each wanted the attractions to end. JONAH, which works from what it calls “Torah values” referred the men to counselors who treated them.

SPLC is now claiming that JONAH made promises that do not comport with scientific findings about the permanence and changeability of homosexuality and that the treatment they underwent was odd. SPLC also claims that homosexual desires do not need to be “cured” and that it’s impossible anyway. All this adds up to consumer fraud, according to the suit that has been going on since 2012.

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Former NY Giant Kareem McKenzie to be a counsellor
From Patch.com:

Not too long after he retired from the National Football League, Kareem McKenzie knew he wanted something more.

The two-time Super Bowl champion and former New York Giant was faced with a difficult task: Transitioning out of the game he loved for so long and into a more ordinary life.

“You can only go to the gym so many times, visit family and friends. You have to find something to do with your time,” he told nflplayerengagement.com. “If not, everything becomes very chaotic and dangerous. An idle mind is the devil’s playground.”

Then, it hit him: He would help others going through what he was.

McKenzie is on track to earn his Masters of Education in Professional Counseling in 2016 from William Paterson University. He will begin work on his doctorate after earning his master’s ... McKenzie’s goal is to provide counseling to professional athletes, and retired members of the military, by helping them navigate their non-rigid schedules and performance expectations.


WORLD NEWS

How to fix Canada's mental health system
From The Globe and Mail:

One in five Canadians will be affected by mental illness in their lifetimes. The cost to the country’s economic is staggering: $50-billion a year in health care and social services, lost productivity and decreased quality of life, estimates the Mental Health Commission of Canada. The personal costs are more devastating – unemployment, family breakup, suicide.

Canadians who seek help for a mental illness will most often be prescribed medication, even though research shows that psychotherapy works just as well, if not better, for the most common illnesses (depression and anxiety) and does a better job at preventing relapse. According to a 2012 Statistics Canada study, while 91 per cent of Canadians were prescribed the medication they sought, only 65 per cent received the therapy they felt they needed. Access to evidence-based psychotherapy, which experts say should be the front-line medical treatment, is limited and wait lists are long.


Weekly news round-up

29/5/2015

 
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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.

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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.


The end of “conversion therapy”

10/2/2015

 
PictureLeelah Alcorn: “My death needs to mean something.”
Three days after Christmas, at 2.30 in the morning, 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn was walking along Interstate 71, a few miles from her home in Ohio. She stepped out onto the tarmac, was hit by a truck, and killed.
     She had arranged for her suicide note to be posted on her Tumblr account that evening. “I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound,” the note said. “I'm never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I'm never going to have enough love to satisfy me.” Alcorn described in the note how she had felt “like a girl trapped in a boy's body” since the age of four, and at 14 came to identify herself as a transgender female, when she discovered, to her immense joy, that such people existed, and she was not alone.
      In the aftermath of Alcorn’s death, a lot of criticism was levelled at her parents, described as conservative Christians who could not accept their little boy’s sexuality and desire to be a girl. It's understandable that such a scenario would be difficult, potentially devastating, for any parent. But Alcorn's parents responded to her coming by taking her out of school and enrolling her instead in an online academy, cutting off all her access to social media, and taking away her phone.
      The note continued: “Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There's no winning. There's no way out.”
      The suicide note went viral—until the family asked for it to be removed from social media a few days later. It inspired vigils for Alcorn in cities across America and internationally, too, including in Trafalgar Square last month. It sparked a general raising of consciousness of the plight of transgendered people the world over.
     The facts:
• Although the word “transgender” wasn’t invented until 1971, transgenderism is not some contemporary fad—it’s as old as humanity. Elagabalus, Roman Emperor from 218 to 222, was said to be transgendered, and in ancient civilisations, “two-spirit” people were often called on to perform religious or cultural ceremonies;
• An estimated 2 to 5 percent of the population experience some degree of gender dysphoria;
• About 1 in 12,000 males and 1 in 34,000 females undergo gender reassignment;
• 90 percent of transgendered adults have experienced discrimination at work;
• 50 percent have been raped or assaulted by a partner;
• 41 percent have attempted suicide;
• 20 percent are homeless;
• Trans women have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered—or 1 in 8 for trans women of colour.

Dire straits
One of Alcorn’s despairing parents’ strategies to make their child “normal” was to send her for “conversion therapy,” which claims to be able to change a person’s sexual orientation.
     This kind of thing was quite common back in the day, when techniques included hypnosis, testicular transplants, electric shocks to the genitals, masturbatory reconditioning, spiritual damnation, and prayer. It was as effective then as it is today, which is to say not at all. It’s a practice that’s fuelled by a certain kind of religious fundamentalism and has been derided as a ridiculous and doomed attempt to “pray the gay away.” A consensus has finally emerged that homosexuality is not some kind of aberrant pathology, an abnormality in need of a cure, though this took a long time: It was only removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as recently 1973, and even made a brief reappearance—“ego-dystonic homosexuality”—in 1980.
     Says the American Psychological Association: “The idea that homosexuality is a mental disorder or that the emergence of same-sex attraction and orientation among some adolescents is in any way abnormal or mentally unhealthy has no support among any mainstream health and mental health professional organizations ... efforts to change sexual orientation through therapy have been adopted by some political and religious organizations and aggressively promoted to the public. However, such efforts have serious potential to harm young people because they present the view that the sexual orientation of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth is a mental illness or disorder, and they often frame the inability to change one’s sexual orientation as a personal and moral failure.”
      Conversion therapy is already illegal in New Jersey and California; attempts to ban it in other states—Virginia, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Washington, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Hawaii and Rhode Island—have thus far been voted down or withdrawn. Oklahoma has recently been vying to position itself as the nation’s most homophobic state by proposing a law that would protect the right of its citizens to waste their money on attempting to force their children to stop being gay.
     Even China is more enlightened: a court in Beijing recently ordered a private counselling center in Chongqing to apologise and pay compensation to a 30-year-old man for providing him with “gay cure” treatment, and ordered all ads for similar services to be removed from Baidu, China’s equivalent of Google.
     In the U.K., an alarming 2009 study found that out of 1,328 therapists surveyed, 222 (17 percent) had attempted to change the sexual orientation of at least one client, and 55 of them would continue to do so. The issue received much greater attention with the case of Leslie Pilkington, a Christian counsellor who attempted to “cure” undercover journalist Patrick Strudwick; in 2012 she was struck off the register of her professional body, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. The following year, health minister Norman Lamb called conversion therapy “abhorrent,” something that has “no place in a modern society,” but said there were no plans for a ban.
      Last month, NHS England and more than a dozen leading organisatons released a memorandum of understanding on conversion therapy. Guidelines will be published—GPs are not to refer patients for conversion therapy and no-one employed by the NHS can provide it. And just this month, a consensus statement was released, a unanimous condemnation of thee practice from all the leading counselling, psychotherapy and psychology bodies. Lord Black, the Executive Director of the Telegraph Media Group, has campaigned for a ban, and a 2013 motion calling for a government ban on conversion therapy for under-18s was signed by 55 MPs.
      Some more stuff:
• Stephen Fry meets the founder of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, Dr. Joseph Nicolosis: click here.
• “Pray the gay away—exposed”: Amusing sex education vlogger Laci Green speaks out: “Gender and sexual orientation exist on a broad spectrum,” she says. “There’s no normal. There’s only more common. Failure to accept this simple fact has serious consequences”: click here.
• Some experiences of conversion therapy in the U.K.: “It’s really sad I spent three years of my life trying to do something that was impossible”: click here and click here.
 
Fix society
Leelah Alcorn’s suicide note ended: “My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say ‘that's fucked up’ and fix it. Fix society. Please.”
     Alcorn’s story does mean something. So do recent stories like the gender reassignment of Olympic gold medal decathlete Bruce Jenner, and former boxing promoter Frank Moloney, and the stories of famous trans people like Chaz Bono, Eddie Izzard, Danny La Rue, Chelsea Manning, Jan Morris and Grayson Perry—to name just a very few.
     On January 20, 2015, Barack Obama became the first American President to mention transgender people in the State of the Union Address: “Condemn the persecution of women, or religious minorities, or people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.”
     If you or someone you know might need help with transgender issues, there is now plenty of good information online, starting with the NHS, the American Psychological Association; for further information, here’s a list of useful resources.
     As for conversion therapy, a change.org petition to ban it in America—called “Leelah’s Law”—now has more than 340,000 signatures; another White House petition received more than 100,000 signatures in January, meaning President Barack Obama’s administration must formally respond to the request. The #BornPerfect campaign took their case to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. One way or another, conversion therapy seems to be inexorably heading for retirement in the therapeutic curio cabinet, along with skull drilling, lobotomies, leeches, and various treatments for “female hysteria.”
     Therapy (and life) isn’t about trying to make yourself become someone you’re fundamentally not. It’s not about trying to change other people, either. Better to be who you are—and let other people be who they are, too, as opposed to who you think they should be. Whether we’re part of the mainstream or we live more towards the margins of one bell curve or another, we all want acceptance and freedom. We all want to live in a fair, inclusive and peaceful society rather than a prejudiced, oppressive and violent one. A society that doesn’t condemn some of its teenagers, consigning them to life and death on a very lonely highway.

On Children
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, 
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, 
and He bends you with His might 
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, 
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
—Kahlil Gibran
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    John Barton is a counsellor, psychotherapist, blogger and writer with a private practice in Marylebone, Central London. To contact, click here.

DR JOHN BARTON IS A PSYCHOTHERAPIST, BLOGGER AND WRITER WITH A PRIVATE PRACTICE IN MARYLEBONE, CENTRAL LONDON
© 2023 JOHN BARTON