Title: Lily and Dunkin Author: Donna Gephart Publisher: Delacorte Press, May 2016 Ages: 10-14 Themes: Transgender children, manic depression, bipolarity, mental illness, bullying 352 pages Opening: Girl Lily Jo is not my name. Yet. But I am working on that. That’s why I am in the closet. Literally in my mom’s walk-in closet … Continue reading →

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a disorder that develops in some people after they’ve witnessed a shocking or traumatic event. People experience shock after traumatic events, but those who don’t recover from the initial shock are more likely to develop PTSD. After a distressing or upsetting event, it’s important to seek support.

While literature cannot take the place of a support group or therapy, it can help us process grief and trauma. Teens are not immune to PTSD, and several YA novels explore this disorder in different ways: through fantasy, dystopia, or realistic fiction. Some are from the perspective of the person suffering, while others explore what it’s like to be a family member or friend.

Here is a list of four young adult books that deal with PTSD:

Trail of the Dead by Joseph Bruchac – In the follow-up to Killer of Enemies, Apache teenager Lozen protects her family and friends as they travel in search of refuge in a post-apocalyptic world. Though Lozen has only taken the lives of others to protect herself and her family, the killings take a toll on her spirit and Lozen finds herself with what her people call “enemy sickness,” another name for PTSD. With the support of her friends and family, she is healed in a ceremony that reflects the traditional healing of her Apache ancestors.

Purchase the series here.

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson – Hayley Kincaid and her father have moved around a lot in the past five years due to his job working on the road. They return to his hometown so that Hayley can have a shot at a normal life. However, after her father’s tours in Iraq, he developed PTSD. Hayley isn’t sure if being in her father’s hometown will help with his PTSD, or push him over the edge.

Melting Stones by Tamora Pierce – Evvy and
Rosethorn are sent to the island of Starns to help residents with a dormant volcano. While there, Evvy has flashes of a war from which she recently escaped.

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers – After his dreams of attending college fall through, Perry, a teenager from Harlem, decides to volunteer for the service and joins the Vietnam War. Perry and his platoon are sent to the front lines and come face-to-face with the horrors of war. Perry begins to questions why black troops are given the most dangerous assignments and why the U.S. is in Vietnam at all.

Resources:

National Institute of Mental Health: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

National Institute of Mental Health: Helping Children and Adolescents Cope with Violence and Disasters: What Community Members Can Do

PTSD Alliance

PTSD: National Center for PTSD

American Academy of Pediatrics: Promoting Adjustment and Helping Children Cope After Disaster and Crisis

Read More:

Why I Love to Read Sad and Dark Books to Children (and You Should Too)

Talking to Kids About Current Events and Conflicts

Turning to Story After the Sandy Hook Shooting

Connecting Teens with the Authors They Love

What are some other YA novels that deal with PTSD? Please share in the comments.

Every year in the United States, over 40,000 individuals take their own lives, making suicide the tenth most common cause of death in the country. September, National Suicide Prevention Month, seeks to raise awareness of this problem and—most importantly—help those who might be affected.

The post Addressing the elephant in the room: Suicide awareness and prevention [infographic] appeared first on OUPblog.

Fifteen years ago, the suicide rate among patients in a large behavioral care system in Detroit was seven times the national average. Then leaders there decided to tackle the problem. The first question asked was what should be the goal—to cut the rate in half, reduce it to the national level, or more? One employee said even a single suicide was unacceptable if it was your loved one, and that helped set the target: zero.

The post Step 1 to end military suicide appeared first on OUPblog.

I am constantly perplexed by the recurring tendency in western history to connect creativity with mental disability and illness. It cannot be denied that a number of well-known creative people, primarily in the arts, have been mentally ill—for example, Vincent Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Robert Schumann, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia Plath.

The post Creativity and mental health appeared first on OUPblog.

Today’s review is a bit different from the usual fare here on Kid Lit Reviews. I received a young adult book last year, which I do not review, because I firmly believe YA does not mix well with picture books and middle grade fare. I set it aside. Last night, needing a break from reading kid’s books and packing boxes, I picked up that book, simply titled Crazy. Crazy is Linda Vigen Phillips debut into children’s lit. Written in verse, the story is a fast read. The story shines a light on mental illness and, though set in the 1960s, is every bit as relevant today as it was then. Crazy moved me and I hope it moves you.

Crazy

Written by Linda Vigen Phillips
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers     10/06/2014
978-0-8028-5437-7
314 pages         Age 12+
A Junior Library Guild Selection for 2014

“Laura is a typical fifteen-year-old growing up in the 1960s, navigating her way through classes, friendships, and even a new romance. But she’s carrying around a secret: her mother is suffering from a mental illness. No one in Laura’s family will talk about her mother’s past hospitalizations or increasingly erratic behavior, and Laura is confused and frightened. Laura finds some solace in art, but when her mother, also an artist, suffers a breakdown, Laura fears that she will follow in her mother’s footsteps. Left without a refuge, can she find the courage to face what scares her most?” [book cover]

Review
15-year-old Laura’s mother suffers from bipolar disorder and the family suffers right along with her, as most often happens. The author took parts of her own life, apparently having a mother who also suffered from mental illness. In the sixties, where the story takes place, mental illness carried much stigma so families kept this very secret. A lot of effort went into hiding the ailment from others. Kids never brought friends home to play or for sleepovers. If the family member was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, the family’s secret keeping went into high alert.

Now this may sound crazy in itself, but people outside the family secret did treat kids and adults with a mentally ill family member differently—poorly, often as if the craziness could rub off the family and onto them. Many people did not consider mental illness a medical disorder. Instead, mental illness was a problem of attitude, disposition, and a weakness of the will. Thus, mentally ill people could cure themselves by changing their attitude and their disposition by just acting normal. “If they would just do this or do that, they would be fine in no time,” was the basic attitude of most people.

The mother was a brilliant artist when younger, but gave it up. Laura encourages her mother to paint again, thinking it might help her mother regain her sense of self and thus act more normal. Instead, her mother has a “nervous breakdown.” Now Laura blames herself because she encouraged her mother to paint and, in her mind, the act of painting again caused her mother to collapse. Being a gifted artist in her own right, Laura is terrified that she will tumble into the same black hole her mother has. At one point, Laura even believes she is on her way, and in great fear and despair, refuses to paint, despite a contest deadline looming near.

NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

“If you’ve ever been there
when a lightbulb gets real bright
just before it blows out,
then you know what it was like
around here when things got extremely crazy,
right before they shipped Mama off
to the nut house.

“It’s all my fault
for suggesting
she take up painting again.
That’s what she was doing
that day I came home
to such a mess.
She was trying to paint on canvas,
not ceramics,
and maybe,
well, maybe she just forgot
how to do it
and it frustrated her real bad.
I could see she was beside herself
with frustration.

“I never should have suggested it.

“Maybe that’s why she put her hand
on the hot stove last night
and didn’t even smell
the burning flesh.
Now on top of her craziness
she has a bandaged hand.”

The problem in the sixties, as it was in the fifties, and every decade past, was a lack of information. Even today, though much enlightened, some still attach a stigma to mental illness. Books like Crazy help change these views by looking to the next generation. Laura, having been kept in the dark by her family (Laura is not old enough to understand), knows little about her mother’s illness. She understands mom is crazy, as she lives with the craziness each day. Laura watches her mother sit in a chair all day, staring at nothing in particular and worrying about everything (JFK’s assassination occurs), then watches her mother in crazed action, with energy that overflows and keeps her moving for days.

Laura gives up her own artistic talent to maintain her sanity, but it does not work. Laura feels herself falling deeper into a hole she cannot comprehend. Despite asking what is specifically going on with her mother, no one will explain. Not understanding, Laura’s mind works herself into her own despair. Overloaded with a sick mother, keeping secrets, and normal teen angst Laura works herself into believing she is beginning the slow descent into craziness. Her father has closed himself off, in his own attempts to deal with an ill wife he dearly loves, so Laura does not get the support she needs from him. Her older sister is busy with her own family, having married young. Laura’s friends are in the dark, though would most likely be a great support system for her, if she was not so afraid to tell them.

Crazy does a great job describing mental illness fifty years ago and an even better job of describing a kid who must live with a mentally ill parent. The writing is easy to read and a fast read, since most of the verse deals with Laura and her thoughts, rather than visual descriptions. It works. I think an advanced middle grader could read Crazy and enjoy the story along with a new understanding of mental illness. Crazy was difficult to put down, even for an hour. I read the 314 pages in one evening. The story is that compelling and that interesting. I needed to know how Laura was going to deal with her mother’s illness. Would she ever return to painting? Could she ever tell her friends? Would Laura really descend into darkness, herself, as she imagines is happening? Will anyone ever speak truthfully and answer Laura’s questions? I just had to know.

Laura tries to protect herself from a mother she does not understand and friends who might abandon her if they knew her secret. I enjoyed this emotionally stirring story. Crazy drew me into the story immediately with the powerful writing. The author does a great job leading the reader down the path she wants them to walk. Laura is a credible character and one in which many kids will see themselves. Laura will have your empathy, but it will take time to understand the other characters’ motives. The story rolls out perfectly. I know this because I have a brother with bipolar disorder. In a group setting, Crazy can easily lead to a great discussion. I recommend Crazy for advanced readers age 12 and up, including adults.

You can purchase Crazy at Amazon— Eerdmans Books.

Discussion Guide is HERE.
Learn more about Crazy HERE.
Meet the author, Linda Vigen Phillips, at her website:  http://www.lindavigenphillips.com/
Find more picture books at the Eerdmans Books for YR website:  http://www.eerdmans.com/YoungReaders/

Eerdmans Books for Young Readers is an imprint of Wm. B Eerdmans Publishing Co.

CRAZY. Text copyright © 2014 by Linda Vigen Phillips. Copyright © 2014 by publisher, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, Grand Rapids, MI.

Copyright © 2015 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews. All Rights Reserved

Review section word count = 864

My eureka moment with citizenship came one morning during the mid-1990s. The New Haven mental health outreach team that I ran was meeting for rounds. Ed, a peer outreach worker, meaning a person with his own history of mental health problems who’s made progress in his recovery and his now working with others, didn’t look happy.

The post Citizenship and community mental health work appeared first on OUPblog.

Levine, Kristin. 2014. The Paper Cowboy. New York: Putnam.

In the seemingly idyllic, 1950s, town of Downers Grove, Illinois, handsome and popular 12-year-old Tommy Roberts appears to be a typical kid.  He lives with his parents, older sister Mary Lou, younger sisters Pinky and Susie, and a devoted family dog. He and his older sister attend Catholic school, his father works for Western Electric, and his mother stays at home with the younger girls.

Amidst the backdrop of the Red Scare and McCarthyism, Tommy's discovery of a Communist newspaper in the town's paper drive truck, and a horrific burn accident to Mary Lou, begin a chain of events that uncovers secrets, truths, and lies in his small town populated with many Eastern European immigrants.

Perhaps the biggest lie is Tommy's own life.  Though he never gets caught, Tommy is a bully, picking on kids at school, especially Little Skinny. When he plants the Communist newspaper in a store owned by Little Skinny's immigrant father, he's gone too far - and he knows it.  Now it's time to act like his cowboy hero, The Lone Ranger, and make everything right, but where can he turn for help?  His mother is "moody" and beats him relentlessly while his father turns a blind eye. His older sister will be hospitalized for months. He has his chores and schoolwork to do, and Mary Lou's paper route, and if Mom's in a mood, he's caretaker for Pinky and Susie as well.

It's hard to understand a bully, even harder to like one, but readers will come to understand Tommy and root for redemption for him and his family.  He will find help where he least expects it.

     I couldn't tell Mrs. Glazov about the dinner party. Or planting the paper.  But maybe I could tell her about taking the candy.  Maybe that would help.  "There's this boy at school, I said slowly, "Little Skinny."
.....
     "I didn't like him.  I don't like him.  Sometimes, Eddie and I and the choirboys, we tease him."
     "Ahh," she said again.  "He laugh too?"
     I shook my head.  I knew what Mary Lou would say.  Shame on you, Tommy! Picking on that poor boy.  And now she would have scars just like him.  How would I feel if someone picked on her?
     "What did you do?" Mrs. Glazov asked, her voice soft, like a priest at confession.  It surprised me. I'd never heard her sound so gentle.
     "I took some candy from him," I admitted.
     "You stole it."
     I shrugged.
     "Ahh."
     "It's not my fault! If Mary Lou had been there, I never would have done it!"
     Mrs. Glazov laughed.  "You don't need sister.  You need conscience."
     I had the horrible feeling that she was right.  I wasn't a cowboy at all. I was an outlaw.

Complicit by Stephanie Kuehn. St. Martin's Griffin. 2014. Reviewed from ARC from publishers.

By Scott Huntington

Music therapy involves the use of clinical, evidence-supported musical interventions to meet a patient’s specific goals for healing (a useful fact sheet). The musical therapist should have the proper credentials and be licensed in the field of music therapy.

Music therapy is performed in rehabilitation centers such as 12 Keys Rehab, psychiatric and even general hospitals, private practices, nursing homes, schools, etc. to treat a wide variety of issues, including social, cognitive, emotional, and physical needs. After an initial assessment, the musical therapist prescribes a treatment plan in which the patient sings, moves and dances, creates, or simply listens to music. This experience facilitates a healthy outlet for patients to communicate and express their feelings, in addition to rehabilitating the patient physically.

Rand De Mattei, a music instructor with Blues in the Schools, gets in tune with Petty Officer 2nd Class Tyreen S. McRae, a participant in neurologic music therapy, at Naval Medical Center San Diego Feb. 28. Neurologic music therapy helps Wounded Warriors recover. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Music therapy and special populations

As it has become more prevalent, music therapy has proven to be useful for a wide variety of populations. One such population is victims of crisis and trauma. After the 9/11 terror attacks in New York City, the American Music Therapy Association founded The New York City Music Therapy Relief Project. The goal of the project was to serve the children and adults living in the metropolitan vicinity by providing them with music therapy services. Some of these musical therapy programs were customized with the specific needs of caregivers in mind, targeting teachers, counselors, social workers, doctors, and nurses. More than 3,000 teachers and students were served through eleven different music therapy programs that reached out to eight local schools.

Music therapy has also been used in the treatment of mental illness. In addition to the basic care they should be receiving, music therapy helped patients with schizophrenia to achieve an enhanced mental state along with improving their overall condition. What’s more, music therapy has been shown to drastically reduce the unwanted symptoms these patients sometimes experience, making them more capable of having conversations with other people, thereby alleviating feelings of isolation and giving them more of an interest in what is going on around them.

Along with helping those suffering from schizophrenia, music therapy has also been used as an effective way to treat clinical depression. Studies have shown that when adolescents who were depressed listened to music, they had a notable drop in the levels of cortisol (a stress hormone), and the left frontal lobe of their brain was activated, which was reported to be a positive outcome.

Those who struggle with anger have also benefited from music therapy treatments. When assessed with the Achenbach’s Teacher’s Report Form, music therapy patients made significant improvements on the scale of aggression and hostility. Studies suggest that group sessions of music therapy allow patients to express themselves in a positive way, transforming their aggression and rage into healthier forms of communication. 

While music therapy can go a long way in improving the mental health of a patient, it can also help in more physical ways. For one thing, music therapy lowers a patient’s perception of their pain so that what might normally be extremely painful becomes a much more tolerable experience. For patients suffering with cancer and undergoing chemotherapy, music therapy has been known to lower incidences of nausea and anxiety, sometimes significantly lowering the fatigue, anxiety, and pain of those in hospice care.

Talking to a music therapist

I caught up with Alyssa Regan, who is in her second year in the master’s equivalency program for music therapy at Immaculata University. She’s also near the end of her full-time internship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

How have you personally seen music therapy work on someone?

I was planning on having a session with one of my patients that I had been seeing regularly since the beginning of my internship. This patient was only 16 months old and suffered from many medical complications. When I arrived at his room, I noticed an entire medical team standing around his bed; his monitor was beeping, his heart rate and respiratory rate were so erratic that numbers weren’t even showing. My patient’s face was red and he seemed to be writhing in discomfort. With approval from the medical team, I came in and began to quietly play guitar. Around the same time, the patient was given some medication. As I began to sing, my patient’s face calmed. I aimed to match the tempo of my music with his breathing and then gradually slow it down. His HR and RR appeared on the monitors and slowly decreased. After 20 minutes or so, his vitals were stable and he was asleep. After the session, one of the nurses said, “Well, either you’re a miracle worker or those drugs kicked in extremely fast!” I’m sure the medicine had a little to do with it, but it was also the music.

Since you started studying music therapy, have you seen it grow?

Yes. I think that more of the general population is beginning to recognize it as a credible field, especially as it seems to be gaining more publicity recently (e.g. the Gabby Giffords documentary and the recent segment on the news about music therapy with premature infants). I hope it continues to grow!

Is music therapy becoming more recognized in hospitals, nursing homes, etc.? 

I think it is becoming more recognized in general, which hopefully means that there will be more jobs available. The most growth seems to be happening in hospice care.

How do you see music therapy expanding over the next ten years?

Ideally, I’d like music therapy to be seen as important as physical therapy, speech therapy, or occupational therapy. Will that happen over the next ten years? Probably not. However, I would not be too surprised if every hospice care organization, children’s hospital, and major medical and psychiatric institution in the United States had at least one music therapist on staff in ten years.

Scott Huntington is a percussionist specializing in marimba. He’s also a writer, reporter and blogger. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and son and does Internet marketing for WebpageFX in Harrisburg. Scott strives to play music whenever and wherever possible. Follow him on Twitter at @SMHuntington.

Oxford Music Online is the gateway offering users the ability to access and cross-search multiple music reference resources in one location. With Grove Music Online as its cornerstone, Oxford Music Online also contains The Oxford Companion to Music, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only music articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only brain sciences articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post The rise of music therapy appeared first on OUPblog.

        

Related Stories

• Dirty South hip hop and societal ills in the former Confederacy
• Lucy in the scientific method
• Terror

 

By Kathleen M. Heide, Ph.D.

The mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut is a tragic event that is particularly painful as it comes at a time when people across the world are trying to focus on the upcoming holidays as the season of peace bringing good tidings of great joy.

Three factors about the Newtown school shooting are noteworthy. First, it was a mass murder. Second, it appears to have been precipitated by the killing of a parent (parricide). Third, it was committed by a 20-year old man. All of these factors are relevant in making sense of what appears to be inexplicable violence.

What drives a person to take an assault rifle into an elementary school and open fire on very young children and the teachers, some of whom died protecting them? Individuals in these cases are typically suicidally depressed, alienated, and isolated. They have often suffered a series of losses and are filled with a sense of rage. All too frequently they see themselves as having been wronged and want to play out their pain on a stage. The fact that mass shootings are routinely covered in depth by the media is not lost on them. They are typically aware that their name will go down in history for their destructive acts. Their murderous rampage is an act of power by an individual who feels powerless. Unable to make an impact on society in a positive way, the killer knows that he can impact the world through an act of death and destruction.

The fact that the first victim was reportedly the victim’s mother is significant. The first victims in other adolescent school shootings have also involved parents in some cases. My research and clinical practice has indicated that there are four types of parricide offenders.

• The first type is the severely abused parricide offender who kills out of desperation or terror; his or her motive is to stop the abuse. These individuals are often diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.
• The second type is the severely mentally ill parricide offender who kills because of an underlying serious mental illness. These individuals typically have a longstanding history of severe mental illness, often along the schizophrenia spectrum disorder or might be diagnosed as having depression or bi-polar disorder with psychotic features.
• The third type is the dangerously antisocial parricide offender who kills his or her parent to serve a selfish, instrumental reason. Reasons include killing to get their parents’ money, to date the boy or girl of their choice, and freedom to do what they want. These individuals are often diagnosed as having conduct disorder if under age 18 and antisocial personality disorder if over age 18. Some meet the diagnostic criteria of psychopathy. Psychopaths have interpersonal and affective deficits in additional to antisocial and other behavioral problems. They lack a connection to others and do not feel empathy. They do not feel guilty for their wrongdoing because they do not have a conscience.
• The fourth type is a parricide offender who appears to have a great deal of suppressed anger. If the anger erupts to a boiling point, the offspring may kill in an explosive rage often fueled by alcohol and/or drugs.

Interestingly, most parents are slain by their offspring in single victim-single offender incidents. Multiple victims incidents are rare. In an analysis of FBI data on thousands of parricide cases reported over a 32 year period, I found that on the average there were only 12 cases per year when a mother was killed along with other victims by a biological child. In more than 85% of these cases, the matricide offender was a son.

The actual number of victims involved in multiple victim parricide situations was small, usually two or three. Murders of the magnitude as seen in Newtown, CT that involved a parent as a first victim are exceedingly rare.

Assessment of the dynamics involved in the killing of parents is also important in terms of prognosis and risk assessment. The first victims of some serial murderers were family members, including parents. Serial murderers are defined as individuals who kill three or more victims in separate incidents with a cooling off period between them. If the parricide offender intended to kill his parent and derived satisfaction from doing so, he represents a great risk to society. (This type of killer is known as the Nihilistic Killer.)

The gunman’s age (in Newtown’s case, he was 20 years old) is also an important factor in understanding how an individual could engage in such horrific violence. Research has established that the brain is not fully developed until an individual reaches the age of 23 to 25 years old. The last area of the brain to develop is the pre-frontal cortex. This area of the brain is associated with thinking, judgment, and decision making. A 20-year-old man filled with rage would have great difficulty stopping, thinking, deliberating, and altering his course of action during his violent rampage. He is likely to be operating from the limbic system, the part of the brain associated with feelings. Adam Lanza was likely driven by raw feeling and out of control when he sprayed little children with rounds of gunfire. Simply put, it would be very difficult for him to put the brakes on and desist from his violent behavior.

Events like the shooting in Newtown leave society once again asking what can be done to stop the tide of senseless violence. Clearly Adam Lanza and other mass killers have been able to kill dozens of people in a matter of a few moments because of high powered weaponry. It is time to ask whether our nation can continue to allow assault weapons appropriate for our military to be easily available to citizens in our society. It is time for us to ask what can be done to increase access to mental health services to those who desperately need them. My prediction is, when the facts are more clearly known, risk factors will be identified in the case of Adam Lanza and missed opportunities to intervene to help Adam will be uncovered, contributing to the profound sadness that we are experiencing in the United States and across the world.

Kathleen M. Heide, Ph.D., is Professor of Criminology at the University of South Florida. Her lastest book, Understanding Parricide: When Sons and Daughters Kill Parents, was published in December 2012 by Oxford University Press.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Reflections on the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School appeared first on OUPblog.

By Rochelle Caplan, MD

Surely the time has finally come to put our heads together and focus on three seldom connected variables regarding mass murders in the United States: the lack of comprehensive psychiatric care for individuals with mental illness, poor public recognition of the red flags that an individual might harm others, and easy access to firearms.

How should we address the first problem? The fiscal problems this country has faced during the past decade, combined with skewed budget priorities, have lead to a significant reduction in public health care, in particular for mental illness. Insurance companies have limited the time providers have for mental health assessments, the duration and frequency of treatment, and the types of intervention they cover. These cutbacks have forced psychiatrists to do abbreviated and superficial psychiatric evaluations and to prescribe medications as stopgap treatment in lieu of more effective evidence-based therapies. Furthermore, the number of individuals without mental health coverage who also face unemployment, homelessness, or insufficient money to feed and clothe their families — all significant mental health stressors — is steadily rising.

How then can mental health professionals conduct the comprehensive, time consuming evaluations needed to determine if an individual might be dangerous towards others? Self-report questionnaires, another quick method professionals use to conduct psychiatric evaluations, are clearly not the answer. Few people with homicidal or suicidal thoughts acknowledge these “socially unacceptable” intentions or plans on paper. Expert clinical acumen is needed to carefully and sensitively help patients talk about these “taboo” topics and their triggers. A five-to-ten minute psychiatric appointment clearly doesn’t do the job!

The lack of comprehensive mental health care is most sorely evident for such conditions as schizophrenia, as well as psychosis associated with substance abuse, depression, bipolar disorder, neurological disorders, or medical illnesses. In these conditions individuals can be plagued by and act in response to hallucinations that include voices commanding them to kill or visions that incite their aggressive response. Delusions (rigid, pervasive, and unreasonable thoughts) that people threaten them can also cause an aggressive response. Mass murderers might act out their hallucinations and delusions, as in the attempted assassination of congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford and murder of five bystanders, and in the Columbine, Batman, and Virginia Tech massacres.

Lack of time often precludes pediatric professionals from seeing children without their parents and detecting early warning signs of homicidal or suicidal plans. Similarly, physicians might have time to talk to adolescents but not to their parents. As a result, they might miss hearing about red flags of possible aggression by the youth and/or his peers.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will provide health insurance for more people, but what about quality mental health care? Few mentally ill patients are able to fight for their sorely needed unmet mental health care needs. Due to the stigma of mental illness and the related financial and heavy emotional burden, their families seldom have the power and resources needed to lobby elected officials or use the Internet and other media to publicize their plight.

How can we recognize the red flags of a potential mass murderer? In addition to well-trained mental health professionals with expertise, clinical acumen, and sufficient time with their patients, there is a need to educate the public about severe mental illness. Parents, family members, teachers, community groups, and religious leaders all need instruction to recognize possible early signs of mental illness. This knowledge will help them understand the plight and suffering of individuals with severe mental illness. And, most importantly, this awareness can lead to early referral, treatment, and prevention of violence due to mental illness.

Prompt recognition and early treatment of these symptoms are essential because firearms are so easily obtained in the United States. To get a driver’s license, individuals complete a Driver’s Ed course, pass a knowledge test, take driving lessons, drive a car with an adult for a fixed period, and then take a driving test. The underlying assumption is that irresponsible driving can physically harm others, the driver, and property. For this reason, individuals with epilepsy who experienced a seizure within the past year are barred from driving. Shouldn’t the same principles apply to guns? Yet, individuals can obtain guns without prior psychiatric evaluations, and there are no laws and regulations to safeguard these weapons in homes to prevent children and individuals with severe mental illness from gaining access to them. Reports on accidents caused by children and suicide by adolescents with their parents’ guns are common. According to a Center for Disease Control study, 1.6 million homes have loaded and unlocked firearms (Okoro et al., 2005).

As a child psychiatrist and parent, I regard the Newtown horrific mass murder of elementary age children as a final wake up call so that we will never again ask, “How many more children have to die?” Nothing can justify this preventable tragedy to the parents and families of their murdered beloved ones. The time has come to halt the unrelentless chipping away of our mental health care services and quality of care for mental illness, to educate the community about severe mental illness, and to implement strict controls on access to firearms.

Rochelle Caplan, M.D. is UCLA Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and past Director the UCLA Pediatric Neuropsychiatry Program. She is co-author of “How many more questions?” : Techniques for Clinical interviews of Young Medically Ill Children (Oxford University Press) and author of Manual for Parents of Children with Epilepsy (Epilepsy Foundation). She studies thinking and behavior in pediatric neurobehavioral disorders (schizophrenia, epilepsy, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, high functioning autism) and related brain structure and function; unmet mental health need in pediatric epilepsy; and pediatric non-epileptic seizures.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post How many more children have to die? appeared first on OUPblog.

Border Crossing Jessica Lee Anderson

Manz's mother is an alcoholic, a sometimes painter who is still reeling from a stillbirth. His dead father was crazy. Manz's best friend has an abusive father.

Manz and Jed get a job over the summer at a local ranch where Manz meets Vanessa, one of the kitchen worker. Only, when Manz hears about Operation Wetback*, he starts thinking that the government is starting it up again. Even though Manz is a citizen, US-born of a white citizen mother, the voices in his head tell him everyone else is in on it, tell him that the government will ship him to Mexico, unless he can stop it.

As the voices grow louder and louder, Manz can't stop them, can't not do what the tell him. He doesn't realize that no one else can hear them.

On the surface this is an ISSUE NOVEL. Paranoid Schizophrenia! Alcoholism! Domestic Abuse! Immigration! Dead babies!

But, in execution, told through Manz's eyes it's not heavy-handed. It's just the way things are. The real story is Manz's worsening condition. Anderson does a good job of letting the reader know what is "real" and what isn't. Part of this is that she does a good job of setting everything up before Manz starts to lose his grip on reality.

It's a fast-moving, compact book. I like the ending-- there's resolution, without it being super-tidy.


Interestingly, I just saw this photo on another book jacket--American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar. Same cover photo, different nationalities. Hmmm...


Operation Wetback was a pretty extreme anti-illegal immigration/deportation program in the early 50s.

ARC Provided by... the publisher, at ALA a few year ago.

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.