October 2017 - Page 6 of 22 - searchfortruth.info

Statewide Law Enforcement | Mental Health Efforts

February 21, 2019October 22, 2017 by admin

Introduction

Nationwide, law enforcement agencies in rapidly increasing numbers have embraced specialized policing responses (SPRs, pronounced “spurs”) to people with mental illnesses. These efforts, which prioritize treatment over incarceration when appropriate, are planned and implemented in partnership with community service providers and citizens. The two most prevalent SPR approaches are Crisis Intervention Teams (CITs) and police-mental health co.-responder teams. CITs, pioneered by the Memphis (TN) Police Department, draw on a self-selected cadre of officers trained to identify signs and symptoms of mental illness, to de-escalate any situation involving an individual who appears to have a mental illness, and to connect that person in crisis to treatment. The second approach, co-responder teams, forged by the Los Angeles (CA) Police Department and San Diego County (CA) Sheriff’s Department, pairs officers with mental health professionals to respond to calls involving people in or combined these strategies, but a common...

H.R. 731 (114th): Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Act of 2015

November 5, 2018October 22, 2017 by admin

Amends the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 to: (1) expand the assistance provided under such Act, and (2) reauthorize appropriations for FY2016-FY2020.

Authorizes the Attorney General to award grants to establish or expand: (1) veterans treatment court programs, which involve collaboration among criminal justice, veterans, and mental health and substance abuse agencies to provide qualified veterans (preliminarily qualified offenders who were discharged from the armed forces under conditions other than dishonorable) with intensive judicial supervision and case management, treatment services, alternatives to incarceration, and other appropriate services, including housing, transportation, job training, education, and assistance in obtaining benefits; (2) peer to peer services or programs to assist such veterans in obtaining treatment, recovery, stabilization, or rehabilitation; (3) practices that identify and provide treatment, rehabilitation, legal, transitional, and other appropriate services to such veterans who have been incarcerated; and (4) training programs to teach...

Mental Health Training In Emergency Homeless Shelters.

November 5, 2018October 22, 2017 by admin

Abstract

The prevalence of mental illness among homeless persons points to the importance of providing mental health training to emergency shelter staff. The authors report on their own work and argue that such training offers the potential to significantly improve shelter staffs ability to respond to the needs of shelter residents with mental illness, and to the behavioral problems some of these individuals may pose for shelter operation. Mental health care providers should take into consideration organizational dynamics when planning and implementing such training...

Mental Health By the Numbers

November 17, 2018October 22, 2017 by admin

Prevalence of Mental Illness

Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experiences mental illness in a given year. Approximately 1 in 25 adults in the U.S.—9.8 million, or 4.0%—experiences a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities. Approximately 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 (21.4%) experiences a severe mental disorder at some point during their life.

For children aged 8–15, the estimate is 13%. 1.1% of adults in the U.S. live with schizophrenia.

2.6% of adults in the U.S. live with bipolar disorder.

6.9% of adults in the U.S.—16 million—had at least one major depressive episode in the past year.

18.1% of adults in the U.S. experienced an anxiety disorder such as posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and specific phobias...

Misdiagnosing Normality: Psychiatry’s Failure To Address The Problem Of False Positive Diagnoses Of Mental Disorder In A Changing Professional Environmen

November 5, 2018October 22, 2017 by admin

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

In psychiatry's transformation from primarily an asylum-based profession to a community-oriented profession, false positive diagnoses that mistakenly classify normal intense reactions to stress as mental disorders became a major challenge to the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. The shift to symptom-based operationalized diagnostic criteria in DSM-III further exacerbated this difficulty because of the contextually based nature of the distinction between normal distress and mental disorder, which often display similar symptoms. The problem has particular urgency because the DSM's symptom-based criteria are often applied in studies and screening instruments outside of the clinical context and by non-mental-health professionals.

AIMS:

To consider, through selected examples, the degree of concern, systematicity and thoroughness - and the degree of success - with which recent revisions of the DSM have attended to the challenge of avoiding false positive diagnoses.

METHOD:

Conceptual analysis of selected criteria sets, with a focus on possible counterexamples...

Everyone’s Neighborhood: Addressing “Not in My Backyard” Opposition to Supportive Housing for People with Mental Health Disabilities

February 21, 2019October 21, 2017 by admin

Chapter 1: Introduction

Organizations that provide housing and supportive services to people with mental health disabilities have their work cut out for them. It is enough of a challenge to identify housing sites, obtain necessary funding, arrange for services, navigate complex administrative systems and secure scarce funding sources if neighbors and local government support the project. But the process becomes much more difficult when neighbors start complaining about housing “those people” in “our” neighborhood. This paper discusses efforts that housing developers, advocates and local governments have made to promote supportive housing for people with mental health disabilities, suggests strategies for bolstering community support, and provides tools for addressing neighborhood opposition if it does arise. “Not In My Backyard” – or NIMBY1 – opposition to affordable and supportive housing “has deep roots in fear, racism, classism, ableism, and growing antidevelopment reactions. ....

Why Are Religious Delusions And Hallucinations So Prominent In Patients With Serious Mental Health Diagnoses, Especially Schizophrenia?

November 17, 2018October 21, 2017 by admin

In patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, often delusions exist that either exalt the status of the patient (eg, the patient is God's representative on earth) or denigrate the patient (eg, God is sending messages to the patient specifying his/her sinfulness and need to be punished). Are there sociological or neurological explanations for the high prevalence of religious delusions and hallucinations?

Popular Answers

The schizoid constellation comprises a number of typical symptoms, present in greater or lesser amounts, further mitigated through numerous indiosyncratic aspects of each case, the time of onset, the number of years, and of course the individual triggers. The easiest way to answer that question - employing Occams razor for the least-words-being-the-best - would go to the essense of the communication with God business. Think of what would happen igf the pipeline from experience to memory suddenly developed leaks - the continuity of your memory...

Sexual Orientation and Its Relation to Mental Disorders and Suicide Attempts: Findings From a Nationally Representative Sample

November 17, 2018October 21, 2017 by admin

Abstract

To compare the rates of all Axis I and II mental disorders and suicide attempts in sexual orientation minorities with rates in heterosexuals using a nationally representative sample. Data used were from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions Wave 2 (n = 34 653, response rate = 70.2%). Cross-tabulations and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to determine differences in rates of mental disorders and suicide attempts by sexual orientation. All analyses were stratified by sex. Compared with their heterosexual counterparts, lesbians and bisexual women demonstrated a 3-fold increased likelihood of substance use disorders, and gay and bisexual men showed twice the rate of anxiety disorders and schizophrenia and (or) psychotic illness, even after accounting for mental disorder comorbidity. Suicide attempts were independently associated with bisexuality, with odds 3 times higher than in heterosexuals. Findings from our study emphasize the fact that sexual orientation...

Discussing the Criminal and Criminal Anthropology at Victorian Broadmoor

November 17, 2018October 21, 2017 by admin

July 10, 2015

‘It really is astounding the vogue that this puerile nonsense has obtained’: Discussing the Criminal and Criminal Anthropology at Victorian Broadmoor

The publication of Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso’s The Criminal (1876) established criminal anthropology as an independent science. Lombroso believed that there existed a criminal type: a man or a woman with a specific anatomical configuration.[i] Criminal anthropology had a limited following in Britain. In his The Criminal, Henry Havelock Ellis criticised Lombroso for his style, impetuosity, and lack of critical analysis, but believed that it would be ‘idle to attempt to deny [the] importance of a ‘morbid element’ in criminality’.[ii] He wrote of the size and shape of criminals’ heads, of their cranial abnormalities, prominent jaws and cheekbones, of their receding chins, and of their teeth, nose, ears and beards.[iii] Prison chaplain W. D. Morrison asked:...

Parent and Child Contributions to Diagnosis of Mental Disorder: Are Both Informants Always Necessary?

November 17, 2018October 21, 2017 by admin

Abstract

To examine the unique cases contributed by parent and child informants to diagnostic classification, with the goal of identifying those diagnoses for which either or both informants are needed. The authors examined survey data from the Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study, a 4-community epidemiology survey of 9- to 17-year-old children and their parents. Parent-child dyads (1,285 pairs) were independently interviewed by lay persons with the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children; a subset of these pairs (n = 247) were also interviewed by clinicians. Agreement between parents and children was examined with respect to levels of impairment, need for/use of services, and clinicians' diagnoses. Parents and children rarely agreed on the presence of diagnostic conditions, regardless of diagnostic type. Nonetheless, most child-only- and parent-only-identified diagnoses were similarly related to impairment and clinical validation, with...

One Psychologist’s Fight To Destigmatize Mental Illness

November 17, 2018October 21, 2017 by admin

We live in a world where going to a therapist often feels more shameful than going to see your dentist or internist. Many people still feel embarrassed and ashamed about needing help for their anxiety or depression, while they would not have those feelings if treating a cancerous growth or heart disease.

Although this stigma is slowly changing, our society still holds many misconceptions about what it means to have a mental illness. And these misconceptions or a lack of accurate information can interfere with people getting the help they need. Individuals who suffer from mental illness are not lazy, deranged, weak, or whining for attention. In fact, they are no more likely to have negative personality traits than people who don’t suffer from this type of disease. Mental health disorders are relatively common in the United States and according to some statistics 25% of the...

Diagnosis And Treatment Of Syncope

November 17, 2018October 21, 2017 by admin

In the evaluation of patients with syncope, the critical first step is a detailed medical history. A diagnostic strategy based on initial evaluation is warranted. The importance of the initial evaluation goes well beyond its capability to make a diagnosis as it determines the most appropriate subsequent diagnostic pathways and risk evaluation.

THE DIAGNOSTIC STRATEGY BASED ON THE INITIAL EVALUATION

According to the Guidelines on Syncope of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC)1,2the “initial evaluation” of a patient presenting with syncope consists of taking a careful history, and a physical examination, including orthostatic blood pressure measurements and standard electrocardiogram (ECG).

Three key questions should be addressed during the initial evaluation:

• Is loss of consciousness attributable to syncope or not? Differentiating true syncope from “non‐syncopal” conditions associated with real or apparent transient loss of consciousness is generally the first diagnostic challenge and influences the subsequent diagnostic strategy....

Mental Health Disorders And Sexually Transmitted Diseases In A Privately Insured Population.

November 17, 2018October 21, 2017 by admin

Abstract

OBJECTIVES:

To consider whether patients who use mental health services in privately insured settings are also more likely to have received sexually transmitted disease (STD) or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) diagnoses and whether this relationship extends to patients with milder mental health disorders.

METHODS:

Using frequency tables stratified by age and sex, a logistic regression model, and difference of means tests, we examined the relationship between mental health claims and STDs in a sample of 289 604 privately insured people across the United States.

RESULTS:

Patients with mental health claims were more than twice as likely as other patients to have an STD claim in the same year after controlling for confounding factors (odds ratio, 2.33; 95% confidence interval, 2.11-2.58). This relationship held for severe and milder mental health diagnoses, for male and female patients, and in each age category from 15 to 44 years...

State Laws Affecting the Voting Rights of People with Mental Disabilities

February 20, 2019October 21, 2017 by admin

In California

The Legislature shall provide for the disqualification of electors while mentally incompetent CAL. CONST. art. 2, § 4.

A person shall be deemed mentally incompetent, and therefore disqualified from voting, if, during the course of any of the proceedings set forth below, the court finds that the person is not capable of completing an affidavit of voter registration in accordance with Section 2150 and a conservator is appointed or the person has pled not guilty by reason of insanity. CAL. ELEC. CODE § 2208(a). If the proceeding under the Welfare and Institutions Code is heard by a jury, the jury shall unanimously find that the person is not capable of completing an affidavit of voter registration before the person shall be disqualified from votin...

The Impact Of Mental Illness On The Risk Of Employment Termination.

November 17, 2018October 21, 2017 by admin

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Mental illness can adversely impact labor market outcomes in a variety of ways, through education attainment, employment possibilities, and income. However, little is known about the impact of mental illness on an individual's ability to maintain employment.

AIMS OF THE STUDY: This paper examines the impact of mental health on the risk of employment termination. We also distinguish between voluntary and involuntary employment termination.

METHODS: Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we used survival analysis techniques to examine the impact of a mental illness diagnosis on the risk of employment termination and propensity score matching techniques to construct similar comparison groups. Initially, we used Cox proportional-hazards models where the event of interest was termination of employment. We then used a competing risk framework to differentiate between voluntary and involuntary employment termination. We also stratified our analysis b...

RESULTS:

Interference and Inhibition in Cognition and Behavior: Unifying Themes for Educational Psychology

November 17, 2018October 21, 2017 by admin

Abstract

In this article, we review modern work on interference and inhibition in cognition and behavior. We begin by briefly reviewing the historical and conceptual roots of this new body of work. Next we discuss five new theoretical frameworks that use the concepts of interference and inhibition to explain cognitive and behavioral phenomena. In the section that follows, we review evidence of individual and developmental differences in inhibition and susceptibility to interference in “at-risk” students. We then consider the implications of this new body of work for research on educational psychology by discussing six selected areas of research: intelligence, strategies, reading comprehension, logical and mathematical reasoning, self-regulated learning, and retention. In the next section, we explore four critical issues that pose significant challenges to research in inhibition and interference. Finally, we discuss the relevance of this work to educational practice by focusing on its implications for the curriculum and instruction....