Mental illness: is there really a global epidemic? (►https://www.the...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/9150032
Mental illness: is there really a global epidemic? | #epidemic #mentalhealth
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OSMI :: Open Sourcing Mental Illness - Changing how we talk about mental health in the tech community - Stronger Than Fear
▻https://osmihelp.orgKnow Your Rights & Change Your Culture
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The deadly effects of social inequality | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
▻https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/cutter-lecture-michael-marmot-inequalityMarmot said that it is the social conditions surrounding poverty that cause health inequities. For example, stressful experiences in childhood such as exposure to #violence on the street can lead to mental illness, risky behaviors, and a lifetime of poor health outcomes. He said that one of the ways that the root causes of health inequities could be addressed would be to reduce childhood poverty. The U.S. and U.K. have the financial capability to do so Marmot said—adding that not doing it is a political decision.
#pauvreté #inégalités #enfants #politique #états-unis #royaume-uni
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Je dirais même que c’est volontaire et probablement considéré comme une régulation naturelle des #surnuméraires.
#hiérarchisme
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In ’Mind Fixers,’ Anne Harrington Explores Role Of Drug Marketing In Mental Illness : Shots - Health News : NPR
▻https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/02/718744068/how-drug-companies-helped-shape-a-shifting-biological-view-of-mental-illness?t=Historian and Harvard professor Anne Harrington believes that pharmaceutical companies have played an oversized role in determining how mental illness is treated in the United States — leading to a rise in the use of antidepressant drugs.
Harrington’s new book, Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness, chronicles the history of psycho-pharmaceuticals, such as Prozac and Xanax, which have been used to treat depression and anxiety, as well as lithium, the first drug to treat what is now called bipolar disorder.
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Sinéad O’Connor converts to Islam, taking new name Shuhada’ Davitt | Music | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/oct/26/sinead-oconnor-converts-to-islam-shuhada-davittDavitt has candidly documented her struggles with mental health in recent years, posting a Facebook video in August 2017 in which she admitted to suicidal thoughts. “I am one of millions ... people who suffer from mental illness are the most vulnerable people on earth, we can’t take care of ourselves, you’ve got to take care of us,” she said in the video. “My entire life is revolving around not dying, and that’s not living.” In a previous update in November 2015, she said she had “taken an overdose”, and a police search was launched for her in May 2016 after she briefly went missing in Chicago, sparking fears for her wellbeing.
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Neurocapitalism | openDemocracy
▻https://www.opendemocracy.net/ewa-hess-hennric-jokeit/neurocapitalismThere is good reason to assert the existence, or at least the emergence, of a new type of capitalism: neurocapitalism. After all, the capitalist economy, as the foundation of modern liberal societies, has shown itself to be not only exceptionally adaptable and crisis-resistant, but also, in every phase of its dominance, capable of producing the scientific and technological wherewithal to analyse and mitigate the self-generated “malfunctioning” to which its constituent subjects are prone. In doing so – and this too is one of capitalism’s algorithms – it involves them in the inexorably effective cycle of supply and demand.
Just as globalisation is a consequence of optimising the means of production and paths of communication (as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels predicted), so the brain, as the command centre of the modern human being, finally appears to be within reach of the humanities, a field closely associated with capitalism. It may seem uncanny just how closely the narrow path to scientific supremacy over the brain runs to the broad highway along which capitalism has been speeding for over 150 years. The relationship remains dynamic, yet what links capitalism with neuroscience is not so much strict regulation as a complex syndrome of systemic flaws.
At this point, if not before, the unequal duo of capitalism and neuroscience was joined by a third partner. From now on, the blossoming pharmaceutical industry was to function as a kind of transmission belt connecting the two wheels and making them turn faster. In the first half of the twentieth century, mental disorders were treated mainly with sedative barbiturates, electric shock therapy and psychosurgery. But by the 1930s, neuro-psychopharmacology was already winning the day, as Freud had predicted it would.
Is it a paradox, or one of those things that are so obvious they remain unobserved, that the success of Freud’s psychoanalysis and that of modern neuroscience are based on similar premises? Psychoanalysis was successful because it wove together medically relevant disciplines like psychiatry and psychology with art, culture, education, economics and politics, allowing it to penetrate important areas of social life. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the neurosciences seem to be in a position to take on a comparable role in the future.
The ten top-selling psychotropic substances in the USA include anti-depressants, neuroleptics (antipsychotics), stimulants and drugs for treating dementia. In 2007 one hundred million prescriptions were issued for these drugs with sales worth more than sixteen billion dollars. These figures illustrate how, in an environment that is regulated but difficult to control, supply and subjectively perceived need can create a market turning over billions of dollars. What is more, it is a market that is likely to expand into those areas in which a performance-driven society confronts the post-postmodern self with its own shortcomings: in others words in schools and further education, at work, in relationships, and in old age. Among the best-selling neuro-psychotropic drugs are those that modulate the way people experience emotions and those that improve their capacity to pay attention and to concentrate, in most cases regardless of whether there is a clinically definable impairment of these functions.
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Despite the immense costs for healthcare systems, the fear of depression, dementia and attention deficit disorder legitimises the boom in neuro-psychotropic drugs. In a performance-driven society that confronts the self with its own shortcomings, neuroscience serves an expanding marketToday, the phenomenology of the mind is stepping indignantly aside for a host of hyphenated disciplines such as neuro-anthropology, neuro-pedagogy, neuro-theology, neuro-aesthetics and neuro-economics. Their self-assurance reveals the neurosciences’ usurpatory tendency to become not only the humanities of science, but the leading science of the twenty-first century. The legitimacy, impetus and promise of this claim derive from the maxim that all human behaviour is determined by the laws governing neuronal activity and the way it is organised in the brain.
Whether or not one accepts the universal validity of this maxim, it is fair to assume that a science that aggressively seeks to establish hermeneutic supremacy will change everyday capitalist reality via its discoveries and products. Or, to put it more cautiously, that its triumph is legitimated, if not enabled, by a significant shift in the capitalist world order.
There is good reason to assert the existence, or at least the emergence, of a new type of capitalism: neurocapitalism. After all, the capitalist economy, as the foundation of modern liberal societies, has shown itself to be not only exceptionally adaptable and crisis-resistant, but also, in every phase of its dominance, capable of producing the scientific and technological wherewithal to analyse and mitigate the self-generated “malfunctioning” to which its constituent subjects are prone. In doing so – and this too is one of capitalism’s algorithms – it involves them in the inexorably effective cycle of supply and demand.
Just as globalisation is a consequence of optimising the means of production and paths of communication (as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels predicted), so the brain, as the command centre of the modern human being, finally appears to be within reach of the humanities, a field closely associated with capitalism. It may seem uncanny just how closely the narrow path to scientific supremacy over the brain runs to the broad highway along which capitalism has been speeding for over 150 years. The relationship remains dynamic, yet what links capitalism with neuroscience is not so much strict regulation as a complex syndrome of systemic flaws.
Repressive late nineteenth-century capitalism, with its exploitative moral dictates, proscriptions and social injustices, was a breeding ground for the neurosis diagnosed by scientists in the early twentieth century as a spiritual epidemic. This mysterious scourge of the bourgeoisie, a class which according to Marx, “through the rapid improvement of all instruments of production [...] draws all, even the most barbarian nations, into civilisation”, expressed the silent rebellion of the abused creature in human beings. It was, in other words, the expression of resistance – as defiant as it was futile – of people’s inner “barbarian nation” to forceful modernisation and civilisation.
To introduce here the inventor of psychoanalysis and neurosis researcher Sigmund Freud as the first neurocapitalist practitioner and thinker might be thought to be overstepping the mark. Yet people tend to forget that Freud was a neuro-anatomist and neurologist by training, and saw himself primarily as a neuroscientist. What distinguished him from his colleagues was that he was more aware of the limitations of the methods available for studying the brain at the end of the nineteenth century. Having identified neurosis as an acquired pathology of the nervous system for which there was no known treatment or way to localise, he decided instead to take an indirect route. The means he invented in order both to research and to cure this mysterious illness was psychoanalysis. Fellow researchers like Oskar Vogt, who continued to search for the key to psychopathology and genius in the anatomy of the brain, were doomed to fail. From then on, psychology served the requirements of everyday life in a constantly changing capitalist reality. As a method based on communication, psychoanalysis penetrated all spheres of social interaction, from the intimate and private to the economic and cultural. In doing so, it created new markets: a repair market for mental illness and a coaching market for those seeking to optimise capitalist production and reproduction.
Delayed by the Second World War, the repressive capitalism of the nineteenth century was eventually replaced by libertarian, affluent capitalism. Conformity, discipline and feelings of guilt – the symptoms of failure to cope with a system of moral dictates and proscriptions – gave way to the new imperative of self-realisation. The psychic ideal of the successful individual was characterised by dynamically renewable readiness for self-expansion, which for the subject meant having a capacity for self-motivation that could be activated at any time and that was immune to frustration. Failure now meant not being able to exhaust the full potential of one’s options. This development brought a diametric change in the character of mental illness. Neurosis, a disorder born of guilt, powerlessness and lack of discipline, lost its significance. Attention shifted to the self’s failure to realise itself. Depression, the syndrome described by Alain Ehrenberg in The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age, began its triumphal march.
Depression, however, was also the first widespread mental illness for which modern neuroscience promptly found a remedy. Depression and anxiety were located in the gaps between the synapses, which is precisely where they were treated. Where previously there had only been reflexive psychotherapy, an interface had now been identified where suffering induced by the self and the world could now be alleviated directly and pre-reflexively.
At this point, if not before, the unequal duo of capitalism and neuroscience was joined by a third partner. From now on, the blossoming pharmaceutical industry was to function as a kind of transmission belt connecting the two wheels and making them turn faster. In the first half of the twentieth century, mental disorders were treated mainly with sedative barbiturates, electric shock therapy and psychosurgery. But by the 1930s, neuro-psychopharmacology was already winning the day, as Freud had predicted it would.
Is it a paradox, or one of those things that are so obvious they remain unobserved, that the success of Freud’s psychoanalysis and that of modern neuroscience are based on similar premises? Psychoanalysis was successful because it wove together medically relevant disciplines like psychiatry and psychology with art, culture, education, economics and politics, allowing it to penetrate important areas of social life. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the neurosciences seem to be in a position to take on a comparable role in the future.
What cannot be overlooked is that the methodological anchoring of the neurosciences in pure science, combined with the ethical legitimacy ascribed to them as a branch of medicine, gives them a privileged position similar to that enjoyed by psychoanalysis in the early twentieth century. Unlike the latter, however, the neurosciences are extremely well funded by the state and even more so by private investment from the pharmaceutical industry. Their prominent status can be explained both by the number and significance of the problems they are attempting to solve, as well as the broad public recognition of these problems, and by the respectable profits to be made should they succeed. In other words, they are driven by economic and epistemic forces that emanate from the capitalism of today, and that will shape the capitalism of tomorrow – whatever that might look like.
IIIn Germany, the USA and many western European countries, it is neither painkillers nor cardiovascular drugs that now put the greatest strain on health budgets, but rather neuro-psychotropic drugs. The huge market for this group of drugs will grow rapidly as life expectancy continues to rise, since age is the biggest risk factor for neurological and psychiatric illness. All over the world, whole armies of neuroscientists are engaged in research in universities, in projects often funded by the pharmaceuticals industry, and to an even greater extent in the industry’s own facilities, to find more effective and more profitable drugs to bring onto the market. The engine driving the huge advances being made in the neurosciences is capital, while the market seems both to unleash and to constrain the potential of this development.
Depression, anxiety or attention deficit disorders are now regarded by researchers and clinical practitioners alike as products of neuro-chemical dysregulation in interconnected systems of neurotransmitters. They are therefore treated with substances that intervene either directly or indirectly in the regulation of neurotransmitters. Given that the body’s neuro-chemical systems are highly sensitive and inter-reactive, the art of successful treatment resides in a process of fine-tuning. New and more expensive drugs are able to do this increasingly effectively and selectively, thus reducing undesirable side effects. Despite the immense costs for healthcare systems, the high incidence of mental disorders and the fear of anxiety, depression and dementia make the development of ever better neuro-psychotropic drugs desirable and legitimate.
However, the development and approval of drugs designed to alleviate the symptoms of mental disorders also open the gates to substances that can be used to deliberately alter non-pathological brain functions or mental states. The rigid ethical conventions in the USA and the European Union – today the most profitable markets for neuro-psychotropic drugs – mean that drug development, whether funded by the state or by the pharmaceuticals industry, is strictly geared towards the prevention and treatment of illness. Few pharmaceutical companies are therefore willing to make public their interest in studying and developing substances designed to increase the cognitive performance or psychological wellbeing of healthy people. The reason is simple: there is no legal market for these so-called “neuro-enhancers”. Taking such drugs to perform better in examinations, for example, is a punishable offence in the USA. Yet sales figures for certain neuro-psychotropic drugs are considerably higher than the incidence of the illnesses for which they are indicated would lead one to expect. This apparent paradox applies above all to neuropsychotropic drugs that have neuro-enhancement properties. The most likely explanation is that neuro-enhancers are currently undergoing millions of self-trials, including in universities – albeit probably not in their laboratories.
The ten top-selling psychotropic substances in the USA include anti-depressants, neuroleptics (antipsychotics), stimulants and drugs for treating dementia. In 2007 one hundred million prescriptions were issued for these drugs with sales worth more than sixteen billion dollars. These figures illustrate how, in an environment that is regulated but difficult to control, supply and subjectively perceived need can create a market turning over billions of dollars. What is more, it is a market that is likely to expand into those areas in which a performance-driven society confronts the post-postmodern self with its own shortcomings: in others words in schools and further education, at work, in relationships, and in old age. Among the best-selling neuro-psychotropic drugs are those that modulate the way people experience emotions and those that improve their capacity to pay attention and to concentrate, in most cases regardless of whether there is a clinically definable impairment of these functions.
Attempts to offset naturally occurring, non-pathological deviations from the norm are referred to as “compensatory” or “moderate enhancement” – in the same way that glasses are worn to correct the eyes’ decreasing ability to focus. The term describes a gradual improvement in function to a degree that is still physiologically natural. By contrast, “progressive” or “radical enhancement” denotes a qualitative improvement in function that exceeds natural boundaries. To return to the optical metaphor, we could say that the difference between these forms of performance enhancement is like that between wearing spectacles and night-vision glasses.
In all ages and cultures, producers and purveyors of drugs and potions purported to enhance the individual’s cognitive state have been able to do a tidy trade, as the many references to magic potions and fountains of youth in literature and the fine arts testify. Nowadays, one substance with this kind of mythical status is ginkgo. Billions of dollars worth of ginkgo-biloba preparations are sold in the USA every year; and if ginkgo really did have any significant effect on cognition or memory, it would be a classic case of the widespread, unchecked use of a compensatory neuro-enhancer. As it is, however, the myth and commercial success of ginkgo are more a testament to the perhaps universal human need for a better attention span, memory and mental powers, and to the willingness to pay good money to preserve and enhance them.
For the attainment of happiness as the aim of a good life, Aristotle recommended cultivating a virtuous mind and virtuous character. This is precisely what some neuro-psychotropic drugs are designed to do. The virtues of the mind are generally understood to be instrumental traits like memory and attention span. The extent to which these traits are innate or acquired varies from person to person. After adolescence, their efficiency gradually goes into decline at individually varying rates. Inequality and the threat of loss are strong motivations for action. The current consensus on the ethics of neuro-enhancement seems to be that as long as the fundamental medical principles of self-determination, non-harm (nil nocere) and benefit (salus aegroti) are adhered to, rejecting pharmacological intervention in the instrumental traits of the brain would be at odds with a liberal understanding of democracy.
A more complex ethical problem would seem to be the improvement of so-called character virtues, which we shall refer to here as socio-affective traits. Unlike instrumental traits such as attention span and memory, traits like temperament, self-confidence, trust, willingness to take risks, authenticity and so on are considered to be crucial to the personality. Pharmacological intervention that alters these traits therefore affects a person’s psychological integrity. While such interventions may facilitate and accelerate self-discovery and self-realisation (see the large body of literature on experience with Prozac, e.g. Peter D. Kramer, Listening to Prozac: Psychiatrist Explores Antidepressant Drugs and the Remaking of the Self , they may also do the exact opposite. We will never be able to predict with any certainty how altering instrumental and socio-affective traits will ultimately affect the reflexively structured human personality as a whole. Today’s tacit assumption that neuro-psychotropic interventions are reversible is leading individuals to experiment on themselves. Yet even if certain mental states are indeed reversible, the memory of them may not be.
The barriers to neuro-enhancement actually fell some time ago, albeit in ways that for a long time went unnoticed. Jet-lag-free short breaks to Bali, working for global companies with a twenty-four hour information flow from headquarters in Tokyo, Brussels and San Francisco, exams and assessments, medical emergency services – in all of these situations it has become routine for people with no medical knowledge to use chemical substances to influence their ability to pay attention. The technologies that have sped up our lives in the era of globalisation – the Internet, mobile phones, aeroplanes – are already a daily reality for large numbers of people and are interfering with their biologically and culturally determined cycles of activity and rest.
That is not to say that the popularisation of these findings has had no effect at all. Reconceptualising joy as dopamine activity in the brain’s reward centres, melancholy as serotonin deficiency, attention as the noradrenalin-induced modulation of stimulus-processing, and, not least, love as a consequence of the secretion of centrally acting bonding hormones, changes not only our perspective on emotional and mental states, but also our subjective experience of self. That does not mean that we experience the physiological side of feelings like love or guilt any differently, but it does make us think about them differently. This, in turn, changes the way we perceive, interpret and order them, and hence the effect they have on our behaviour. By viewing emotions in general terms rather than as singular events taking place in a unique temporal and spatial context, the neurosciences have created a rational justification for trying to influence them in ways other than by individual and mutual care.
The possibility of pharmacological intervention thus expands the subjective autonomy of people to act in their own best interests or to their own detriment. This in turn is accompanied by a new form of self-reflection, which encompasses both structural images of the brain and the ability to imagine the neuro-chemical activity that goes on there. What is alarming is that many of the neuroscientific findings that have triggered a transformation in our perception of ourselves are linked with commercial interests.
It is already clear that global capitalism will make excessive demands on our material, and even more so on our human-mental resources. This is evident from the oft-used term “information society”, since information can only function as a commodity if it changes human behaviour, and it can only do this if we accord it our attention and engage with it emotionally.
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Has #suicide become an occupational hazard of practising medicine? | CMAJ News
▻https://cmajnews.com/2018/05/29/has-suicide-become-an-occupational-hazard-of-practising-medicine-cmaj-109-It’s a view that’s gaining traction in Canada, too. “Our work environments are unhealthy and it’s supported by a culture of giving and made worse in modern times by a culture of efficiencies and bureaucracies,” says Dr. Michael Kaufmann, medical director emeritus of the Ontario Medical Association’s physician health program.
People don’t enter medical training at a higher than average risk for suicide or mental illness, he explains. But from medical school onward, the common experience is too much demand and not enough relief. “You’re constantly being asked to deliver more and you’re running on a chronic state of depletion,” Kaufmann says. Eventually, something gives. “At the end of the line, suicide is one of the most dramatic and tragic outcomes.”
#hopital #entreprise “#efficience” #perversion #médecine #médecins
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America’s Real Digital Divide - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/11/opinion/america-digital-divide.htmlA group of former Facebook and Google employees last week began a campaign to change the tech companies they had a hand in creating. The initiative, called Truth About Tech, aims to push these companies to make their products less addictive for children — and it’s a good start.
But there’s more to the problem. If you think middle-class children are being harmed by too much screen time, just consider how much greater the damage is to minority and disadvantaged kids, who spend much more time in front of screens.
According to a 2011 study by researchers at Northwestern University, minority children watch 50 percent more TV than their white peers, and they use computers for up to one and a half hours longer each day. White children spend eight hours and 36 minutes looking at a screen every day, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, while black and Hispanic children spend 13 hours.
While some parents in more dangerous neighborhoods understandably think that screen time is safer than playing outside, the deleterious effects of too much screen time are abundantly clear. Screen time has a negative effect on children’s ability to understand nonverbal emotional cues; it is linked to higher rates of mental illness, including depression; and it heightens the risk for obesity.
Make no mistake: The real digital divide in this country is not between children who have access to the internet and those who don’t. It’s between children whose parents know that they have to restrict screen time and those whose parents have been sold a bill of goods by schools and politicians that more screens are a key to success. It’s time to let everyone in on the secret.
Un point revue partial et peu argumenté, mais qu’il faut intégrer dans une réflexion plus vaste sur les usages de l’internet en fonction des classes sociales.
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Love & Mercy | Filme Video | ARD Mediathek
▻http://www.ardmediathek.de/tv/Filme/Love-Mercy/ONE/Video?bcastId=27258646&documentId=49886012
Cet biopic décrit l’enfer derrière les belles images du soleil et de la plage californienne. Disponible encore pendant deux jours.
Love & Mercy
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_%26_Mercy_(film)Love & Mercy (stylized as love&mercy) is a 2014 American biographical drama film directed by Bill Pohlad that focuses on the Beach Boys’ co-founder and leader Brian Wilson and his struggles with mental illness during the 1960s and 1980s. The film, deriving its title from the 1988 song by Wilson, stars Paul Dano and John Cusack as the young and middle-aged Wilson, respectively, with Elizabeth Banks as his second wife Melinda Ledbetter, and Paul Giamatti as his psychotherapist Dr. Eugene Landy.
télécharger la version allemande
▻http://wdrmedien-a.akamaihd.net/medp/ondemand/weltweit/fsk0/157/1577679/1577679_18146023.mp4#USA #Californie #surfer #musique
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Falling US life expectancy : The product of a deliberate ruling class policy - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/09/pers-f09.html
J’ai vu passer plusieurs analyses sur cette question préoccupante. Cette tendance a l’air de se confirmer et il est intéressant d’en rechercher les causes
Falling US life expectancy: The product of a deliberate ruling class policy
9 February 2018
An editorial in a British medical journal has focused renewed attention on the shocking reality that life expectancy in the United States is declining. “Failing health of the United States: The role of challenging life conditions and the policies behind them,” published Wednesday in BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, builds on reports in December by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that revealed US life expectancy declined in 2016 for the second year in a row.
#états-unis #démographie #Population #espérance_de_vie #santé #dégradation_sociale #décadence
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Failing health of the United States | The BMJ
▻http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k496Causes potentielles ou probables...
Why white Americans are dying at higher rates from drugs, alcohol, and suicides is unclear, complex, and not explained by opioids alone. The answer—likely some combination of factors in American life—must explain why the rise in mortality is greatest in white, middle aged adults and certain rural communities. Possibilities include the collapse of industries and the local economies they supported, the erosion of social cohesion and greater social isolation, economic hardship, and distress among white workers over losing the security their parents once enjoyed.910 By contrast, greater resilience might explain why black Americans—who have contended with longstanding structural disadvantages, discrimination, and higher all cause mortality—have not experienced a surge in drug deaths or suicides.
Other data are also enlightening. Over the three decades in which survival advances slowed in the US, educational performance weakened, social divides (including income inequality) widened, middle class incomes stagnated, and poverty rates exceeded those of most rich countries.3 The US is rich, but its wealth is not inclusive.11 Its social contract is weaker than in other countries—those in need have less access to social services, healthcare, or the prevention and treatment of mental illness and addiction. The “American dream” is increasingly out of reach, as social mobility declines and fewer children face a better future than their parents.12
Et le refus pur et simple d’y remédier
In theory, policy makers jolted by the shortening lifespan of Americans would hasten to correct these conditions. They would promote education, boost support for children and families, increase wages and economic opportunity for the working class, invest in distressed communities, and strengthen healthcare and behavioral health systems. But the pro-business policy agenda favored by elected officials rarely prioritizes these needs. On the contrary, recent legislation and regulations may prolong or intensify the economic burden on the middle class and weaken access to healthcare and safety net programs.
Ironically, leaders are outspoken about ending the opioid epidemic and bemoan spiraling and unsustainable healthcare costs. Solutions to both problems—which involve investment to support struggling families and communities and thereby improve public health—are often rejected, usually by leaders with competing self interests or ideological objections. The consequences of these choices are dire: not only more deaths and illness but also escalating healthcare costs, a sicker workforce, and a less competitive economy. Future generations may pay the greatest price.
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Natural disasters leave behind more than just physical damage
▻https://massivesci.com/articles/natural-disaster-mental-health-damageA study in Japan traces links between disasters and mental illness
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People of the Year 2017: Ninja Theory
▻http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-12-04-people-of-the-year-2017-ninja-theoryNinja Theory is to be commended for its handling of mental illness and for showing how indies can still approach AAA development
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If the gunman was Muslim, would we be talking about Las Vegas ‘terrorism’?
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/04/if-the-gunman-was-muslim-would-we-be-talking-about-las-vegas-terroriTweeting after the attack, Piers Morgan said, “If the shooter was Muslim, we’d call this a terrorist attack.” Our results suggest it’s not that simple: The effect of social identity on terrorism classifications is real (especially among respondents who self-identify as politically conservative) but modest compared to many of the other factors we analyze.
The broader problem is that the media treats Muslim perpetrators differently — they are less likely to be referred to as suffering from histories of mental illness and their actions more likely to be attributed to political motivations.
These results suggest media coverage profoundly shapes how the public comes to understand violent events. Many of the considerations we rely on most heavily when categorizing events as terrorism are relatively subjective — and require information that’s not available for days or weeks after an incident occurs.
This means pundits and policymakers have considerable leeway in how they choose to frame acts of violence — and our results show that what they report may shape public opinion long before the full details are known.
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Welcome to the Post-Hobbesian Dystopia: A War of Everyone Against Themselves
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/welcome-to-the-posthobbesian-dystopia-a-war-of-everyone-against-themWhat greater indictment of a system could there be than an epidemic of mental illness? Yet plagues of anxiety, stress, depression, social phobia, eating disorders, self-harm and loneliness...
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Unarmed Palestinian shot dead by Israeli forces at military post near Ramallah
Aug. 26, 2016 1:06 P.M. (Updated: Aug. 26, 2016 6:17 P.M.)
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=772867RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — A reportedly unarmed Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces at a military post near the illegal Israeli Ofra settlement at the western entrance to the town of Silwad in northeastern Ramallah on Friday, contradicting earlier reports by Israeli media that he had opened fire at soldiers.
An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that Israeli soldiers stationed at a military post in Silwad identified a suspect on foot running toward them.
The Israeli soldiers “shot towards the suspect, resulting in his death,” the spokesperson said.
No injuries among Israeli soldiers were reported by the army.
Medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent who had arrived at the scene were reportedly prevented from accessing the site by Israeli forces.
Initial reports from Hebrew media, however, said the suspect had opened fire from inside a vehicle, and that a woman might have been inside the car with him.
According to reports, witnesses said that he was shot and critically injured while inside his vehicle, and was later pronounced dead.
When asked about the conflicting reports, and whether or not the suspect had been armed, the Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an the details of the incident were still being checked.
The suspect was later identified by local sources in the Ramallah area as 38-year-old Iyad Zakariya Hamed . He was married and a father of three.
Israeli news site Ynet quoted an anonymous Palestinian official as saying that Hamed suffered from mental illness and was not found to have any weapons on his person when searched, and no signs of gunfire were found on the guard post.
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Cisjordanie : des soldats israéliens abattent un homme qui courait dans leur direction
26 août 2016, 14:57
▻https://francais.rt.com/international/25529-cisjordanie-soldats-israeliens-abattentL’Armée de défense isralienne a déclaré avoir abattu un Palestinien alors que ce dernier courait vers leur position dans un village de Cisjordanie, Silwad, au Nord-Est de Ramallah. L’homme ne semblait pas armé. Une enquête est en cours.
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Israel investigating claim unarmed Palestinian was shot in the back
Aug. 28, 2016 11:47 A.M. (Updated: Aug. 28, 2016 1:53 P.M.)
▻https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=772882BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The Israeli army’s military police have reportedly opened an investigation into the killing of an unarmed Palestinian man who was shot dead by Israeli forces on Friday, an Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an.
Thirty-eight-year-old Iyad Zakariya Hamed, a resident of the Ramallah area village of Silwad, was shot dead by Israeli forces near a military post at the village’s entrance not far from the illegal Israeli settlement Ofra, when soldiers alleged that they saw Hamed “charging” towards them.
Israeli media initially reported that Hamed, a husband and father of three, fired shots at the Israeli soldiers, though it was later confirmed that he was unarmed.
According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, any death of a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank who was “not involved in actual fighting” warrants an Israeli military police investigation, and that the investigation into Hamed’s killing will look into the activity of the soldiers responsible — who were members of the “ultra-orthodox” Kifr Brigade — before they opened fire, and why they fired deadly shots at Hamed when “danger was not immediately clear.”
In addition, the investigation will look into the claim from Palestinian medical officials that Hamed was shot in the back. The officials also reportedly said that Hamed had mental disabilities and had been receiving psychiatric treatment.
The Israeli army has maintained however, that Hamed was running toward the military post when the soldiers opened fire.
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Israel: Where the media will blindly buy what the ruling authorities dictate
By Gideon Levy | Aug. 27, 2016 | 11:56 PM
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.738936
A thousand reports are published about every West Bank settler who is murdered, yet Friday’s killing of an innocent man evoked one big yawn. It’s not terror, or apartheid, or racism or dehumanization. It’s only killing a subhuman.It was late in the morning. In Israel people were completing their preparations for Shabbat. The military reporters bought challahs, the soldiers left their bases for the weekend. At the Yabrud checkpoint in the West Bank their colleagues saw a man. Actually, they didn’t see a man. They saw a subhuman. They shot him as they were taught. The military reporters reported also as taught: “A terrorist fired a weapon at a pillbox post in Ofra. Nobody was hurt. The force fired back and the terrorist was killed.”
Routine. There is no contradiction between “nobody was hurt” and “the terrorist was killed.” Only Jews can be hurt. An update followed: “The Kfir squad commander, who saw the terrorist throw a firebomb at an IDF pillbox in Silwad, shot and killed him. Nobody was hurt.” Now the shooting had turned into “a firebomb.” A short time later, it was reported: “Apparently, he was mentally unstable. A search on his body resulted with no findings.” In other words, murder.
This is what Channel 10 reporter Or Heller tweeted on Friday, as did some of his colleagues, including Alon Ben-David. Heller is far from the worst of the military reporters, who recite automatically whatever the army spokesman dictates to them without attributing the quote to the spokesman, and consider themselves journalists.
There is no other coverage area in which journalists can act like that. They buy blindly, fervidly, what the ruling authorities dictate to them. The lies about what happened on Friday at the Yabrud checkpoint were spread by the IDF, of course. Afterward the IDF corrected itself, and only after that did the reporters follow suit and report: “the Palestinian didn’t try to attack the soldiers.” Good evening and Shabbat Shalom.
It was late in the morning. Iyad Hamed, of Silwad, was on his way to Friday prayers in the mosque. Years ago he hurt his head in a traffic accident and since then had been mentally unstable. He was 38, a father of three, including a baby. A witness who testified to B’Tselem Saturday, Iyad Hadad, said Hamed had lost his way, panicked when he saw the soldiers at the checkpoint and ran. He ran for his life. He wasn’t armed, he endangered no one.
Paramedic Yihia Mubarak believes he was shot in the back as he ran. He saw an entry wound in the victim’s back and an exit wound in his chest. Hamed died on the spot. Shortly afterward his body was returned. Israel’s lust for bodies was satiated this time, after it transpired that Hamed had been killed although he had done nothing wrong.
A dead Arab. Oh well. We’ve moved onto other, more interesting and important matters. When a single Qassam rocket from Gaza lands, without hurting anyone or causing any damage, Israel launches a revenge campaign of bombardments and shelling, sowing devastation and horror. It’s allowed to do anything. The disappointed military reporters provoke the defense minister, asking, “why only real estate?” And what about Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, whom Avigdor Lieberman had promised to assassinate?
Israel is allowed to do anything. Are the Palestinians allowed to take revenge for the killing of their friend? What a ludicrous question. Are they allowed to try to “deter” IDF soldiers, as Israel does with Hamas, so that they don’t kill innocent passersby again? Another ludicrous question. Will anyone be punished for this killing? An even more ludicrous question.
If an Israeli dog had been killed by a Palestinian assailant, Israel would have been much more shocked than by Hamed’s killing. A thousand reports are published about every West Bank settler who is murdered, yet Friday’s killing of an innocent man evoked one big yawn. It’s not terror, or apartheid, or racism or dehumanization. It’s only killing a subhuman.
I was in Silwad about nine months ago, after Border Policemen killed Mahdia Hamed, a 40-year-old mother of four. The Border Policemen claimed she had tried to run them over with her car, but eyewitnesses testified she had been driving slowly. At home, her 10-month-old infant was waiting to be breast-fed.
They shot her several times and the bullets pierced and ran through her body. Nobody was put on trial. The widower, Adiv Hamed, asked me then, in his naivety: “Do the Israelis know what happened? Was there a public debate in Israel after she was killed?”
I was silent with shame.
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A mentally disabled Palestinian shot dead by Israeli troops for behaving strangely
▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.739750
’Let’s say Iyad was behaving strangely. Why kill him?’ his brother ponders. ’When they grow up, Iyad’s children are liable to hate Israel, and with good reason. You killed their father.’
By Gideon Levy and Alex Levac | Sep. 2, 2016 | 4:39 PM | 5The man who was shot to death last Friday by a soldier from the Kfir Brigade’s ultra-Orthodox Netzach Yehuda Battalion was 38 and the father of two small children, a son and a daughter, who were this week scurrying around the living room of their house, in a state of bewilderment, she in a purple skirt, he in shorts. Their father, Iyad Hamed, had a congenital mental disability: Introverted and taciturn, he was prone to stare at the ground as he walked. He enjoyed communing with nature and picking figs and almonds. Still, there was structure in his life: He had a wife and children, and worked in construction in a simple job. “He wasn’t the sharpest of people,” his brothers say.
Footage from the security camera of the grocery store in Silwad, a village near Ramallah, shows his last minutes. Hamed, in a light-colored shirt, is seen buying snacks for his children and paying. A few moments later, he sets out for a mosque for the Friday prayers, never to return. Nothing in the footage hints at what is about to happen: A father buys treats for his children in the final hour of his life.
Most of Hamed’s family is in America, as are many of the natives of this well-to-do village. Ten years ago, his six brothers moved to Ohio – to Columbus and Cleveland – where they work in real estate. Iyad, the eldest, remained in Silwad, as did his sister. He started a family, but recently decided to emigrate, as well; one of his brothers said he’d submitted a petition to the authorities to that end.
He lived on the ground floor of the family’s stone house. The building is handsome, though less splendid than other mansion-type dwellings in this elegant neighborhood on a hill. The second floor is used by the brothers and their families during their annual vacations here. This summer they visited twice: once on holiday and then not long afterward – to mourn and grieve for their dead brother.
Their parents divide their time between America and Silwad, some of whose privately owned land was taken to build the settlement of Ofra. Many residents of this well-to-do village have moved in recent years to the United States.
Last December, Border Police shot and killed another Silwad resident, Mahdia Hammad, a 40-year-old mother of four, claiming that she was trying to run them over. Now the army has killed Iyad Hamed without any apparent reason: He wasn’t armed and didn’t pose a threat to anyone.
The Israel Defense Forces itself admits that.
The killing took place at the edge of the village, not far from Highway 60, a former venue for demonstrations and stone throwing. The demonstrations ceased in the past month, under pressure from locals, who are tired of the tear gas and the upheaval. Five Silwad residents were killed in the past year by Israeli troops.
We are standing next to a mound of stones where Hamed collapsed, bleeding, last Friday. He’d come this far, after dropping off the snacks for the kids at home, on his way to a mosque in the neighboring village of Yabrud, where he prayed on Fridays. He preferred it to the mosques in Silwad.
On the way, he stopped at the Silwad gas station to say hello to his friend Rashad, who works there. The gas station’s security camera caught him again. He then went on his way to Yabrud, which is located on the other side of Highway 60. He could have used the passage beneath the road but opted for the shorter route, which passes next to a towering, armored IDF pillbox.
It was about 11:40 A.M. On the other side of the road, Abdel Hamid Yusuf, a solidly built young man of 26, was driving his sewage tanker to the site where he empties it. An eyewitness to the events, he is now standing with us at the place where Hamed was killed, along with Iyad Hadad, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.
Hamed was behaving oddly, recalls Yusuf, who knew him well and was aware of his condition. Hamed seemed to have lost his way and also his senses; he ran back and forth below the army tower. Yusuf says he saw no soldiers while Hamed was running about between it and the surrounding barbed-wire fences. Hamed looked frightened. He had wanted to cut across the highway to the mosque, but couldn’t find his way out. He was like a caged animal; the barbed-wire fences were impassable. “It’s dangerous there, get out!” Yusuf shouted to him from across the road. Hamed didn’t respond – maybe he didn’t hear Yusuf.
It’s crucial to note that Hamed was not holding anything in his hands. That is confirmed by Yusuf and by what the footage from the gas station’s camera shows: an unarmed civilian in a light-colored shirt, who apparently got confused and lost his way.
Suddenly a few shots rang out. Hamed started to run frantically back toward the village. It’s not clear where the shots came from, but immediately afterward Yusuf saw a few soldiers emerge from the vegetation at the foot of the tower. Hamed kept running. More shots were fired at him, apparently by the soldiers, who had been in ambush. He was hit and fell to the ground. One bullet entered his back and exited through his chest, paramedic Yahya Mubarak, who took possession of the body, would report afterward.
A., who lives in apartment No. 9 in the nearby Hurriya Tower building in Silwad, went out to his balcony when he heard shooting. What he told the field researcher corroborated Yusuf’s account: Hamed ran for his life until he was felled.
Four soldiers rolled Hamed’s body over with their feet. He probably died instantly, though that’s not certain. An Israeli ambulance arrived about 15 minutes later, but Yusuf says he couldn’t see whether Hamed received medical aid. More troops arrived in a silver-gray civilian car. The body lay on the ground for some time before being removed by soldiers. A few hours later, the body was returned to the family, after it became clear to the IDF – which is rarely in a hurry to give back bodies – that Hamed had done nothing wrong and was killed in vain.
The cardboard packages that contained IDF-issue bullets are scattered on the ground where Hamed went down. An IDF officer approaches us from the direction of the tower, and four soldiers emerge out of nowhere from another direction. Minutes later, another group of soldiers comes up from the valley. Maybe one of them killed Hamed?
The soldier who fired the shot that killed him was questioned this week by the Military Police on suspicion of causing death by negligence and then sent back to his unit. He wasn’t so much as suspended from his duties.
In the house of mourning is the father, Zakariya, 58, dignified and wearing a stylized embroidered galabia. With him are two of his sons, Yahya, 34, from Columbus, and Ahmed, 31, from Cleveland. Hamed’s fatherless offspring, 9-year-old Zakariya and 3-year-old Lian, are with their mother, newly widowed Narmine.
“Come on, we are human beings, we don’t get shot at like that,” Yahya says. “Come on, we have kids. The soldier took a human life. It made me want to throw up when I read the reports of what happened in [the newspaper] Yedioth Ahronoth.”
When they were here a month ago, on vacation, the brothers brought new clothes for Iyad as gifts. Iyad hadn’t worn them yet; he was saving them for Id al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice. Now he will never wear them, “because some soldier decided to kill him.” The faces of the brothers are contorted in grief again.
Yahya: “Let’s say Iyad was behaving strangely. Why kill him? Shoot him in the leg. Why kill him? You’re not God. In the first intifada, they shot at the legs. You could talk with the soldiers. Now you reach a hand toward your pocket, and they kill you. Do you know what a tragedy the soldier who killed my brother caused? How many families he destroyed?”
The children cuddle up to their two uncles. Lian blows up a balloon and floats it in the room. She has lazy eye, and wears thick glasses. She’s scheduled to have an operation for the condition in a few weeks; her father will not be there to accompany her.
Yahya, who reads the English-language edition of Haaretz in the United States on his phone, says, “The children know that a Jewish soldier killed their father,” he says. “When they grow up, they are liable to hate Israel, and with good reason. You killed their father.
“We are not a political family,” he continues. “We have never been in prison, we have never thrown a stone. Neither had Iyad. But what love will these children have for Israel when they grow up? You want to live here? Fine. But don’t kill us. Let us live, too. You love life – so do we. Everyone will tell you what a pure soul Iyad was. He never hurt anyone. I’d like to know what [Chief of Staff] Gadi Eisenkot will have to say about this killing. And what the soldier who killed Iyad is feeling. I heard he’s religious. Does that mean he has earlocks?
“When I accidentally run over a cat on the road, I feel bad for a long time afterward,” Yahya says. “What does the soldier who killed my brother feel now?”
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Machine Learning algorithm fed by Instagram reveals predictive markers of depression
▻http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/ai-program-uses-instagram-to-diagnose-depression
A new artificial intelligence program can pick up on the early signs of depression before humans (and even humans who are general practitioners) can — and just by using Instagram. A team of researchers from Harvard and the University of Vermont recently developed a machine learning program that correctly identified which Instagram users were clinically depressed with 70 percent accuracy.
The study by Andrew G. Reece and Christopher M. Danforth:
▻http://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.03282v2.pdf
Abstract: Using Instagram data from 166 individuals, we applied machine learning tools to successfully identify markers of depression. Statistical features were computationally extracted from 43,950 participant Instagram photos, using color analysis, metadata components, and algorithmic face detection.
Resulting models outperformed general practitioners’ average diagnostic success rate for depression. These results held even when the analysis was restricted to posts made before depressed individuals were first diagnosed. Photos posted by depressed individuals were more likely to be bluer, prayer, and darker. Human ratings of photo attributes (happy, sad, etc.) were weaker predictors of depression, and were uncorrelated with computationally generated features. These findings suggest new avenues for early screening and detection of mental illness.
#machine_learning #artificial_intelligence #AI #face_detection
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Qualification Directive and Previous Torture: What is the Scope of Coverage for Mental Illness?
Nowadays, the island nation of Sri Lanka is a popular tourist destination. People from all over South Asia, and elsewhere, flock to marvel at the country’s historical attractions and its overwhelming natural beauty. But, rather than being driven by genuine peace making, stability in Sri Lanka was achieved through the barrel of the gun and mass murder. As if the Sinhalese government’s war crimes were not enough, the country is also governed under a plenary system whereby “Parliament has turned out to be ineffective against an over-mighty executive President, playing to the President’s tune.” Rather than speaking “softly” and carrying “a big stick”, senior academics and lawyers in the country are united in their view that “Parliament has been talking big while carrying a fiddle stick.” In this Sri Lankan case, Lord Neuberger (President), Lady Hale (Deputy President), Lord Kerr, Lord Hughes and Lord Toulson decided to make a reference to the CJEU and asked: Does article 2(e), read with article 15(b), of the Qualification Directive cover a real risk of serious harm to the physical or psychological health of the applicant if returned to the country of origin, resulting from previous torture or inhuman or degrading treatment for which the country of origin was responsible?
▻https://asadakhan.wordpress.com/2016/07/17/qualification-directive-and-previous-torture-what-is-the-scope-
#directive_qualification #Sri_Lanka #santé_mentale #réfugiés #asile #migrations #renvoi #expulsion -
Long Ignored in Global Development, Mental Illness Is Declared a Top Priority
At Out of the Shadows, a jointly hosted high-level event leading up to the bank’s annual spring meetings with finance ministers from all over the world, the two organizations promoted cost-effective treatment for anxiety and depression, declaring that failure to treat these two most common mental illnesses can contribute to poverty and diminish economic growth. This is a groundbreaking move that could have enormous positive implications for people with mental illness worldwide—but only if grounded in a human rights–based approach.
▻https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/long-ignored-global-development-mental-illness-declared-top-
#santé_mentale #santé -
Mental illness on the rise in Israeli army
Friday, 25 March 201
▻https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/24681-mental-illness-on-the-rise-in-israeli-armyThe head of the Mental Health Unit in the Israeli army warned that the number of patients with mental illnesses among IDF soldiers will triple over the next ten years, as reported by the Quds Press Service.
During a hearing held in the Israeli parliament on Wednesday, Col. Karen Ginat said that thousands of fighters in the Israeli army are being treated, revealing that there are pilots in the Israeli Air Force who are taking antidepressants.
Ginat warned against allowing these soldiers to go out of their bases with their weapons because they would pose a danger to society.
She added that military officials have warned of such danger; however, they decided to allow soldiers to take their weapons home.
Ginat said that young soldiers often avoid asking for help regarding their mental illnesses; which creates a crisis for the army. This makes it difficult for the military to identify the psychological and mental disorders afflicting these soldiers.
She pointed to the recent suicide of four soldiers who were suffering from serious mental illness, which they did not disclose.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has recently revealed that the Israeli army has hired psychologists to work in its ranks, in response to a growing of phenomenon of mental illness and suicide among Israeli soldiers.
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Les #réfugiés plus exposés à la #schizophrénie
Sur une population de référence de 10.000 personnes, 12 nouveaux diagnostics de schizophrénie sont faits chaque année parmi les réfugiés.
▻http://www.lavenir.net/cnt/dmf20160316_00796010
#santé #santé_mentale #asile #migrations-
Increased vulnerability of migrants: non-affective psychosis in Sweden
The relationship of migration to non-affective, schizophrenia-like psychosis has been a key question in epidemiological studies of mental illness. Migrants have higher rates of non-affective psychosis but the causes are complex and include both push factors (making it more likely for someone developing a paranoid illness to choose to leave their country of origin) and also post-migration factors that might include social isolation, stigma and a range of other psychosocial stressors.
▻http://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/psychosis/increased-vulnerability-of-migrants-non-affective-psychosis-in-s
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Google wants to monitor your mental health. You should welcome it into your mind - Telegraph (James Kirkup, 28 octobre 2015)
▻http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11961415/Google-wants-to-monitor-your-mental-health.-You-should-welcome-it-into-The use of technology to track and treat mental illness is deeply worrying but sadly necessary.
Next week, Dr Tom Insel leaves his post as head of the US National Institute of Mental Health, a job that made him America’s top mental health doctor. Dr Insel is a neuroscientist and a psychiatrist and a leading authority on both the medicine and public policies needed to deal with problems of the mind. He’s 64 but he’s not retiring. He’s going to work for #Google.
More precisely, he’s going to work for Google Life Sciences, one of the more exotic provinces of the online empire. He’s going to investigate how technology can help diagnose and treat mental health conditions. Google doesn’t just want to read your mind, it wants to fix it too.
It’s not alone. Apple, IBM and Intel are among technology companies exploring the same field. IBM this year carried out research with Columbia University that suggested computer analysis of speech patterns can more accurately predict the onset of psychosis than conventional tests involving blood samples or brain scans. Other researchers theorise that a person’s internet search history or even shopping habits (so handily recorded by your innocuous loyalty card) can identify the first signs of mental illness. Computers can now tell when something is about to go terribly wrong in someone’s mind.Farewell | NIMH (By Thomas Insel on October 29, 2015)
▻https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2015/farewell.shtmlI am leaving NIMH later this week and will soon begin working on mental health issues at Google Life Sciences (GLS), a new company under the Alphabet umbrella. I don’t know exactly what the team will do at GLS but the theme will be “disruptive innovation” and the approach is likely to involve technology and what is now called “deep learning” (what some have called “data analytics”). As an example of the approach, the GLS team working on diabetes has created a contact lens with a sensor for continuous, passive, precise monitoring of glucose. This contact lens includes a Bluetooth transmitter linked to the patient’s cell phone, which in turn, controls an insulin pump. Could we create an analogous closed loop system to help people manage depression or anxiety or psychosis? That’s a question I will be thinking about a lot in the coming months.
#santé_mentale #médecine
#psychiatrie #prédiction #algorithmie cc @didier2 @laetitia -
A Vaccine for Depression ? - Issue 31 : Stress
▻http://nautil.us/issue/31/stress/a-vaccine-for-depressionOne sunny day this fall, I caught a glimpse of the new psychiatry. At a mental hospital near Yale University, a depressed patient was being injected with ketamine. For 40 minutes, the drug flowed into her arm, bound for cells in her brain. If it acts as expected, ketamine will become the first drug to quickly stop suicidal drive, with the potential to save many lives. Other studies of ketamine are evaluating its effect as a vaccination against depression and post-traumatic stress. Between them, the goal is nothing less than to redefine our understanding of mental illness itself. Depression is the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting 30 percent of Americans at some point in their lives. But despite half a century of research, ubiquitous advertising, and (...)
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From #Gaza to the #UK: mental health isn’t just a medical problem, it’s political
We have to interchange ‘mental illness’ with words like ‘suffering’, and emphasise political action alongside psychological intervention.
▻https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/annie-kaminsky/from-gaza-to-uk-mental-health-isn%27t-just-medical-problem-it%27s-pol
#santé_mentale #problème_politique #politique #Palestine
cc @reka -
Are Massachusetts Prisons Becoming the New Asylums?
▻http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/10/21/massachusetts-prisons-new-asylumsPrisons are designed to keep those convicted of a crime locked within secure walls—not to take the place of mental-health facilities. But over the past decade, that’s exactly what has happened. Some experts point the finger at finances; others at the closure of mental hospitals in the state. In any case, almost 25 percent of Massachusetts state prisoners are now classified as “open mental health cases” by the Department of Correction (DOC).
While a recent study by The Wall Street Journal puts the Bay State in the middle of the pack, nationwide, the Massachusetts DOC paints a bleak picture. An eye-popping 2,502 of 10,218 state prisoners were diagnosed with some form of mental illness for which they were receiving treatment in 2012, according to a DOC study from that year. June Binney, the Criminal Justice Project Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts (NAMI Mass.), said in an email that she thought the numbers were even higher in 2013. “… [The] extent to which we tolerate the criminalization of people with mental illness is shameful,” she said.
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Photographies, label et stéréotypes
Pour une fois ne pas parler du boulot, tout en restant sur le thème des #stéréotypes…
Deux liens vers des projets où se rencontrent la #photographie et les #mots. Assez émouvants comme résultats, je trouve…
– ’What I Be’ Project Reveals People’s Darkest Insecurities In Stunning Photos (HuffingtonPost)
▻http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/08/what-i-be-project_n_4556929.htmlPhotographer Steve Rosenfield recently asked subjects far and wide to complete the following statement: “I am not my _” He prompted individuals to fill in the blank with their deepest and darkest insecurities, moving people to bring issues regarding body image, substance abuse, mental illness, race and sexuality to the forefront.
The results of the social experiment of sorts is a photography series titled the “What I Be Project,” an intimate examination of the anxieties and inhibitions that plague men and women of all ages. Rosenfield posed his volunteers in simple positions, adorning the subjects with bold black phrases of their choosing, written on their arms, chests and faces.– Stunning Nude Photos Explore The True Power Of Stereotypes And Labels [NSFW] (HuffingtonPost)
▻http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/15/lauren-renner_n_5317104.htmlWhat defines you? The loving words bestowed upon you by your loved ones — such as strong, kind, or beautiful; mother, inspiration or fighter? Or the slurs cast upon you by strangers or acquaintances — like stupid, fat or annoying; failure, bitch or fuck-up?
Photographer Lauren Renner explores the many ways we are defined by labels, from the mouths of others as well as ourselves, in a stunning series entitled “In Others’ Words.”
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