March 2016

“When people ask me, ‘Would you like a piece of cake?’ My answer is ‘No, you take the piece and give me the rest of the cake,” said Midland woman “Lisa” of the years she was stuck in a cycle of compulsive overeating before she joined Overeaters Anonymous (OA) and found help. “When all the candy’s on sale after Halloween especially, that bag of candy bars would be literally calling my name.” Before a binge, something would overcome her and she would lose any ability to control herself, she...

Join me and my guests, John Brooks and Nancy Newton Verrier, on “About Health.” Monday March 7th from 2-3PM on KPFA.org or 94.1FM. We will discuss, The Girl Behind the Door, A Father’s Quest to Understand His Daughter’s Suicide , by John Brooks. It provides a profound look into adoption, teenage suicide, and attachment issues. When John and Erika’s daughter Casey jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge in 2008, John began to unravel a heartbreaking truth—Casey had been in pain since birth,...

This post is first in a series of stories from youth about their experiences of homelessness and resiliency. Thank you to each of the authors who have so generously shared personal details of their lives for the benefit of others. We are inspired by their courage and hopes for the future. We must learn from their stories and partner with them to implement effective, meaningful solutions. When I was 21, I was living in a group home run by the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in the...

This is a poem I come back to over and over again. I found it years ago, and every time I look at it, it seems to resonate in new ways. After some days of supporting clients, it’s the “immense responsibility and very little authority” that catches me. After other days, it’s about “resounding triumphs and devastating failures.” And still other days, it’s about “always be[ing] frustrated.” My frustration is sometimes directed at the systems. Why are they so complicated? Why do they set people...

In January 2011, a 9mm bullet, fired point-blank from the gun of a mentally ill assailant, passed through the left rear of Gabrielle Giffords's head and exited just over her left eye. The Arizona congresswoman, who had been meeting with constituents in front of a supermarket near Tucson, would survive—despite massive trauma to the left side of her brain, the regions that control vision, movement, and speech. After surgery and intensive therapy, some 10 months later Giffords could respond to...

On Tuesday, two days after a film about a massive Catholic sex-abuse scandal in Boston won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Pennsylvania’s attorney general released a grand jury report chronicling “staggering and sobering” accounts of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. The report alleges that, dating back to the 1970s, “hundreds of children have fallen victim to child predators” in abuse cases that involved over 50 priests and religious leaders in the area: As wolves...

In almost all major American cities, most African American and Hispanic students attend public schools where a majority of their classmates qualify as poor or low-income, a new analysis of federal data shows. This systemic economic and racial isolation looms as a huge obstacle for efforts to make a quality education available to all American students. Researchers have found that the single-most powerful predictor of racial gaps in educational achievement is the extent to which students...

Alison Hanks-Sloan wanted to know how to keep her students from dropping out. A former ESOL teacher, she was working in the international students’ office at Prince George’s County Public Schools, a large suburban system in Maryland, right next to Washington, D.C. Just two-thirds of the county’s English language learners were graduating high school at all, let alone on time. Immigrants make up one-third of the system’s 128,000 students. New students are arriving all the time, including,...

In 2006, the Brookings Institution worked with the Center for Transit Oriented Development and the Center for Neighborhood Technology to study the transportation patterns of the U.S.’s low-income population. Until then, many researchers and policymakers had assumed that larger and wealthier households owned more vehicles—and more expensive ones—and drove more miles overall. But the 2006 study found that transportation methods had less to do with household income and more to do the...

A new report claims that “non-white race” adolescents showed higher resilience in the foster care system as they approached the age of emancipation. Many foster youth face challenges transitioning into independent adults. These challenges are related to difficult experiences in childhood and lack of adequate resources, resulting in dysfunctional behaviors and outcomes. The study attempts to explore the success stories among these high-risk youth–those who circumvent the challenges and...

Mark Cuban and Emmitt Smith are speaking up about mental illness so others won’t remain silent. Dallas’ Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute launched a new effort Monday to encourage Texans to seek any psychological treatment they need. At okaytosay.org , people can share their stories and offer support to spread the word that effective treatment is available statewide. “Nine out of ten Texans think that it is more difficult to discuss mental health rather than a physical issue,” the...

Of all the patients I have seen in my 40 years as a psychoanalyst, Daniel was the strangest. He was the most inaccessible, inwardly tormented and infuriating man I have ever known, and yet he stayed in therapy with me for over a decade, calling faithfully every week — he insisted that his work schedule precluded coming in person — even though he spent many of those sessions in silence or addressed me as if I were inanimate. He drove me crazy, he haunted me and he moved me, sometimes all in...