In the News
As the nation's dairy farmers struggle through their fourth year of depressed milk prices, concerns are rising that many are becoming depressed themselves. The outlook for the next year is so bleak, it's heightening worries — especially in the Northeast — about farmer suicides.
Agri-Mark Inc., a dairy cooperative with about 1,000 members, saw three farmers take their own lives in the past three years. The most recent was last month. It's a very small sample, but very sharp and disturbing increase.
As two clinical psychologists, we ought to be thrilled when public conversations draw attention to mental health. After all, mental health problems tend to be under-researched, undertreated, and overstigmatized. So when President Donald Trump promises, as he did last week, to "tackle the difficult issue of mental health," it should be music to our ears.
As a nation, we have the singular distinction of being so familiar with mass shootings we already know the narrative gun control opponents roll out in the aftermath: It's not about guns, it's about mental illness.
President Donald Trump continued to point to mental-health solutions to America's gun-violence problem this week, this time saying that he would like to reopen mental asylums that have been closed over the past few decades.
"Part of the problem is we used to have mental institutions ... where you take a sicko like this guy," he said in a discussion with state and local officials about last week's mass shooting at a high school in Florida. "We're going to be talking seriously about opening mental-health institutions again."
President Trump called again on Thursday for the opening of more mental hospitals to help prevent mass murders like the one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
Yet ramping up institutional care, experts say, likely would not have prevented most of the spree killings regularly making headlines in this country.
Only about 50 percent of adolescents with depression get diagnosed before reaching adulthood. And as many as 2 in 3 depressed teens don't get the care that could help them.
"It's a huge problem," says Dr. Rachel Zuckerbrot, a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and associate professor at Columbia University.
Against a backdrop of mental health crises from mass shootings to an increase in suicides, there's an unprecedented demand for psychiatrists, new data and physician recruiters report.
For years now, the U.S. health system has lacked enough primary care providers like family physicians and internists as more Americans with a pent up demand for treatment gained the ability to pay under the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile, insurers emphasize value-based care that encourages patients to get better treatment upfront in a doctor's office.
After nearly a year of study, a civilian oversight panel Thursday recommended Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell sharply increase the number of special teams that respond when deputies need help in the field dealing with individuals with mental health problems.
Exercise may help the brain to build durable memories, through good times and bad.
Stress and adversity weaken the brain's ability to learn and retain information, earlier research has found. But according to a remarkable new neurological study in mice, regular exercise can counteract those effects by bolstering communication between brain cells.
LONDON — A vast research study that sought to settle a long-standing debate about whether or not anti-depressant drugs really work has found they are indeed effective in relieving acute depression in adults.
The international study - a meta-analysis pooling results of 522 trials covering 21 commonly-used antidepressants and almost 120,000 patients - uncovered a range of outcomes, with some drugs proving more effective than others and some having fewer side effects.