Mental Health News

A Student Mental Health Series

Posted on February 14, 2013 by harvardsmiles in Blog, Harvard Smiles Blog, Isolation, Mental Health News | Leave a comment

A Student Mental Health Series

 

SMHL is excited to present to you a weekly/bi-weekly editorial that will be featured in Harvard’s newspaper, The Crimson. It will cover a range of mental health topics and will be written by students themselves. Check here to see the first column written by Victoria Baena!

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/2/7/Harvard-mental-health/

It began with a kind of ache—throbbing, persistent. It was a “down” period like those I’d had before, except that the “down” now crept into the rest of each day, each week, until it became my new normal. It was mental, at first; “I just think too much,” I would joke to my parents. “I have to stop thinking so big.”

Shortly into the semester, though, it spread. It became physical: panic attacks came in debilitating waves, tears threatened to pierce any conversation. I would sit curled up at the corner of my bed and the wall, knees to my chest, shaking. I would try to sleep but couldn’t. Everything took longer. I had readings to do and papers to write, but they were to be done alone, and when I was alone I could let myself crumble.

During these months, it was somehow very important to me that no one knew this was happening. I spent less and less time with people, less and less time outside my room, so I had the strength to pretend everything was fine the few hours I was not alone. I cried into my pillow so my roommates wouldn’t hear. I would sit in history lecture as a panic attack came on and blink back tears, terrified that someone would notice. I wondered how everyone but me was so fine. Knowing I needed to spend time away, I applied to study abroad, which would elicit fewer questions than “taking time off.” I continued to isolate myself, which made me feel worse, which led to further isolation: It was a vicious cycle. I had never felt so alone.

If there’s anything this past year has taught me, it is how wrong I was. I was not alone. I am not alone. It is heartbreaking that it has taken, in part, two student suicides to realize this. Harvard, I think, is realizing it too. Along with such tragedies, the past year has witnessed emerging sources of hope: a Kirkland House discussion with President Drew G. Faust during which students raised questions on mental health; a suicide panel of student and recent alumni voices; a Crimson series on mental health at Harvard; and a Tumblr devoted to the same issues.

These discussions have sought to explain and understand student mental health at Harvard, broaching topics from services at UHS to a pervading atmosphere diagnosed, eloquently and memorably as “I Am Fine.” I cannot say with any kind of certainty where Harvard’s mental health problem—because we do, indeed, have a problem—comes from. Many of us, often, are far from fine. What I can say with certainty is that the conversation must go on.

This semester, we hope to write a long series of articles in an attempt to do just that. I am writing as a member of Harvard’s Student Mental Health Liaisons, a student group founded in 2008 to engage and inform students on issues of emotional wellbeing. Since getting involved with SMHL last fall, I have been inspired by the sincerity and earnestness of each member and the group as a whole in raising awareness on a broad swath of mental health issues on and beyond campus.

There needs to be a forum and catalyst for continuing discussions of mental health, and for establishing a community that supports improving mental health at Harvard. We plan to publish regular op-eds on a variety of topics this semester. We also want to hear from students, faculty, and other members of the Harvard community, who should get in touch with us through the contact section of our Harvard SMHL website so that their voices can be heard as well.

Let us keep the topic of mental and emotional wellbeing at the forefront this semester. In different ways we have all struggled, or are struggling, or will struggle, during our years at Harvard. I don’t think we can ever fully eliminate all difficulties. But we can work toward this by approaching them with empathy, compassion, and a desire to listen. We can tackle them with the knowledge that we are not alone.

Victoria A. Baena is a History and Literature concentrator in Eliot House.

 

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Spirituality in Mental Health Care: It’s Past Time to Make Room

Posted on July 30, 2012 by harvardsmiles in Mental Health News | Leave a comment

Spirituality in Mental Health Care: It’s Past Time to Make Room

Taken from Huffington Post

National surveys have consistently found that the vast majority of Americans identify as religious and/or spiritual in one way or another. But is there any room for spirituality or religious practice in psychiatric treatment? Is there a place at all for faith in an era that so privileges the brain over the mind and posits neurochemical explanations — and pharmaceutical treatments — for most ailments?

Nowadays, slick television commercials and glossy magazine ads market antidepressants directly to sufferers and their treatment providers, promising extraordinary relief and happiness. In the real world, life is not so simple. It is actually a rare case when a person’s problems are satisfactorily resolved by a prescription alone. Much more commonly, anxiety or depression or other symptoms are part of a larger picture, requiring a more complex solution. So how do we figure out what is the matter, and what might be helpful, beyond a symptom-targeted medication?

It is useful to think about human problems from four perspectives, and then to bring these perspectives together to get a sense of the whole person. The first useful perspective is a social one, which looks at what is going on in someone’s life, particularly their important relationships, to assess whether something important is occurring there. Examples might include domestic violence, or, less drastically, marital unhappiness, or being bullied in school, or some other important life circumstance. Clearly, we don’t want to offer medication when the problem requires addressing some real problem in living — for which counseling can be very helpful. The second perspective, however, is a biological one. In fact, many times depression and other mood disorders and anxiety disorders do reflect “chemical imbalances,” which have a biological component and are amenable to medical treatment if that is what the person prefers.

The third perspective is psychological. Virtually everyone — OK, everyone – has some unfinished business from the past. It’s part of the human condition. In some cases, these issues really are at the heart of a person’s suffering. Examples might include a death that was inadequately mourned or a trauma that was buried. Psychotherapy can be enormously effective in these situations.

Finally, the fourth perspective, which is extremely important to many people but is often neglected in health care, is a spiritual one. Mental health practitioners must realize that most of us see the world through a grander set of values than might be visible on the surface. These viewpoints can range in specificity from devout religious adherence to a deeply held sense of morals, but they color the way we make meaning of our lives, our environment, our problems and our gifts. Encountering events in our lives that confuse our moral compass or challenge our faith can leave us shaken, but that same faith can also be central to the healing process.

These four perspectives together — complemented by an appreciation of a client’s strengths, capabilities and personal style — give a clinician a 360-degree view of the whole person, and a chance to form a more comprehensive sense of what might be the source of suffering and how to help. Empirical studies of psychotherapy have shown that a strong therapeutic connection is the most consistent predictor of treatment success. A true alliance cannot exist without empathy, which necessitates that clinicians attempt to appreciate their clients’ most deeply held beliefs. When these four models are put into action, patient care becomes more collaborative and less pathologizing. It allows for a down-to-earth conversation that enlists a client in the process of recovery and that embraces the depth of our capacity for both suffering and resilience.

Psychiatry and psychology have come a long way in recognizing the role of religion and culture. In the early 20th century, Freud suggested that religion was an immature illusion. In 2002, the American Psychological Association instead affirmed “religious/spiritual orientation” as a key component of the level of multicultural competence to which psychologists should aspire.

Over the past 10 years there has been a flood of research suggesting that spirituality can have important stress-buffering effects, particularly for ethnic and cultural minorities. Studies of both Christian and Jewish communities in America have also found that faith has significant effects on wellbeing, lifestyle and development. The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding has recently focused on studying the role of religion in the mental health of American Muslims, and results thus far suggest that spirituality has an important part to play in the process of young adult American Muslims developing a cohesive and adaptive sense of identity.

As mental health practitioners, we believe that the spiritual aspects of our clients’ identities should not be neglected by the medical model; rather, a spiritual perspective enriches the medical model. Indeed, our faith and values help define who we are, what we’re going through and how treatment can be most effective. When this perspective is integrated into a social, biological and psychological appreciation of human problems, caring for our clients can truly become comprehensive, empathic and rewarding.

Christopher Gordon, M.D. is the Medical Director of Advocates, Inc. and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Ben Herzig, Psy.D. is a doctor of clinical psychology and a research fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.

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Awe is Good for Mental Health

Posted on July 23, 2012 by harvardsmiles in Mental Health News | Leave a comment

Taken from The Indepedent

Awe is good for mental health, study claims

John von Radowitz

Monday, 23 July 2012

Regular awe-inspiring experiences may improve our mental health and make us nicer people, psychologists have claimed, raising the prospect of “awe therapy” to overcome the stressful effects of fast-paced modern life.

The new research found that the emotion felt when encountering something jaw-dropping and overwhelming may also slow down our perception of time, by fixing the mind to the present moment.

Studies on groups of volunteers showed that experiencing awe made people feel they had more time to spare. This in turn led them to be more patient, less materialistic, and more willing to give up time to help others.

One experiment involved volunteers watching an “awesome” video depicting people encountering “vast images” such as waterfalls, whales and astronauts in space, while others wrote about inspiring memories and read about climbing the Eiffel tower and looking down on Paris.

Writing in the journal Psychological Science, the scientists, led by Melanie Rudd, from Stanford University in California, concluded: “A small dose of awe even gave participants a momentary boost in life satisfaction… and underscored the importance of cultivating awe in everyday life.”

The researchers added: “Our studies … demonstrated that awe can be elicited by a walk down memory lane, a brief story, or even a 60-second commercial.”

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Are You Suicidal?

Posted on May 7, 2012 by harvardsmiles in Academics, Coping Mechanisms, Harvard Smiles Blog, Mental Health News | Leave a comment

Taken from The Crimson

After three panic attacks in a few days during freshman year, I called the University Health Services mental health line. The first question they asked me after my name was “are you suicidal?” I wasn’t, so I received an appointment for the next week. My therapist was caring and helpful, but the sessions quickly became limited to thirty minutes every other week. The doctor apologized that he couldn’t do better—there were simply too many patients. “There are lots of people with much worse problems than you,” he told me sternly. I couldn’t argue with this, but the panic attacks recurred. Eventually I gave up on University Mental Health Services, found a private provider, and recovered. In this last part I was lucky—my family has the resources to pay for a private provider, and my symptoms were minor compared to those of many others.

In contrast to the treatment that I received at UMHS, the recommended dose for those who are diagnosed with depression or anxiety and recommended for cognitive-behavioral therapy (one of the most common types of therapy) is one to two hours of contact with their therapist a week—four to eight times more than what UMHS offered. Of course, nearly every student can repeat some story of a bungled treatment at UHS—most especially of waiting. But what is remarkable about mental health services in particular is that rationing such services means not that students have to wait for the proper treatment, but that they aren’t ever getting the right dose. Mental heath therapy works like chemotherapy treatments—getting the full amount over the right period of time is key. My case is far from unique and one of the least serious I’ve heard of. Other friends have been pressured to leave the system after a certain amount of time, or substitute student-run counseling services, or take medication instead.

This isn’t responsible care, although I believe that most of the doctors are doing the best they can with limited resources. The “are you suicidal?” question is asked first because it is an “urgent care” line, and suicidal patients must be addressed with particular care, but as well because suicidal patients must be prioritized, leaving less serious cases by the wayside. But this kind of response to the shortage of slots creates a number of problems. First, “are you suicidal?” is not the same kind of question as “are you bleeding?”; people are not qualified to recognize the severity of their problems, especially during a crisis. Sometimes patients are worse off than they know—many instances of self-harm and suicide are impulsive. Further, even those who are not suicidal know that if they present themselves as too troubled, they may be given more serious treatment than they want (anyone care to go to the hospital?) and thus downplay their symptoms. Self-reporting, especially over the phone, is a dangerously unpredictable method of diagnosing and assigning priority to patients.

Part of the underlying problem with the availability of UMHS services is that mental healthcare is often dismissed as not as important as other kinds of healthcare, just as mental illness is stigmatized and dismissed. But mental health is crucial to students’ happiness, ability to succeed academically, and—occasionally and most unfortunately— to their lifespan. In the past, the Crimson has not always published the cause of death of Harvard students who commit suicide, but the silence in these articles often indicates that this was the case.

Though suicide presents by far the most serious sign of mental health problems, the real issue is that all mental health cases ought to be taken seriously and addressed with the best quality medical care. Naturally, a system that gives everyone enough care sometimes means that people will be over-treated, just as they are for any other kind of illness; doctors will see patients who need less care than they think they need. But on the whole, the well-being and academic success of students would be best safeguarded by an improved number of mental health clinicians. There are certainly other reasons mental health is a problem at Harvard. Many have commented on the culture of always appearing “fine” rather than admitting weakness, and the level of academic pressure can’t help. These things are important and should be addressed, as well. But given that mental illness is, in fact, an illness, having enough doctors and treatment is the simplest and most obvious necessity. It’s a basic health and safety issue and is also of critical importance to the happiness and success of members of the Harvard community. We have far too many patients; we need more doctors.

Sarah C. Stein Lubrano ’13, a social studies concentrator in Kirkland House, is spending spring 2012 in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Follow her on Twitter at @SarahSteinLubra.

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College Major and Family Mental Illness

Posted on May 1, 2012 by harvardsmiles in Harvard Smiles Blog, Mental Health News | Leave a comment

Taken from The New York Times

It’s puzzling that so few American students graduate with engineering and science degrees, even though these majors would grant them much higher salaries. Maybe the reason is that these majors require so much homework.

But maybe students will take comfort from a study suggesting that the choice of major may be influenced by the way some people’s brains are wired.

The study used a survey of Princeton’s incoming freshman class of 2014 to examine correlations between major choice and neuropsychiatric disorders. It was conducted by Benjamin C. Campbell, a researcher at Princeton’s Neuroscience Institute, and Samuel S.-H. Wang, a molecular biology professor at Princeton.

Students answered questions about their academic discipline intentions, as well as whether they, their immediate family members or grandparents had one or more of a number of neurological and mental disorders, including Alzheimer’s, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (A.D.H.D.), autism spectrum disorder, bipolar syndrome, epilepsy, Parkinson’s and schizophrenia.

Most of the illnesses the researchers asked about didn’t seem to have any relationship with which academic discipline students were drawn to. But a few did.

Students pursuing STEM degrees (science, technology, engineering, math) were more likely than other students to report having a sibling with an autism spectrum disorder. (Of the 1,077 students who responded to the survey, 16 aspiring technical majors and four aspiring non-technical majors said they had siblings with an autism spectrum disorder.)

Additionally, students intending to major in the humanities were more likely to say that they, an immediate family member or their grandparent had been diagnosed with a major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder or substance abuse problems.

Intellectual interests, it seems, do have some relationship to mental and neurological disorders. At least one earlier study, based on family histories of 30 creative writers, had similarly found a connection between literary creativity and mental illness. And the findings resonate with high-profile examples of brilliant artists  who suffered from mental illness (Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Cobain, Virginia Woolf, Edvard Munch, etc.).

Prior studies have also supported the link between autism and familial interest in STEM studies.

A few things to keep in mind: First, the Princeton freshman class is obviously not representative of all college students everywhere.

Second, the share of students reporting a family history of many of these disorders was relatively small. Within those responding to the survey and listing their likely majors, 51 students had a family history of bipolar disorder, 150 with major depression and 167 with substance abuse or addiction.

The authors also say it’s not clear what explains the correlations between major choice and neuropsychiatric disorders, if indeed there is a causal relationship. It could be some combination of genetic or environmental factors, especially since autism and mental illnesses are believed to have at least some environmental component.

I wonder, too, if diagnostic problems could influence the numbers. A colleague notes that autism spectrum is so loosely diagnosed that a child who is good in math and not social often gets a diagnosis — meaning the results of this study could be somewhat circular.

Besides potential cases of overdiagnosis, there could also be issues with underdiagnosis. For example, perhaps immigrants from certain cultures are less likely to acknowledge, or at least seek out, a diagnosis of depression. And immigrants are significantly more likely to major in STEM subjects.

What say you, readers? Could your family history have influenced your intellectual pursuits?

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When We Lose Someone

Posted on April 30, 2012 by harvardsmiles in Coping Mechanisms, Harvard Smiles Blog, Mental Health News | Leave a comment

By Seth Riddley, Founder of HarvardSmiles.com

Taken from the Crimson

On Christmas Eve last year, my family received shocking news. A family member had died suddenly of a heart attack at 50 years of age. My grandmother, who was herself in ill health (she has since passed away), took the news with special difficulty. She began crying in the most disturbing sort of way, the sort of weeping one is sure will never end. The tragic news overwhelmed her, and she felt the death was more than she could bear.

Fortunately, however, because almost everyone in my family lives in upstate South Carolina, it was possible for a really beautiful thing to happen: My grandmother and all of her sisters, their kids and grandkids, all my aunts, uncles, cousins, and their friends joined together during that initial period of shock. The grief was only beginning, of course, but I can say for sure that in those first few days during Christmas, my whole family joined together to withstand the shock of Debbie’s death. Day and night, everyone stuck together. We brought one another strength.

 

Last spring, I received news that a great friend of mine had been killed on his bicycle in traffic. His name was Matt King; he had brilliant curly red hair and piercing blue eyes; and he was a person of conviction, altruism, and love. He was also my age, a Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia, a true mathematical genius.

I was in the Science Center computer lab when I found out, and I couldn’t contain my emotions. I was crying, and as you may know, crying in public can be quite uncomfortable and embarrassing. So I packed my things quickly and started walking through the Yard back to Mather. I was still crying when I passed by Thayer Hall, which houses not just freshmen, but also the peer counseling group Room 13 in its basement. Wishing not to be crying out in the open, I found my way down to the basement and down the hall and knocked on the door of Room 13.

Two students answered the door, and I was able to talk confidentially a little bit to calm myself down. They had a big couch and a huge stuffed tiger (which made me laugh because Matt King was a Clemson Tiger in his undergraduate days and continued to resemble one after he had graduated). After a little bit of time, I took a deep breath and finished walking back to Mather. I was thankful the student staffers at Room 13, whose names I cannot remember, were there that night. A few days later, at Matt’s funeral, all of his friends and family, we were able to mourn together, which brought us strength.

Of course, at the end of the day, no matter our efforts, tragedies will continue to happen. We lost one of our own last week at Harvard College, Wendy H. Chang ’12, and it has sent shockwaves through our community. There is no upside to this tragedy, but a really beautiful thing happened in this case as well: A support meeting in Lowell was organized in no time and multiple memorial services occurred on campus, not only to honor Wendy, but also to acknowledge that with community comes strength.

If you are reading this and you are struggling—whether with grief over a loss or with depression and anxiety over day-to-day living—you are not alone. Reach out to those around you, whether to friends and family or to more formal resourceslike Room 13 and University Health Services. I am confident there are few things worse for grief, depression, anxiety and the like than isolation in a college dorm room. Remember, with community comes strength. Don’t be afraid to reach out. If you’re not sure how to reach out, look back in your inbox for last week’s emails from Dean Hammonds or check out Harvard resources on the Harvard Smiles website. You might also consider attending Actively Moving Forward, the campus grief support group that meets on Thursdays, including this Thursday, May 3, in Emerson 106 at 8 p.m.

Finally, try to remember to check in with your friends if it seems like something is wrong. I missed a couple of meetings last week, and one of my friends sent me a text message just to make sure I was doing okay. I was okay, but still, it was great to know I was missed and that someone cared.

 

Seth Riddley ’12 is a History and Science concentrator in Mather House.

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In Therapy Forever? Enough Already

Posted on April 22, 2012 by harvardsmiles in Anxiety/Stress, Coping Mechanisms, Depression, Harvard Smiles Blog, Mental Health News | Leave a comment

MY therapist called me the wrong name. I poured out my heart; my doctor looked at his watch. My psychiatrist told me I had to keep seeing him or I would be lost.

New patients tell me things like this all the time. And they tell me how former therapists sat, listened, nodded and offered little or no advice, for weeks, months, sometimes years.  A patient recently told me that, after seeing her therapist for several years, she asked if he had any advice for her. The therapist said, “See you next week.”

When I started practicing as a therapist 15 years ago, I thought complaints like this were anomalous. But I have come to a sobering conclusion over the years: ineffective therapy is disturbingly common.

Talk to friends, keep your ears open at a cafe, or read discussion boards online about length of time in therapy. I bet you’ll find many people who have remained in therapy long beyond the time they thought it would take to solve their problems. According to a 2010 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, 42 percent of people in psychotherapy use 3 to 10 visits for treatment, while 1 in 9 have more than 20 sessions.

For this 11 percent, therapy can become a dead-end relationship. Research shows that, in many cases, the longer therapy lasts the less likely it is to be effective. Still, therapists are often reluctant to admit defeat.

READ MORE HERE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES

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The Keys to Intelligence, Happiness, and Health

Posted on April 21, 2012 by harvardsmiles in Mental Health News | Leave a comment

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/this-sunday-the-keys-to-intelligence-happiness-and-mental-health/

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Smiles in the Gazette

Posted on April 14, 2012 by harvardsmiles in Anxiety/Stress, Depression, Harvard Smiles Blog, Mental Health News | Leave a comment

Tuned to emotions

Student Mental Health Liaisons counsel others on stress, anxiety, depression

Madeline Holland ’15 was nervous about coming to Harvard. Then she met the Smileys.

“Before I came to school, I was worried that it was going to be an unsupportive environment,” Holland says. “Then, last semester, Student Mental Health Liaisons (SMHL) came to my dorm and gave a presentation about wellness and mental health. I admired them for addressing the difficulties of adjusting to a new place. Afterwards, I talked to one of the ‘Smileys’ about how to get involved.”

Today, Holland promotes emotional well-being among her classmates as a liaison. Founded in 2008 by Harvard University Health Services (HUHS), the Smileys have become important partners to the College’s mental health professionals, according to Paul Barreira, director of behavioral health and academic counseling.

Taken from the Harvard Gazette, read more here!

 

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Five Ways to Well-Being: The Evidence

Posted on March 22, 2012 by harvardsmiles in Anxiety/Stress, Coping Mechanisms, Depression, Mental Health News, Positivity/Inspiration | Leave a comment

Executive Summary

nef was commissioned by the Government’s Foresight project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing to develop a set of evidence-based actions to improve personal well-being. In this report, nef presents the evidence and rationale between each of the actions, drawing on a wealth of psychological and economic literature.

The 2008 Mental Capital and Wellbeing Project aims to analyse the most important drivers of mental capital and well-being to develop a long-term vision for maximising mental capital and well-being in the UK for the benefits of society and the individual.

The concept of well-being comprises two main elements: feeling good and functioning well. Feelings of happiness, contentment, enjoyment, curiosity and engagement are characteristic of someone who has a positive experience of their life. Equally important for well-being is our functioning in the world. Experiencing positive relationships, having some control over one’s life and having a sense of purpose are all important attributes of wellbeing.

GO HERE FOR A FREE DOWNLOAD OF THE PDF

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