psychiatric disability

NCDJ Board Member Becky Curran Kekula Discusses Facing the Fear of Inclusivity

NCDJ board member Becky Curran Kekula speaks with a TMJ-4 reporter on “The Morning Blend” about inclusive ways to discuss disability.

By “The Morning Blend” show on TMJ-4 Milwaukee

NCDJ board member Becky Curran Kekula appeared on this morning talk show to discuss tips for treating people with disabilities fairly and respectfully. Part of the discussion focused on the fact that since 70% of disabilities are invisible, many people are nervous to either admit they have a disability, or to speak about someone who may have a disability that isn’t immediately apparent.

Also featured are some of Becky’s favorite tips for working remotely — a particularly relevant topic in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Watch the full segment here: https://www.tmj4.com/shows/the-morning-blend/facing-the-fear-of-inclusivity

Mother asks Maricopa County prosecutors to release her daughter, a 19-year-old with mental illness, from Lower Buckeye Jail

Image: a screenshot of the Arizona Republic article about Gloria by reporter Uriel Garcia.
Image: a screenshot of the Arizona Republic article on Gloria by reporter Uriel J. Garcia. 

Valentina Gloria, a 19-year-old woman who has been diagnosed with several mental illnesses, has been detained at Maricopa County’s Lower Buckeye Jail for nearly six months, since February of this year. Now Vangelina Gloria, Valentina’s mother, is pleading for her teen daughter’s release.

Some say Valentina’s case exemplifies how our legal system criminalizes mental illness. Her predicament also highlights the ways in which our criminal justice system fails at providing quality mental healthcare to those who need it.

With support from Puente Arizona, a Phoenix-based migrant justice organization, Vangelina wrote a letter to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery earlier this week, requesting that he drop the charges against Valentina and release her from police custody. According to azcentral.com and court documents, Valentina has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, paranoia, depression, schizoaffective disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Vangelina believes that being in jail is exacerbating her daughter’s mental health condition.

How did Valentina end up in jail?

In December 2018, [Valentina] Gloria was being treated in a behavioral health unit at St. Luke’s Hospital, where she was accused and arrested for spitting and punching two different nurses; she was then charged with two counts of aggravated assault. Then in May, a county judge ruled Valentina was incompetent to face the charges in court and ordered her to stay in jail to receive treatment through the County’s Restoration to Competency Program. A previous Arizona Republic analysis of Maricopa County’s Restoration to Competency Program expressed concerns about the program’s inefficiency and questioned the quality of the jailhouse mental healthcare provided by the county.

Click here to read an azcentral.com article recounting Vangelina’s efforts to secure Valentina’s release.

UPenn will offer new course on writing about mental health

Photo of Stephen Fried
Photo of Stephen Fried behind a podium, discussing his new book “Rush: Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father.” (Image: Wikipedia)

Author, investigative journalist and Columbia J-school professor Stephen Fried will teach a new nonfiction writing course at University of Pennsylvania next semester. The course, which which will focus on writing about mental health and addiction, will be among the first undergraduate courses of its kind in the U.S.

Students taking the spring class, titled “Advanced Nonfiction Writing: Writing about Mental Health and Addiction,” will hear from guest lecturers and will read and discuss writings about behavioral health.

After covering mental health as a journalist for years, Fried said he understands the importance of teaching students how to report on these topics in a nuanced way. Uninformed writing about this subject matter can perpetuate the stigma surrounding mental illness and seeking psychiatric help.

Fried is the author of numerous books about the prescription drug industry and mental illness. In 2015 he co-authored Patrick Kennedy’s memoir A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction.

Read more about Fried’s new class at UPenn here.

May articles highlight “Mental Health Month”

May is Mental Health Month and numerous organizations and celebrities are speaking up to raise awareness about the often taboo topic.

In a report for Cronkite News journalist Luke Wright focuses on famous athletes who describe their experiences with depression, panic attacks and suicide. The report features athletes from sports including basketball, football and track. The statistics mentioned in the story may shock from readers, for example Wright reports that, “Nearly 24 percent of 465 athletes at NCAA Division I private universities reported a “clinically relevant” level of depression, according to a 2016 study by researchers at Drexel and Kean universities. Female athletes had a higher prevalence rate: 28 percent vs. 18 percent.”

The science magazine “Nature” also features a collection of articles this month focused on mental health awareness in the science research industry. One article by Emily Sohn reports that graduate students are especially vulnerable to mental illness and includes tips from mental health experts on how to avoid it. In an opinion essay for “Nature” scientist Dave Reay describes his symptoms of depression as a “black dog,” similar to the one Winston Churchill made famous, that haunted his pursuit of a Ph.D.

In a story for NBC’s “Today Show” reporter Cynthia McFadden interviewed three teenagers with mental health disorders reacting positively to the social media campaign #MyYoungerSelf. The campaign features candid testimonies from sports and entertainment celebrities describing their experiences living with depression and anxiety.

Dancer says symptoms of OCD recede while he performs onstage

Steven Loch doesn’t know why his obsessive-compulsive disorder subsides while he’s dancing, but he’s grateful for the relief it provides from the “torture” of his symptoms. In a compelling interview with Brendan Kiley of The Seattle Times, Loch gives a candid description of the disturbing thoughts that cause his unpleasant behavior and prompted him to find treatment at psychiatric hospitals.

Kiley’s excellent article also features an explanation by Dr. Sam Zinner, a specialist in neurological development, of OCD’s medical origins.

“The human brain has a cluster of neurons called the basal ganglia. Put together, he explained, they’re the size of a walnut, and take in the deluge of cognitive, motor, memory, emotional and sensory information that floods through our brains when we, say, kick a soccer ball or watch out for poisonous snakes while walking through a swamp. The basal ganglia are supposed to filter out all the extraneous noise so we can focus on the task at hand. “In every picosecond of time,” Zinner said, “the basal ganglia have to decide what is relevant, what not to block out so you can survive.”

But the basal ganglia in brains with OCD — and related conditions, including Tourette syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — are, in his words, “leaky filters.” Those leaks lead to information overload and behavior that, to the casual observer, might seem odd — like compulsively touching a magazine three times before picking it up, or hiding on a bathroom floor in costume during a ballet performance to avoid horrifying, intrusive thoughts.”

Hear Steve Loch describing his OCD symptoms in his own words and watch him dance in this captivating video by Seattle Times’ video editor Corinne Chin.

Dorm residents at Columbia clash with officials over assistance animals

Students at Columbia are seeking help from disability rights lawyers to convince university housing officials that multiple assistance animals are a medically required disability accommodation. Olivia Deloian of the Columbia Chronicle interviewed business major Lindsey Barrett who says her therapist prescribed dog companionship to treat symptoms of adjustment disorder. The problem is, Barrett already has an emotional support cat for her severe anxiety disorder, which means she needs new approval from Columbia to house the second animal. Deloian carefully describes her journalism process in contacting Columbia officials to request their side of the disagreement. With Barrett’s help, Deloian also provides a useful explanation of the distinction between emotional support animals and other service animals.

Labeling mass shooters as “sickos” perpetuates mental health stigmas

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) released a statement condemning the imprecise language recently used by public figures to discuss the connection between mental health and mass shootings. President Trump and Dana Loesch, a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, used words including “sicko,” “nuts” and “crazy person” to describe the diagnoses of mass shooter Nikolas Cruz. The NAMI statement criticizes such comments as reinforcing “inaccurate and negative stereotypes” that “create barriers to having real conversations about how to improve the mental health services that lead to recovery and participation in American society by people experiencing mental health conditions.” CNN.com interviewed several mental health experts who also suggested that mental illness is not a reliable condition for predicting violent behavior. Click here to read NAMI’s statement and click here to read CNN’s article.