Tag: Mental Health

  • Health

    Talking about the emotional toll of the pandemic

    The Harvard Chan School of Public Health will launch a series of weekly interactive forums to discuss issues and options.

    Empty auditorium.
  • Health

    Merry and bright?

    Natalie Dattilo discusses how the holiday season can trigger the blues — and how to help avoid them.

    Sad-faced pug with holiday lights in background.
  • Campus & Community

    Big impact of microaggressions

    Harvard’s Diversity Dialogue examines mental health and its intersection with ethnicity and the fallout of the daily “thousand little cuts.”

    Tracy Robinson-Wood speaking on a microphone
  • Health

    Trust, belonging, keys to mental health of students of color

    Experts gathered at the Harvard Chan School said despite progress at making college student bodies more diverse, work still needs to be done to make students of all backgrounds feel welcome, a key step in heading off increased rates of mental illness such students experience on campus.

    Panel for mental health for people of color at Chan School
  • Health

    ‘An era where it has never not been about drugs’

    The Gazette spoke with History of Science Professor Anne Harrington about her new book, “Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness,” which traces the treatment of mental disorders from its early years to the Prozac Nation of today.

    Anne Harrington portrait
  • Campus & Community

    Fighting for humane mental health treatment

    Faraaz Mahomed, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is working to protect the rights of those using mental health systems throughout the world.

    Faraaz Mahomed in an office
  • Campus & Community

    Provost convenes task force to address students’ psychological well-being

    With mental health issues among young people increasing both at the University and nationwide, Harvard’s Office of the Provost has convened a task force to assess and respond to students’ psychological well-being.

    Mario Small, Emma Dench, Matt NockS
  • Health

    Early birds may be happier than night owls

    A new study finds that being genetically programmed to rise early may lead to greater well-being and a lower risk of schizophrenia and depression.

    Harvard men's crew on Charles River
  • Health

    Giving weight too much weight

    Programs to combat obesity may be aggravating eating disorders and undermining their severity, said experts during a panel discussion hosted by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

  • Campus & Community

    An advocate for others

    While at Harvard, Veronica Gloria ’15 worked to empower first-generation and Latino students like herself.

  • Campus & Community

    Hyman to lead Society for Neuroscience

    Steven E. Hyman, former provost and Distinguished Service Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard, has been named president-elect of the Society for Neuroscience, the world’s largest organization of brain and nervous system scientists and physicians.

  • Health

    Q&A with Matthew Nock

    Professor of Psychology Matthew Nock is the author of a new paper, co-authored with other Harvard faculty, which examines suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adolescents. In a recent conversation with the Gazette, Nock discussed his research, and the resources available at Harvard for students and others in the community.

  • Arts & Culture

    A too-short life, examined

    D.T. Max, author of a new biography of David Foster Wallace, sat down with professor and critic James Wood to discuss the writer’s legacy and his brief time at Harvard, a catalyst for the breakdown and recovery that inspired much of Wallace’s masterpiece, “Infinite Jest.”

  • Campus & Community

    Tuned to emotions

    Student Mental Health Liaisons promote emotional well-being among their classmates through outreach, events, and activities.

  • Health

    A therapist at your fingertips

    In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at Harvard are exploring the use of gamelike programs on smartphones to treat anxiety disorders.

  • Campus & Community

    Breaking away

    Harvard College officials applaud students who choose to spend Winter Break away from campus, where they can recharge and reconnect with loved ones. Officials say that the “nothing” that undergraduates often think they’re doing — sleeping, eating well, and tending to relationships — is actually vital for academic success, and for physical and mental health.

  • Campus & Community

    Finding meaning in loss

    Jennifer Page Hughes, a psychologist at the Bureau of Study Counsel, coped with a senseless death by helping others — from Harvard students to the families of 9/11 victims — deal with grief.

  • Health

    Helping Chinese with depression

    A treatment model designed to accommodate the beliefs and concerns of Chinese immigrants appears to significantly improve the recognition and treatment of major depression in this typically underserved group.

  • Campus & Community

    Relaxation station

    The Center for Wellness has a new space in Harvard’s Holyoke Center, but its focus on health and quality of life remain the same.

  • Nation & World

    Unseen victims of war

    Mental health ailments are widespread among Iraqi children and teenagers, a problem compounded by a lack of mental health treatment facilities and inattention to the problem, an Iraqi psychiatrist says.

  • Nation & World

    Sumner M. Redstone donates $1M

    Harvard University today (April 23) announced that Sumner M. Redstone has contributed $1 million to be used by Harvard College and Harvard Law School. This contribution by Redstone, a graduate of both Schools, will establish scholarships for 20 Redstone Scholars to attend Harvard College for the 2010–11 academic year.

  • Campus & Community

    Farmer’s Tiyatien Health wins mental health competition

    Tiyatien Health, a social justice organization co-founded by Paul Farmer, the Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School, was named the grand prize winner in the Ashoka Foundation’s “Rethinking Mental Health: Improving Community Wellbeing” competition, which seeks “the best solutions to improve mental health in communities around the world.”

  • Arts & Culture

    Child psychiatrist pens her past

    Psychiatrist Nancy Rappaport uncovers a relationship with the mother she scarcely knew in her powerful familial memoir. Infused with accounts of treating her own teenage patients, Rappaport plumbs the bond between parents and children while closing in on healing.

  • Health

    Researchers identify the brain’s on-off switch for fear

    Harvard researchers at McLean Hospital have identified a particular protein in the brain that serves as a trigger for the body’s innate fear response. This discovery suggests a potential target…

  • Health

    Scholars discuss ‘medicalization’ of formerly normal characteristics

    Not long ago, a majority of Americans described themselves as “shy,” a condition of reticence or caution that for ages just seemed natural.

  • Health

    Study: Key to happiness is listen to others

    Want to know what will make you happy? Then ask a total stranger — or so says a new study from Harvard University, which shows that another person’s experience is often more informative than your own best guess.

  • Science & Tech

    A mother’s criticism strikes nerve

    Formerly depressed women show patterns of brain activity when they are criticized by their mothers that are distinctly different from the patterns shown by never-depressed controls, according to a new study from Harvard University. The participants reported being completely well and fully recovered, yet their neural activity resembled that which has been observed in depressed…

  • Science & Tech

    Fijian girls succumb to Western dysmorphia

    In 1982, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Anne E. Becker was still an undergraduate at Radcliffe when she traveled to Fiji for a summer of anthropology fieldwork. What struck her about this South Pacific island nation — and has in many research trips since — was “the absolute preoccupation with food and eating,” she said. “Family…

  • Health

    Congressmen highlight challenges of mental illness, substance abuse

    In 2008, 54 million Americans suffered with mental illness; 35,000 Americans committed suicide due to untreated depression; and 180,000 people died as a direct result of an untreated addiction. Congressmen Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.) and Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) spoke at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum Monday (March 2) on the truths and realities of mental…

  • Health

    Low-income diabetic women at increased risk for postpartum depression

    Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the University of Minnesota have found that living just above the poverty line and having diabetes increases by 50 percent a woman’s chance of developing postpartum depression — a serious illness that affects about one in 10 new mothers.