Featured series 
Tag: Mental Health
-
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 for the development of new medications aimed at treating anxiety, particularly generalized anxiety disorder, a condition that afflicts millions. In a paper published in the…
-
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.
-
Health
Gene variants probably increase risk for anxiety disorders
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers — in collaboration with scientists at the University of California, San Diego, and Yale University — have discovered perhaps the strongest evidence yet linking variation in a particular gene with anxiety-related traits. In the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, the team describes finding that particular versions of a…
-
Health
University, students unite for mental health
If a student is struggling, stressed-out, or having trouble coping with pressure, the University is here to listen and help. That’s the theme behind this year’s “Speak Out, Mental Health at Harvard,” a weeklong series of events to engage the student body in active campus dialogues about mental health.
-
Campus & Community
Robert Dorwart
Robert Dorwart was an academic of the highest rank and a physician committed to understanding and improving the lives of those who could not access quality health care.
-
Campus & Community
Statistics captures unpredictability of real world
Harvard’s small but active statistics department celebrated its 50th anniversary last week. There were two days of lectures and panels Oct. 26-27 at the Gutman Conference Center, and a noisy, social, and musical banquet at the Harvard Club of Boston.
-
Health
Mental disorders cause 1.3 billion ‘out of role’ days annually
The importance of role disability, that is, inability to work or carry out usual activities, has become increasingly recognized as a major source of indirect costs of illness because of its high economic impact on ill workers, their employers, and society. However, there is limited information on the amount of disability associated with a wide…
-
Arts & Culture
‘A place that can be wandered’
In the early 1990s, while still in high school, Anna Schuleit discovered mystery by taking long walks through the deserted grounds of the Northampton State Hospital. This cluster of Victorian buildings — with its iron-bar windows, crumbling red brick, and chest-high grass — touched a deep chord in the young artist.
-
Health
Adjusting to death of a loved one
“Is my grief normal?” That is one of the most common questions posed by people who have lost a loved one. A new study by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers has helped answer that question by affirming the commonly accepted stages of grief – disbelief, yearning, anger, depression, and acceptance – and the sequence in which…
-
Nation & World
Terror war could strain veterans’ health, benefit systems
The cost of caring for veterans of the war on terror could reach $662 billion over the next 40 years, while demand from returning soldiers is already clogging the two major veterans’ assistance programs, according to recent research by Linda J. Bilmes, a lecturer in public policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
-
Campus & Community
A short history: Psychiatry in modern Africa
Psychiatrists working in Africa during the colonial period held to the belief that Africans did not suffer from depression. They based this idea on the assumption that Africans lacked the ability to be self-reflective or self-critical and therefore depression had no chance of gaining a foothold in their psyches. Later research during the 1950s showed…
-
Health
Mental casualties of Vietnam War persist
More than 30 years after the end of the war in Vietnam, the effect of lingering stress on Americans who fought there continues to cause stress among researchers.
-
Science & Tech
Under-diagnosed rage disorder more prevalent than previously thought
A seldom-studied mental illness called Intermittent Explosive Disorder, characterized by recurrent episodes of angry and potentially violent outbursts — seen in cases of road rage or spousal abuse — has been found to be much more common than previously thought. Depending upon how broadly it is defined, this disorder affects as many as 7.3 percent…
-
Health
The ‘widow effect’ is real
In findings that highlight how health effects can reverberate through a social network, a researcher at HMS and his colleague report that the serious illness of an elderly spouse increases the risk of death of a husband or wife. In fact, a few illnesses in a spouse, such as dementia, may pose more of a…
-
Campus & Community
Rituals enhance health
American Indians who use the hallucinogen peyote regularly in connection with religious ceremonies show no evidence of brain damage or psychological problems, report researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital. In fact, members of the Navajo tribe who regularly use peyote actually scored significantly better on several measures of overall mental health than did subjects from the…
-
Health
Size of brain structure could signal vulnerability to anxiety disorders
Individuals respond with physical and emotional distress to situations that recall traumatic memories. Such responses usually diminish gradually, as those situations are repeated without unpleasant occurrences; this is called “extinction memory.” But some people continue to respond fearfully and develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Studies in animals have suggested that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)…
-
Campus & Community
Half of us suffer from mental illness, survey finds
About half of all the people in the United States will develop one or more mental disorders in their lifetimes, according to the latest national survey. During any year, one of every four people in this country fits the definition of “mentally ill.” Most of these disorders are mild, the census-like survey found. Mild or…
-
Campus & Community
Suicides are down, researchers say
The suicide rate among men and women ages 18 to 54 years fell 6 percent since 1990. In 1990-92, the rate was approximately 15 out of every 100,000 adults. It was down to about 14 out of 100,000 in 2000-02. At the same time, 3,000 out of every 100,000 people reported that they had suicidal…
-
Campus & Community
Rx for depression: ‘Mangia, mangia!’
McLean Hospital researchers have added yet another item to the cornucopia of evidence that “we are what we eat,” confirming that elements in our diet can affect not just our physical health, but our mental health as well. Research led by Associate Professor of Psychiatry William A. Carlezon Jr. confirmed the antidepressant-like effects of omega-3…
-
Health
Monitoring system needed to prevent safety hazard of problem physicians
Asserting that “physician performance failures are not rare and pose substantial threats to patient welfare and safety,” experts in medical error are calling on state medical boards and healthcare organizations to institute a formal monitoring and prevention system for catching “problem doctors” before they do further harm. Research has shown that “the vast majority of…
-
Campus & Community
Scientists pursue happiness
“When we try to predict what will make us happy we’re often wrong,” says Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University. “Researchers all over the world find the same predictable errors, whether the pursuit involves romance, a new car, or a sumptuous meal.” Gilbert uses the results of his study of election outcomes…