 As a Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow for 1999 - 2000, John Head contributed a number of articles focusing on Mental health challenges among minorities. These are archived by the Carter Center.
BOOKS: ‘Demon’ Shows Kindred Spirits Living and Dealing With Depression
It would be difficult to find a more apt title than Andrew Solomon's "The Noonday Demon." Depression is indeed like the biblical demon so brazen that it does not wait to strike in the dead of night. It will set upon you in broad daylight and instill terrors that in your imaginings could only lurk in the deepest darkness.
Mental Health Tragedies: Critics Say State Can Do More To Help The Troubled
Georgia offers the kind of mental health aid that might have made a difference in two deadly human breakdowns this past week --- one in Atlanta, the other in Texas --- and the help should be easier to get starting July 1.
A Life’s Mission in Mental Health; Cynthia Wainscott; Her Can-Do Spirit and Ability to Mobilize People Have Garnered Results
About a hundred of Cynthia Wainscott's closest friends gathered in a Buckhead restaurant recently to send her off into sort-of retirement. There were numerous jokes about the executive director of the National Mental Health Association of Georgia and her affinity for cellphones, including some about the intimate article of clothing in which Wainscott likes to carry hers.
Alan Harris: Work on Behalf of City’s Homeless Mentally Ill; His 17-Year Crusade
Advocates come from different places in life, for various reason, and offer distinctive approaches --- but true dedication becomes commonplace in a deeply personal field of service.
Psychiatrist Trying To Educate Blacks In Book On Suicide
7 p.m. Monday, Dr. Alvin Poussaint will speak and sign his book, Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave. Admission free.
Blacks may absorb anti-depressants more slowly, study of enzyme finds
A study co-authored by a researcher at Atlanta's Morehouse School of Medicine sheds new light on why anti-depressant and anti- psychotic drugs sometimes are less effective for minorities.
Finding the right match, As more blacks seek psychotherapy, locating a sympathetic professional can be difficult when therapists are overwhelmingly white
When Vanessa Jackson was a young black professional looking for a therapist to help her battle depression, she knew just what she wanted: An African-American woman who was a feminist.
Friends, referral services can direct you to therapist
Psychotherapists pose probing questions whose answers may reveal something important about their patients. When you're selecting someone to treat your mental health problem, the tables should be turned, experts say.
Anxious Anniversaries; Renewing the grief: Marking dates that traumatic events occurred is a painful process for victims or family members
Eleven days ago, students and faculty at Columbine High School welcomed news reporters for a 90-minute sit-down. But the hosts had an inhospitable message for the media: Don't come back on April 20. Just leave us alone.
Activist on suicide-prevention crusade
Kay Redfield Jamison spent more than 20 years researching and writing about mental illness and suicide with scholarly detachment. That changed with the 1995 publication of 'An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness,' a personal account of her own battle with manic-depressive illness and her suicide attempt.
It takes effort to change 'official' list of mental disorders
Refinement, rather than radical change, is the rule for changes in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, a sort of Blue Book of mental disorders that first appeared in 1952. That's why those who want to take the controversial step of designating racism a mental disorder face a formidable task.
Can racists be called mentally ill? Debate strikes a nerve
The current buzz over whether racism should be classified as a mental disorder started with the John Rocker case. But it's the John William Kings of the world who are at the center of the decades-long debate over the implications of taking such a step. Rocker, of course, is the Atlanta Braves relief pitcher who landed in hot water because of his derogatory comments about blacks, gays, women and immigrants in an interview published in Sports Illustrated magazine.
It takes effort to change 'official' list of mental disorders
Refinement, rather than radical change, is the rule for changes in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, a sort of Blue Book of mental disorders that first appeared in 1952. That's why those who want to take the controversial step of designating racism a mental disorder face a formidable task.
The Rocker Controversy: Experts Say Pitcher Not Mentally Ill
Do making racist remarks and tossing around bigoted opinions like wild pitches mean Braves reliever John Rocker is off is his rocker?
In treating mental illness, some of the news is good
More often than not, this is how people with mental illness make the news: On Nov. 10, Kip Kinkel, the Oregon teenager whose shooting rampage in May 1998 left his parents and two students at his school dead, was described as paranoid schizophrenic and deeply depressed before he was sentenced to 111 years in prison.
Mental Health Care in Georgia: Giant Strides and a Long Way to Go, For Vernell Garrett, mental illness was remote; then it moved into the house
Vernell Garrett listed the mental disorders that have struck her family and a few of the many medications they have taken to treat them. Sitting in the living room of her house on a quiet Jonesboro street, she said the words with an air of easy familiarity.
Q & A With: Sandra Clement Walker, Black psychiatrist studies impact of slavery
After a 15-year broadcast journalism career that included prize-winning work on medical issues, Sandra Clement Walker decided she could do more good practicing medicine than she could reporting on it, especially in the mental health field, where there are few African-Americans. Becoming a black psychiatrist made her a rarity: There are only a few thousand in the United States, according to the National Association of Black Psychologists. And Walker, 50, is one of only a few of the country's black psychoanalysts in training, according to the American Psychoanalytic Association.
| 