Mental Health

More Than 145,000 New York Kids Struggle with Mental-Health Conditions

According to a new study by the Department of Health, New York City preteens struggle with mental illness at rates no higher than their counterparts nationwide. But the numbers are still startling: More than 145,000 city kids -- roughly one in five -- between the ages of six and 12 are reported to h ... More >>

The NYPD's Poor Judgment With the Mentally Ill

Shereese Francis was in mental distress. After police arrived, she was dead.

Serious Money

Depressed? Blame The Summer!

And you thought the Internet was making you depressed... Turns out, there might be another cause to your sadness -- summertime. Yep, you read that right. The SUMMER Apparently, a form seasonal affective disorder, rather appropriately abbreviated as SAD, strikes some during the sunniest months of ... More >>

Drug Policy Advocates: Cameron Douglas (Son Of Actor Michael Douglas) Doesn't Need More Prison Time, He Needs Treatment

In 2010, Cameron Douglas, the son of actor Michael Douglas, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he was in possession of heroin and was dealing large amounts of methamphetamine and cocaine out of a New York hotel room.Last year, while in prison, Douglas, 33 -- ... More >>

Bill W.

Court Says 'No' to Housing for Mentally Ill

A New York court has just reversed a legal order requiring that the state provide individualized housing for thousands of mentally ill people. The Associated Press indicates that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan's move could impact other states' court decisions on psychiatric il ... More >>

New Study Links Fast Food to Depression

If you're a single couch potato with less-than-stellar eating habits, Spanish researchers have bad news for you. They studied people with this profile and found that those who ate junk food--commercial baked goods and fast food--were 51 percent more likely to develop depression.

Soy Sausage Kills 5 at Mexican Drug Rehab Center

Authorities say that soy sausage has killed five recovering drug addicts and made dozens more ill at a rehab center in Mexico, according to the Associated Press.

Boozehounds More Likely to Croak at Early Age

A team of scientists has recently given alcoholics another excuse not to seek help. Swedish researchers claim to have found a genetic link between alcoholism and premature death, according to a recently released report. Alcoholics everywhere have reacted positively to the research, since it sugg ... More >>

Drunkorexia: The New Not Eating Is Drinking

​Experts have identified the latest phenomenon affecting "thousands of women," and it has quite the catchy name. One part binge-drinking and one part anorexia, it is...drunkorexia. Bent on "staying slim" and getting drunk as quickly as possible (and spending money on booze rather than food) on ... More >>

Two Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Solange Lambert and Cosmo Salerno can't wait to take their love outside the walls of an adult home on Coney Island. But for now, they have to wait.

New Yorkers Are a Bunch of Narcissists (Or Somebody's Just Jealous)

via ilike/Flickr​Today in psychological studies from the New York Post, there's an intriguing exploration of how full of yourself you must be if you live in New York City. Because a person can't, just, like, move here for a job or something. Anyway, according to the Post, "There is reason to b ... More >>

Today in El Diario: Alcohol's Deadly Toll

​Drowning in drink New Yorkers drink a lot, so there's always a steady stream of hospitalizations and emergency room visits because of booze, and some of the city's immigrant communities are leading the way, according to the Spanish-language daily. In 2009, alcohol led to 70,000 emergency room ... More >>

Tribeca Might Get Its Own A-List "Halfway House"

NYO / Google Maps​The Real Deal says that Hazelden, the renowned, Minnesoate-based addiction clinic, is eyeing a $10 million spot in a Tribeca condominium on West Broadway. Finally, New York's celebrity alkies and drug addicts can get clean in the kind of luxury their fame affords!

Ibogaine: Can it Cure Addiction Without the Hallucinogenic Trip?

The substance has helped addicts kick heroin, meth, and everything in between. Is it the trip that does the trick?

Newsweek: Antidepressants Depressingly Wonky

​An excellent Newsweek cover story today brings the sad news that antidepressants depressingly don't work. Which is sad, because - among other reasons - a lot of people use them. What's even worse, however, is that they work less than placebos.

School Attacks Highlight Mental Illness, Increasing "Social Pressures" in China

​Why do Chinese adults keep attacking Chinese schoolchildren? Most recently: A man broke into a school in the Shandong Province on Friday and beat five preschoolers before setting himself on fire. This has been the fourth assault on Chinese students in just over a month, and the third in thr ... More >>

Court of Appeals Denies State Lawyers Access to Psychiatric Patients in Nursing Homes

​In a 4-3 decision, the New York State Court of Appeals refused this week to order nursing homes to provide lawyers from the state's Mental Health Legal Services access to psychiatric patients and their medical records. The suit sprang from investigative reporting about the Pataki-era practice ... More >>

The East Village Braces Itself for a New Bar in Bad Taste: The 13th Step

Taunting recovering alcoholics since 2010.​Alcoholics Anonymous describes the "13th step" as a "euphemism for inappropriate sexual advances by a member to a newcomer in AA (such as sponsors toward sponsees)." Also used as a verb, "thirteenth stepping" is never seen as a good thing. And so, it' ... More >>

Let Your Plate Be the Boss of Your Appetite: Mandometer Device Tells You When to Stop Eating

Have trouble calling it quits when it comes to a meal? Hook your plate up to Mandometer, a real device that tells you when to stop eating and when to slow down.

Frank Bruni Shares His Darker Food Secrets in Born Round

A new memoir from the soon-to-be-former Times restaurant critic

Scientologist Reveals "Psychiatry" Made Osama Do 9/11

Update: Original video pulled, here's a clean version. What was really behind 9/11? Now it can be told, at least by Scientologists: psychiatry. It should comes as no shock that Scientologists, who think psychiatry is behind all the great wrongs of the world from the Middle Ages forward, would al ... More >>

Psych Patients Remember Esmin Green

To Catch-22 a Predator

On Ward's Island, it's legal limbo for men who probably deserve it

Letters

Shock and Awe

The stunning comeback of electroshock and other harrowing treatments for the mentally ill

Crazy Behavior

Staff, not inmates, at Brooklyn's biggest psychiatric ward

School of Shock

Inside a school where mentally disturbed students are jolted into good behavior

Personality, Interrupted

Re-branding borderline personality disorder

Tanisha's Scars

Inside Bedford Hills prison, women swallow pins and slice their arms

Songs From the Black Chair

Ten years of listening to the city's most troubled men

Baby Madness

How one young woman's delusions cost her years of freedom

Head Case

In theory and practice, psychoanalysis flourishes in academia

The Drug to End All Drugs

Addicts may get new lives, as clinical studies of exotic, controversial ibogaine are set to resume

Theater

Where Justice and Mercy Meet

In Brooklyn's Mental Health Court, compassion is the rule

High Anxiety

I'm a reasonably happy person—or at least I was before I went into psychotherapy

The Suicide of Mr. A

A Mentally Ill Inmate Slips Through the Cracks—Into the Path of a Subway Train

Lost Legacy?

Gidone Busch's Death Unlikely to Bring NYPD Policy Change

'Nervous From the Service'

Military Psychiatry Revamps Old Tune

Shell-Shock and Awe

On the Past—and Present—of Military Psychiatry

CRACK Comes to New York

Group Pays Addicts for Sterilization

When Crazy Is Normal

Portrait of a Grieving City

Letters

Labor’s Loneliest Battles

New Survey Finds Union Self-Help Programs Point Way in Addiction Struggles

Letters

Watts Up

More New Yorkers Getting Zapped by Court-Ordered Electroshock

AA Unmasked

The Premier 12-Step Program Has a Killer Drug Problem