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CHICAGO – A new study has found that five times as many high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era. The findings, culled from responses to a popular psychological questionnaire used as far back as 1938, confirm what counselors on campuses nationwide have long suspected as more students struggle with the stresses of school and life in general. "It's another piece of the puzzle — that yes, this does seem to be a problem, that there are more young people...

Rosie O'Donnell has confirmed that she and longtime girlfriend Kelli Carpenter are on the rocks. In a new interview with USA Today, she says, "We're a family. We will remain a family forever. And we are working on our issues." The 47-year-old O'Donnell -- who has been suggesting a split on her blog -- wouldn't confirm a National Enquirer report that Carpenter, 42, has moved out of their Nyack, NY, home and into Manhattan. (USA Today notes that Carpenter was not at the house during the interview.) Meet Rosie O'Donnell and other stars' surprise BFFs "We're a family, we remain...

I cracked up – for the first time - on June 4, 1988, three weeks short of completing my Masters degree in Psychology. Some would say I had a nervous breakdown. The psych ward doctors said it was major depression. I say that I saw just how evil my sin is in the eyes of God and it scared the hell out of me. I cracked up, broke down, and de-pressed. I cobbled together some mad reality and blew a fuse. I despaired, decompensated, detached, and derailed. I lost my mind, never to be the same again. Thanks be to...

SHE'S had six, possibly seven children, all to different fathers. Four were sent to live with their grandmother and at least one, police believe, has been murdered. Kate Elizabeth Hutchinson, 36, gave birth to her latest child in a Lismore psychiatric ward 10 days ago. The baby boy has since been removed from her care. Now, her estranged mother is begging authorities to stop her getting pregnant again. "Somebody, please, somebody has to do something to stop her from having any more babies,'' Helen Hutchinson said last week. "It's as much for her sake as it is for the children's....

HAVING BIPOLAR vs. BEING BIPOLAR (excerpt from the book, "Blessed With Bipolar: 36 God-Given Gifts of Manic Depression) I have bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder does not have me. Bipolar disorder is not, my identity. It is not who I am. Bipolar disorder impacts my personality, emotions, and behavior. It does not dictate what I think, believe, say, or do. There are blessings that come with “having bipolar disorder.” “Being bipolar,” on the other hand, would be nothing but a burden. If I think of myself as “being bipolar” (or of bipolar as being my being), then I am controlled by...

I cracked up – for the first time - on June 4, 1988, three weeks short of completing my Masters degree in Psychology. Some would say I had a nervous breakdown. The psych ward doctors said it was major depression. I say that I saw just how evil my sin is in the eyes of God and it scared the hell out of me. I cracked up, broke down, and de-pressed. I cobbled together some mad reality and blew a fuse. I despaired, decompensated, detached, and derailed. I lost my mind, never to be the same again. Thanks be to...

Baby Love, it hurts every time I breathe It’s punishment for taking life away from you There are no excuses for what I did God gave you to me and getting rid of you was what I chose to do Inside of me you grew, innocent and without fault You are probably wondering why, but the reason I don’t know It’s impossible to say that my actions were for your protection What mommy really thinks is that she was selfish and low It’s hard to say I love you when I know I did you wrong You were not just...

LINCOLN — An Omaha man who once expressed homicidal and suicidal thoughts was wrongly denied a state handgun buyer’s permit by the Douglas County sheriff, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday. Joseph D. Gallegos had never been "committed" to a mental institution under the definition of the 1968 federal gun law, according to the court’s unanimous opinion. He should not, therefore, have been denied a handgun permit in 2007, the court said. In 2001, Gallegos, a veteran, sought voluntary treatment at the VA hospital in Omaha for post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression. A doctor there asked the Douglas County Board...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Feb. 23, 2009 – Servicemembers in Afghanistan now have a place to turn to cope with the toughest aspects of deployment when they need it most. Army Capt. Don Hawkins, left, works on a project while Army Staff Sgt. Reginald Jones, right, talks with a servicemember during occupational therapy activities at the Bagram Freedom Restoration Center at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Feb. 23, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Boris Shiloff  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The Bagram Freedom Restoration Center here is the first mental health clinic for troops in Afghanistan. The center’s main goal...

What more can I say about the mental disorder of loving cats that hasn’t already been said? Not much, but I will share with you the following story showing you just how far the problem can go. How far? All the way to the psych ward. (After being locked in a loony bin for trying to save the feline when it got stuck in a building wall, cat lover Chris Muth has lost his home, his job and even his girlfriend. The trouble started last week, when

The House and Senate reached agreement on a policy framework for legislation that would require employers and health insurers to put mental-health coverage on par with that for physical maladies. Details of the agreement are expected to be set this week, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers is seeking funding for the measure, which would cost the government an estimated $1.3 billion over five years and $3.4 billion over 10 years, mainly because of lost tax revenue. Leading lawmakers such as Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.) hope to push the bill through Congress and send it to the White House...

Sen. Barack Obama clarified his position today on mental-health exceptions to late-term abortions, saying he supports such exceptions and that comments he made during a recent magazine interview shouldn't be interpreted as opposing them.

WASHINGTON, June 17, 2008 – Mental Health practitioners nationwide are donating their time and services to provide free, confidential counseling to military people and their families. “Combat affects everyone in one way or another,” explained Dr. Barbara Romberg in an “ASY Live” interview on BlogTalkRadio. “Most people react when exposed to a situation where there are extreme or horrific events; it is a human reaction to abnormal situations.” ASY Live is part of the Defense Department’s America Supports You program, which connects citizens and companies with servicemembers and their families serving at home and abroad. Romberg, founder and president...

We've all goofed up and flubbed up things we've previously done time and again. It turns out the root of these brain farts may be a special kind of abnormal brain activity that begins up to 30 seconds before a mistake even happens. The solution to such screw-ups could be a kind of mind-reading hat, a device to predict and even prevent mindless errors that can threaten lives. When people blunder after performing the same task over and over, scientists had suspected that such lapses were due to momentary hiccups in concentration. Still, little was known about what the brain...

WASHINGTON, April 17, 2008 – A study released today shows that nearly 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, findings that military health officials called “very consistent” with their own. Army Col. Loree K. Sutton, director of the Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury/Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, addresses the findings and recommendations of a new RAND study on brain injury and stress disorders in our troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, during a media roundtable in the Pentagon, April 17, 2008. Defense Dept. photo by R. D. Ward...

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2008 – Help for servicemembers coping with the effects of wartime service is just a phone call or a mouse click away, thanks to a nationwide network of mental health professionals. “Give an Hour” is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has created a national network of mental health professionals providing free counseling services to returning veterans and their loved ones, according to Barbara Romberg, the group’s founder and president. “The participating mental health professionals will offer a wide range of services including individual, marital and family therapy, substance abuse counseling, and treatment for post traumatic stress...

When the Gallup pollsters asked Americans what they thought about their own mental health, they were intrigued by the difference between Democrats and Republicans. While 58 percent of Republicans reported having excellent mental health, only 38 percent of Democrats described themselves that way. The study was no surprise to D. Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., a noted psychiatrist and author of a controversial book that makes the clinical case liberalism is a mental illness. "Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of...

High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week. Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy. "As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28, 2008 – Army Col. (Dr.) Loree Sutton is a woman on a mission. Army Col. (Dr.) Loree Sutton, chief of the newly created Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, sits in her temporary Rosslyn, Va., office suite. The Defense Department created the center in its effort to step up the quality of care for wounded warriors and their families. Photo by Fred W. Baker III  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The military psychiatrist has, for the last month, ricocheted across the Capital Beltway landscape and beyond, setting up a Defense...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16, 2008 – Servicemembers returning from deployment and their families can find help readjusting to their lives at home through traditional and holistic therapies offered by a long-established Colorado group. For more than 30 years, Lost and Found Inc. has specialized in providing intervention and rehabilitation treatment for families that have run out of options, said Linda Olson, the organization’s development manager. Recently, however, the organization developed a program geared toward military families. “(We) launched a holistic mental health outreach to active military (personnel) and their families in fall 2007,” she said. The program focuses primarily on...