Mental Health

Body & Mind

The Hunger Artist

Dead Weight by Emmeline Clein conveys the simple terror and intoxicating asceticism of anorexia

March 4, 2024 • by
“I watched my body shrink in the mirror,” Clein writes, “proud to discover how powerful my mind was.” I know the feeling....

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The Hunger Artist
Uncategorized

Nikolas Cruz and Death Penalty Mitigation

Why the Parkland High School shooter tells a bigger story about the path to becoming a murderer

August 26, 2022 • by
People who needed help—intervention, services, resources, did not get it. Systems meant to aid them failed, or could not do so, because of underfunding and bureaucratic eligibility rules that excluded them....

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Nikolas Cruz and Death Penalty Mitigation
Literature

The Eleventh Mouse

A writer welcomes the unexpected at end of an old year and the start of a new one

January 3, 2022 • by
Here I was caring for another creature with more than a bit of martyrdom and annoyance in my heart. I had forgotten my self-administered advice as an antidote to despair that “something extraordinary is going to happen today.”...

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The Eleventh Mouse
Interviews

Unearthing the Complexities of Girlhood with Melissa Febos

In this interview with Public Seminar, the memoirist discusses complex mother/daughter dynamics, enthusiastic consent, and finding clarity through the “privacy of the page.”

October 20, 2021 • by and
New School alum and bestselling author Melissa Febos sat down (virtually) with Public Seminar intern Madeleine Janz to discuss writing about those you love most, complicated “almost” traumas, and the inherited shame of female adolescence. Febos’s newest book, an essay collection entitled Girlhood (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), was on The New School’s Alumni Bookshelf this year and is available for purchase here.   Madeleine Janz [MJ]: To ...
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Unearthing the Complexities of Girlhood with Melissa Febos
Sports

Don’t Feel Guilty for Loving Football

Just be honest about it

October 6, 2021 • by
It was a punishing number of hits every game, but the guy was tough. As author Louie Robinson described him in a December 1968 Ebony Magazine profile, O.J. Simpson was six feet, two inches tall, weighed 207 pounds and could run 100 yards in 9.4 seconds. A transfer to the University of ...
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Don’t Feel Guilty for Loving Football
Podcast

Naomi Osaka, Athletes, and Mental Health

Past Present Podcast, Episode 283

June 8, 2021 • by , and
Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Citing mental health concerns, tennis champion Naomi Osaka decided not to participate in post-match press conferences at the French Open. Natalia referred to this history at Forbesof how the press conference supplanted locker room interviews. Neil drew on this three-part ...
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Feature

Separation Is Never Ending: Attachment Is a Human Right

Why 40 researchers say attachment is a basic right and separation a clear wrong

July 3, 2018 • by
For over 75 years, psychologists and psychiatrists have known that abrupt and/or prolonged separation can have major implications, including depression, anxiety, and behavioral disturbances. In 1952, Bowlby & Robertson argued, “There is now evidence that prolonged periods of maternal deprivation in very young children can, in some cases, give rise to extremely ...
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Separation Is Never Ending: Attachment Is a Human Right
Feature

Reformed Mental Health Services for Kids Begin to Take Shape

A Center for New York City Affairs event

April 19, 2018 • by
After tense and uncertain budget negotiations, New York State will move forward with several pieces of its long-planned expansion of behavioral health services for children on Medicaid. This week, the Center for New York City Affairs hosted a panel of experts to talk about what's next for this reform: What the vision ...
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Reformed Mental Health Services for Kids Begin to Take Shape
Feature

The Children’s Rights Movement Takes Off

What the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child offers students

March 16, 2018 • by
And so it begins. Finally. Students in Florida who survived a school shooting are using their voices and demanding that lawmakers listen to them. They’re joined by other young people around the country who also feel they have rights that aren’t being protected. It was only a matter of time before young people ...
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The Children’s Rights Movement Takes Off
Feature

Selling Bad Therapy to Trauma Victims

Patients and therapists should ignore new guidelines for treating trauma

December 5, 2017 • by
The guidelines are supposed to reflect the best scientific evidence. In fact, they ignore all scientific evidence except one kind of study, called randomized controlled trials (RCTs). RCTs randomly assign people to treatment or control groups. They can answer certain questions (Is a medication more effective than a sugar pill?) and not others ...
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