Disaster Psychiatry

The federal government must realize that decades of allowing mental health care to go begging leaves a very weak chance of detecting or treating those who need help.

After each violent tragedy, politicians mourn and harrumph, but they wind up buckling under pressure from the NRA, fiscal constraints, and the prison and gun lobbies. Repeated dramatic events can shake the complacency and cowardice of a stalemated Congress and state legislatures.

It is yet unclear whether the overwhelming shock of Newtown will galvanize action not only to prevent future mass murderers, but also to finally reduce the public health and mental health risks of more chronic, common, and routine gun violence in America.

The news media has always been in the business of searching for "the right sort of madness" to capture the public's imagination.

Gun owners and non-gun-owners alike support gun control policies that account for mental illness, according to a study published in a recent issue of NEJM.

Newtown’s loss has finally forced us to look more deeply at violence and the treatment of mental illness within our society.

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, incarcerated psychiatric patients at Bellevue Hospital had to be evacuated, without the help of elevators, electronic or phone communication, or even running water. Here, Director of Forensic Psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital Center, Elizabeth Ford, MD, gives a first-hand account.

It has become clear over the last couple of days, that Newtown has become an area of great concern locally, nationally, and internationally. We as a world community need to go through a grieving process that includes this type of sharing, especially for parents out there. Here is a unique perspective from a parent whose young children survived the Sandy Hook tragedy.

What we know for sure is that for all the young children and adults who were killed in Newtown, their world ended a week ago. Soon after the tragedy, one of the fathers of a child killed tearfully pleaded for society to learn from what happened in order to prevent future mass murders. Here, recommendations from a psychiatrist.

It’s comforting to think we control our own lives. Then the weathermen predict a meteorologic Armageddon, and this time their predictions turn out to be correct.

With the recent tragedy in Colorado and the high likelihood that questions about psychiatry will be inextricably tied into it, guidance for practicing psychiatrists can be gleaned from this coincidence.

The grief that the Shoah brought to its victims would make its reappearance even at happy times long afterwards.

I was 9 years old in December 1959 when I left and 60 in July 2011 when I returned to Lodz, Poland. My return—a journey through time as well as space—was a continuation of a trip from my home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I teach and practice clinical and forensic psychiatry, to Berlin, where I gave a number of presentations at a conference of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health (IALMH).

Attempting to write an article about 9/11 is fraught with peril from the outset. What can be said that is not repetitious? Then there is the ever present risk of offending those whose lives were forever changed in an overawing, tragic manner.

Every year, more than 1 million children are exposed to sexual or physical abuse or neglect in the United States. Childhood physical or sexual abuse is associated with adult health problems, including somatic symptoms and medical symptoms, such as heart disease, psychological problems, and substance abuse.