The day before his 22nd birthday, Garrett Smith had had enough. The college student swallowed a handful of sleeping pills and hanged himself in his closet, ending a long struggle with depression and forcing his parents, former senator Gordon Smith and his wife, Sharon, to consider whether they had done enough to coax their son […]
Tag Archives: Mental Health
Bringing mental illness ‘out of the shadows’
On Dec. 14, 2012, Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where he then proceeded to massacre 20 children and six adult staff members before taking his own life. Before he even went to the school, he shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza. This is not the first time the […]
Talking — not enough to fix mental health problem
It’s always encouraging to see the conversation about mental health in this country moving forward in a positive direction. On June 3, President Obama used his bully pulpit to do just that by convening a National Conference on Mental Health at the White House. He opened last Monday’s conference with a speech expressing his desire […]
Toward a new understanding of mental illness
Today, thanks to better early detection, there are 63% fewer deaths from heart disease than there were just a few decades ago. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wonders: Could we do the same for depression and schizophrenia? The first step in this new avenue of research, he says, is a […]
America’s Failing Mental Health System
Time has a good article on some of the problems with the mental health system in the United States.