April 1st, 2015
By Phyllis Hanlon
The first two months in 2015 registered as momentous for New Englanders in several ways. In addition to near record snowfalls, bone-chilling temperatures, treacherous road conditions and significant transportation glitches, some residents experienced an increase in stress, anxiety and depression. For those already carrying a mental health diagnosis, these additional factors added to overall emotional tension. Winter disregulates a certain portion of New Englanders, but those who have anxiety or depression can be especially hit hard, according to Mary Anderson, Ph.D., clinical psychologist at Commonwealth Psychology Associates in Boston, Mass., who specializes in behavioral medicine and health psychology. She explained [More]
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November 1st, 2010
By Ami Albernaz
We all know someone we could classify as a workaholic – maybe that person works 70-hour weeks or never seems to take a vacation. Now, the topic of work addiction – working excessively and working compulsively – is receiving more attention, partly because of stresses it can place on family life and on physical and mental health. Although people might be skeptical about whether work addiction really exists – after all, some people have to work long hours or simply enjoy working – the defining characteristic is working to relieve feelings of anxiety or guilt that come from not working. [More]
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December 1st, 2011
By Catherine Robertson Souter
For children with Asperger’s disorder, along with parents, educators and mental health professionals who work with them, establishing relationships can be difficult and frustrating but not, as it turns out, impossible. For years, the professional line on children and adults with Asperger’s and autism was that they were not capable of certain levels of emotional connection. But the people on the front lines knew differently from working with individuals with these conditions and recognizing their uniqueness. Richard Bromfield, Ph.D., a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a clinical psychologist with a practice in Brookline, Mass., has worked with Asperger’s [More]
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May 1st, 2017
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
Since I retired nearly two years ago, I have been finding more opportunities to work from home and not just in the way the term is usually meant. Unless you see patients in your home office, working from home is not the way clinical psychologists typically do business. Professionals in other fields can always work from home during snowstorms, transit strikes or even during the odd hours left over after a long business trip. For me, this was never an option, at least not until I retired. So now here I am at my desk, reflecting on what has been [More]
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January 1st, 2015
By Pamela Berard
Vermont’s Blueprint for Health initiative is helping to coordinate and expand throughout the state a series of free, evidence-based self-management workshops to help residents with health maintenance as well as prevention of a range of chronic health issues. As part of this effort, Blueprint for Health and the Department of Mental Health, in collaboration with the Vermont Center for Independent Living and Vermont Psychiatric Survivors, worked to help spread Copeland Center Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) workshops across the state. WRAP, a peer-led and peer-engaged wellness and recovery system, helps participants decrease and prevent troubling feelings and behaviors, increase personal [More]
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February 1st, 2016
By Catherine Robertson Souter
Recognizing that young adults diagnosed with cancer show poorer outcomes post-treatment, Yale-New Haven Hospital has initiated a program dedicated to psychosocial treatment for this vulnerable population. The Adolescent Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Psychosocial Program at the hospital’s Smilow Cancer Center will offer services to all patients age 15-39 beginning with the initial diagnosis as a way to improve outcomes. According to a University of Michigan study published in Psycho-Oncology, 39 percent of all adolescents and young adults with cancer reported moderate to severe levels of psychological distress six months after diagnosis. Unlike with adult cancer patients, whose distress levels off [More]
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July 1st, 2014
By Janine Weisman
The room you’re working in is too warm. You can’t focus on your project because of repeated interruptions. And you have no idea what you’re going to do for dinner. Restless? Annoyed? Stressed? Can’t quite put your finger on how your feeling? Yes, you can. Because the feeling is probably somewhere in the red-orange zone that occupies the upper left quadrant of the new Mood Meter App.The app launched in May is based on research conducted at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and conceived by the center’s director, Marc Brackett, Ph.D., and its associate director, Robin Stern, Ph.D. They [More]
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January 2nd, 2019
By Janine Weisman
The total number of people spending time alone in a U.S. prison or jail cell for an average of 22 hours or more per day for 15 continuous days is decreasing. So is the number of those with serious mental illness (SMI). That’s according to the most comprehensive study of national data on the number of prisoners in restrictive housing — or what is more commonly known as solitary confinement. “Reforming Restrictive Housing,” released in October from the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) and the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School, estimated that 61,000 [More]
Tags: PTSD, solitary confinement, restrictive housing, time alone, prison cell, jail cell, chronic headaches, extreme dizziness, heart palpitations, hallucinations, insomnia, paranoia, hypersensitivity to noise
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June 1st, 2015
By Susan Gonsalves
Thanks to Google, iPhones and the Internet, some people gain a miscalculated sense of what they know. Researchers at Yale University conducted several experiments to determine how looking information up online affected people’s opinion of their own intelligence. The results, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology were derived by recruiting approximately 200 participants online through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and breaking them into two groups: one that could look up answers to questions using a search engine and another that could not. According to lead author Matthew Fisher, B.A., a fourth year graduate student at Yale’s Cognition and Development Lab, [More]
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October 1st, 2016
By Susan Gonsalves
According to research, veterans who do not have full blown PTSD but who experience some symptoms are at a heightened risk for depression, suicide and substance abuse. They could benefit from screening and treatment in clinical settings but are overlooked. That was the takeaway of a Yale-university led study, published in the World Psychiatry Journal’s June issue. The research looked at 1,484 veterans nation-wide ranging in age from 20 to 94 with a median age of 64 and found that 22.1 percent experienced “sub threshold” PTSD while eight percent met the DSM-5 criteria for a PTSD diagnosis. In addition, these [More]
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