Recommend a book: Psychopath, by Keith Ablow

Owl

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Keith Ablow is a forensic psychiatrist. Pyschopath is his second best-seller book. It is about the psychopathological characteristics of a serial highway killer.

The novel is not for thrilling (although inexperienced readers may find the killing scary), instead it seems to me is a teaching material. There are many good examples of how to interpret other people's mind.

Ablow is not good at plot, unfortunately. Nevertheless, this weakness is compensated by his professional handling of psychopathological analysis. There are myriads of examples about child abuse, as the murderer is a child psychiatrist. It is a good reading about child development and how abuse may lead to violence.

Admittedly, the novel belongs to psychoanalysis, but in a modern way. In fact, this is probably the way current FBI and other psychoanalysts are using to crack down criminals, as Ablow himself had served as chief psychiatrist in justice department.

I have also wrote a lengthy blog for the book (1700 words). Anyone interested may visit my blog for a detailed recount of the plot,and some of my reflection on our own dealing with kids. I also unearthed my childhood memory and glad to discover that there are not much traumas severe enough to trigger my dark side. Obviously, they still had profound influences on my personality development, and to some extent, my life till now.

The more I read psychology, the more I know myself, the more I appreciate my life, and the more I love my son.

• a review of psychopath, and some self-reflections

蜡笔

The books about mental health always bring a hot selling....

Owl

以下是引用蜡笔在2005-6-6 17:30:03的发言：

The books about mental health always bring a hot selling....

...because mental health matters.

The worst of all, however, with some exceptions, people with psychiatric disabilities across globe face serious discrimination in society or even among families, particularly in China.

Since 1994, international investment has flooded into China, the “World’s Factory”. Foreign investors believe that the combination of intelligent, diligent and most importantly cheap Chinese workers, the apparent lack of occupational health and safety and other restrictions combined with a relatively stable social/political environment will result in greatest profit for lowest cost.

Chinese growth in GDP has been running at approximately 8% per annum for almost 15 years. To be fair this rapid economic growth has altered the look of most coastal cities in China and has resulted in some Chinese living better. However, wealth increase, especially so quickly and so inequitably does not necessarily bring peace, happiness, and wellness broadly.

China’s dual carriageway of a old political system dealing with an new open economy has special challenges. Laid off government-owned enterprise workers who were protected by the state for life have now no government sponsored support, have to find jobs on the streets; farmers whose land was purchased at ridiculously low prices move to the cities. Workers who manufacture expensive sports shoes or fancy electronic devices are poorly paid in unprotected conditions: there are 40,000 fingers cut off each year in Canton where most of the world famous brands set up their factories. Speed, magnitude, and height have become the measures for every thing. Huge budget allocations go to fancy monuments, opera houses, private dwellings and government buildings.

It is widely believed China that getting wealthy is the best way of self-realization and being poor is shameful. Again, a double cultural blow from old Chinese belief permeating through 50 years of old system “Wealth is glorious” is an often-repeated quotation of Deng Shao-Ping. Some local newspapers even appeal to city residents to stop handing out pennies to beggars since “they are all cheats”. NGOs who care about environment protection or rights of AIDS patients, journalists who expose ugly realities all are given serious warnings because they make people uncomfortable.

In every population there are a certain percentage of people who will suffer from mental illness. However China’s situation historically, culturally, and now politically and economically and our sheer size means that our mental health issues are…well enormous. China now has 18 million patients with psychotic disorders, almost equal to the total population of Australia, 5 millions patients with dementias, 40 million with depressive disorders, 30 million children with various mental problems.

This finding came out of a worldwide study commissioned by the Center for International Mental Health and China Ministry of Health. The study involved cross country research into the current situation and three grassroots pilot projects, including one extensively conducted in China by Dr X. Yu and et cetera.

Dr. Brundtland, the Director-General of WHO helped organize a high level meeting focusing on mental health in cooperation with the China Ministry of Health in 1999. The Chinese vice prime minister attended and gave a speech. This can be considered the starting point of the reform of the Chinese mental health service.

Then, the theme of world health day in 2001 was mental health. Dr. Brundtland wrote letters to leaders of all United Nations member states urging them to advocate for mental health. Former President Jiang Zemin signed a letter written on behalf of all physicians participated in response to Dr Brunditland’s letter. In Jiang’s letter he claimed, “Mental health is not only an important public health issue, but a prominent social problem”.

Hope all this will lead to improve the conditions of Chinese mental patients or people with psychological issues.

To quote Deng Shao-Ping – not only “Wealth is glorious” – but also “mental health is glorious”!

彩虹玫瑰

When we are running ,we ingore the beautiful scenery around us.

What we lost is the thing what we should cherish.

Owl

A nationwide psychological survey indicates that the mental health of Americans hasn't gotten any worse over the past decade. Still, some 6% of the population has mental illnesses that are "seriously debilitating," which makes the U.S. sicker psychologically than other developed nations.

The new study, called the National Comorbidity Survey Replication and conducted by the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), is based on household interviews of 9282 randomly selected adults in 35 states. A similar survey in the early 1990s was the first to assess a nationally representative sample using standardized psychiatric terms.

Study results, published this week in four papers in the Archives of General Psychiatry, reveal that over a lifetime, about 46% of the U.S. population falls prey to some sort of anxiety, mood, impulse control, or substance abuse disorder. Many of the cases documented are mild, temporary, and never require treatment. However, noted Ronald Kessler of Harvard Medical School's Department of Health Care Policy, even mild cases may become more severe and "accumulate" if not treated early. Hence the high rates of comorbidity: 45% of the subjects diagnosed with one disorder also qualified for another. Depression and alcoholism go hand in hand, for example.

The lag time between onset of a problem and treatment is 6 to 8 years for mood disorders and 9 to 23 years for anxiety disorders, the survey found. "These new numbers raise the possibility that the stigma against treatment may be even greater than the stigma against the disorders themselves," said NIMH director Thomas Insel.

Nonetheless, the past decade or so of mental health awareness campaigns and the availability of new drugs have paid off to some degree: 18% of those diagnosed in the study reported getting some treatment in the prior year compared with 13% in the earlier survey. Still, the researchers found that less than one-third of those seeking help had "minimally adequate" care, as defined by guidelines agreed upon by groups such as the American Psychiatric Association.

Despite continued inadequate treatment and long lag times in seeking help, there's a "sea change" occurring in the nation's mental health, said Kessler. "This is the first time we've been able to say there has not been a rise in mental disorders."