Newly minted pastor Ed Stetzer, writing in CNN.beliefnet, writes of his dealings with a man in his congregation. This person would often disappear for days at a time, and later Stetzer would hear that the fellow had spent hours praying the psalms. Later the man killed himself, leading Stetzer to reflect of aproaches churches could use to better engage parishioners with mental illness.

This led Spetzer to reflect on the kinds of practices that would lead to better acceptance of persons with mental illness. One of these is to view the church community as a refuge, as a place of welcome or safety. It is intriguing that the meaning of the word "asylum"—which not has such a negative connotation—means safe place or sanctuary.

Most of us, unless we have the personalities of saintliness, find ourselves in an irritable mood once in a while. Parents may be particularly prone to these episodes. One hopes that they pass without even a cranky word; although it's difficult to stifle one's facial expression.

Justin Meyer, writing in the Washington Post, brings refreshing honesty to this topic. He hangs up on customer representatives. He watches his children on the playground with the guardedness of a Papa Bear. When driving, he says, "I cut off other drivers in traffic, then flip them the bird."

As Edward R. Murrow said, there are two sides to every story. Our previous probing into an increase and acceleration in funding for research into the brain waxed positively. A different viewpoint—now taken by major pharmaceutical industries—suggests that their interest in brain research is waning. Reuters reports the following:

"Many pharmaceutical companies harbor deep doubts about whether neuroscience is worth their investment dollars as a boom period for once-highly profitable psychiatric medicines comes to an end and new drugs prove hard to find."

President Barack Obama made headlines with his proposal to encourage American scientists to work toward understanding the great mysteries of the brain. Done as a massive project, this could rival past collective enterprises such as Getting a Man to the Moon; when President Kennedy suggested this, it took everyone's breath away. It looked unattainable in the early 1960s. But the country did it.

The new project has garnered unusual bipartisan support.

Since the Greek philosophers there has always been great interest in the brain. St. Thomas Aquinas believed it was necessary but not sufficient for human consciousness. Descartes believed there was an interaction between the brain and the soul: melding somewhere in the pineal gland.

Many other philosophers have speculated that consciousness is a byproduct of the brain itself and concluded that we are the products of the natural forces we are comprised of. As such, our lives our determined by the forces of chemistry, biology, genetics, and past experience.

Several weeks ago Evander, as part of the series of films on mental health, posted a review of Fear Strikes Out. This unique story--coming out mid-point in outfielder Jimmy Piersall's career—highlights Piersall's emotional problems and strange behaviors: talking to Babe Ruth's statue in the Yankee Stadium outfield, squirting home plate with a water pistol so the umpire could see it better, and—ominously—having a temper tantrum while flailing is bat in the dugout with teammates nearby.

Paul Harvey might have said at this point, "and in a minute, we'll tell you the rest of the story."

Amygdala. Corpus Collosum. Dendritic Spines. Voxel. These are words Ferris Jahr, writing in Scientific American, had to add to his Microsoft program in order to avoid all those red squiggles. "Neuron" his program knew, and he thought he knew (May 14, 2012).

He did not.

Now, Mr. Jahr has begun to appreciate the extraordinary diversity of these excitable cells. Some send signals along fibers that extend several feet; others only a fraction of an inch. Some look like tumbleweeds. Purkinje cells look like a fan. Their symmetry and asymmetry are gorgeous. They control all brain activity.

The word neuron in fact did not exist at all till the early 1890s. The history of the neuron, was written by Italian physician Camillo Golgi, German Karl Deiters, and Spanish neuroanatomist Santiago Ramon y Cajal, whose sketches of neurons remain classics.

For more knowledge from this fascinating article, AMHF urges you to check out Scientific American.

It seems we are reminded every day about posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It reveals itself in soldier suicides, which are occurring in a way that is more than we can bear. Shootings continue. In one city (Chicago), one mother has been so badly traumatized: She has lost four children over the years to street violence.

With all of this going on, it is good to review some of the things we know about PTSD. No doubt there would be a Nobel Prize for someone who found a fully effective treatment for everyone. This may never happen, but there are some things we know that help us to make a realistic assessment about what we know and what we don't know.

From Counseling Today, some recommendations of new books:

*The Danger-to-Self-or-Others Exception to Confidentiality (C. Ahia, University Press of America)

This topic has been one that has been in the news this past year with tragedies including the movie theater shooting, train deaths in NYC, as well as the Newtown tragedy. The subject is an important one and there are many grey areas for clinicians—and a choice either way can involve important legal repercussions. This book will be an asset to clinicians when clients become dangerous to themselves or others and the clinician has to decide whether or not to breach confidentiality.

Since the Supplement to the U.S. Surgeon General's Report Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity—A Supplement to Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, several events have occurred. These, say Lonnie R. Snowden, have established a national commitment to understanding African American-White American treatment disparities, their consequences, and opportunities for their reduction.

Snowden's article, "Health and Mental Health Policies' Role in Better Understanding and closing African-American-White American Disparities in Treatment Access and Quality of Care" appeared in the October 2012 Special Edition of American Psychologist.

For Epilepsy Awareness Month, do check out the great Dr. Oliver Sacks, Hallucinations. Sacks discusses the more unusual aspects of this condition (and others) as it affects behavior, and as neurology rubs against the field of psychiatry and even that of theology. You will not be disappointed. Sacks delves into the desperately misunderstood and stigmatized world of recurring seizures or epilepsy—largely, an orphan disease, more studied in France—in its endlessly fascinating, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, and more often than realized unrealized forms. On November 27, 2012, this book was favorably reviewed in the New York Times.

Steven R, Lopez, Concepcion Barrio and colleagues address an important cultural topic in the October 2012 edition of American Psychologist: From Documenting to Eliminating Disparities in Mental Health Care for Latinos.

The U.S. Surgeon General's report from 2012—Mental Health: Culture, Race and Ethnicity—A Supplement to Mental Health: Report of the Surgeon General—documents significant disparities in mental-health care for African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Latino Americans. One finding indicated that immigrants of Mexican origin with mental disorders were less likely to access mental health services than U.S.-born Mexican Americans or the population overall.

The AMHF grant to Astor Services for Children—to identify and evaluate interventions that help adolescents at risk for suicide and psychosis, and to create scientifically supported guidelines—supports the exact kind of empirical investigation recommended by American Psychological Association President Suzanne Bennett Johnson.

AMHF Board Chair Jack Fowler posted the following in National Review Online, The Corner.

From International Bipolar Foundation:

"We at International Bipolar Foundation mourn the loss of those killed in the tragic shootings Friday. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims' families and all those affected.

"We recognize that this senseless shooting will stimulate many conversations about gun laws, public safety, violence and their association to mental illness.

"James Holmes, the alleged gunman, opened fire on innocent moviegoers during a midnight screening of the 'The Dark Knight Rises' at an Aurora, Colorado theater, leaving 12 people dead and 56 wounded.

Edward Hallowell and John Ratey have published a follow-up to their successful book Driven to Distraction. On a hopeful note, it is titled Delivered from Distraction. The first book was written in the 1990s. It contains much good advice on ADHD: diagnosis, medications, telling it apart from other conditions as well as finding it in combination with others, and—exceptionally helpful—it offers structured ideas for parents, teachers, and those who have ADHD themselves. This more-recent book gives a superb update on medications and includes detailed case history. These are two exceptional volumes.

Too many times we view medication and psychological therapies as either/or treatments. Many times people will try to avoid any medication for even a severe mental health problem. Their reasons are always worth noting: perhaps there is a realistic fear of side effects, or a desire to work things out in a trusting relationship. Perhaps more scientific studies need to be done on the best combination of medication and therapy. Studies combining the administration of medication and the provision of psychotherapy are complex and require high levels of funding and large numbers of people with the condition being studies. There are problems with people dropping out along the way, and ethical problems to consider, such as how to provide everyone with the most effective intervention. Perhaps some of the subjects will have to wait until the end, because the only way to compare approaches is to have experimental and control groups. CNN Health reports on recent findings from Harvard Medical School, studying how medication and psychotherapy combined can help those diagnosed with depression.

In Men In Black III, Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith, have returned to help police the Earth from what they call invading life forms that represent "the scum of the universe." No spoiler here--but it's a must-see film if you want to learn more about the dynamics of the Agent J-Agent K relationship. Once again, the heroes have a gadget that looks like a cell-phone but shoots out a ray of light that can erase troubling memories (such as witnessing alien life forms destroyed) with the flash of a bright beam.

In the real world tormenting and oppressive memories resulting from traumatic events can be hard to forget and in many individuals these cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Our blog at AMHF has a section devoted to identifying and treating PTSD.

Antipsychotic medications have an interesting history. In the early 20th century, Thorazine was used as an anesthetic during surgery. In the 1940s, a patient with schizophrenia found that after surgery that the delusions and hallucinations had disappeared. Within a few short years this medication was being used for treatment of schizophrenia and two decades later it had worked so effectively with many (but sadly--not all) persons with schizophrenia that many psychiatric hospitals were closing or on their way to that end.

One of the anxiety disorders classified in the DSM-IV-TR is Social Phobia. This can be more deleterious than, say a snake phobia—a social phobia can cause withdrawal from so many important events in one's life. Social phobia can include fear and avoidance of social situations because of fear of scrutiny and judgment. The person recognizes the irrational component and situations which are not stressful for most other people become imbued with anxiety and endured.

What Freud called "free floating anxiety" is now known in the DSM-IV TR as Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It's excessive worry that can't be controlled by the person who is experiencing it. Symptoms may include restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, tension, and sleep disturbances; when several of these reach the point of interfering with an important part of one's life the diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder is made.

In any given year, 3 percent of the population may experience symptoms and the lifetime prevalence is about 5.7 percent, indicating the chronic nature of the condition. Many don't go to treatment, and it can be hard going through life with anxious apprehension, unrealistic worry about the future, and failure to enjoy life in the moment.

Psychoanalysts would say that the defense mechanisms of repression and displacement haven't been effective in keeping worry away. Cognitive therapists treat the condition by identifying errors in thinking. Both Busiprone and Lexapro are prescribed for the condition when excessive worry gets out of hand.