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Text File | 1994-02-01 | 39KB | 656 lines

                        OF NOTE...
                        News to Use

Special Mental Health Edition (41-50)                 December 1, 1993
Earl Appleby, Jr., Editor                             CURE, Ltd.

                              Addictions

"We can't immediately generalize this to humans. But if the same
linkage exists, it may be possible to tell which children are at risk
of becoming alcoholics by looking at their drinking habits when it
comes to soft drinks. Kids who are drinking six or 10 Cokes a day
could be showing this...behavior." --David Overstreet, alcoholism
researcher, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Medical
School. (If Sweets Are Weakness, Alcohol May Be Too, Boyce Rensberger,
Washington Post, 6/14/93)

"In the current issue of the American Scholar, I have an essay on drug
abuse titled, 'Iatrogenic Government.' The term from iatros, Greek for
physician, refers to illness or injury induced by medicine in both the
narrow and wider sense of that term. It is something doctors worry
about. One such doctor was Norman Zinberg, professor of psychiatry at
the Harvard Medical School. His life work concerned the way Americans
in general and doctors in particular deal with drugs such as heroin
and cocaine. The point being that these drugs first appeared as
medicines, purchased at drug stores." (Neutralizing 19th-Century
Science, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), op ed, WP, 7/26/93)

"You don't take a license away based on whimsy. The management of that
operation is terrible." --Nelson Sabatini, secretary, Maryland
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, on move to close down a
clinic run by Community Methadone Health Services Inc. (Commu-Met).
Regulators found numerous treatment lapses in the Rockville clinic
including several occasions when patients received doses that were
either too large or too small. (Maryland Set to Close Drug Clinic, Dan
Beyers, Washington Post, 8/3/93)

"It is an outrage that Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Robert C.
Bonner knows nothing more about the drug crisis in this country than
to say, 'We know the widespread use of illegal drugs is, in large
part, a function of availability and marketing' (letters, July 15). We
don't know that; no reputable research makes that conclusion. In spite
of Mr. Bonner's contentions, there is an 'inherent demand for more
heroin' in the social conditions of despair...We have a right to
expect better from important government officials who are charged with
the responsibility of alleviating massive and tragic crises such as
drug abuse." --Robert Merrill, Washington, DC. (Drug Abuse: What the
Government Should Do, Merrill, letter-editor, Washington Post, 8/6/93)

"Street chemists needing a supply of the powerful chemical used in
illegal 'speed' drugs such as 'crank' and 'crystal meth' are turning
to the pages of Cosmopolitan...There next to ads for 900 numbers,
tarot readings, and temporary tatoos are offers for Mini Thins or
Stimulate--brand names for 25-milligram pills for ephedrine, a key
ingredient in potent and illegal drugs such as methamphetamine and
methcathinone...Due to a loophole in federal law, ephedrine can be
sold with few constraints as diet pills or pep pills, and
manufacturers of illegal drugs are buying it in massive amounts
through the ads in mass-market magazines." (Magazine Ads Keep Speed on
the Streets, Michael Hedges, Washington Times, 8/26/93)

"Ken Lakeberg loved the media spotlight turned on him after the birth
of his Siamese twin daughters. He even hoped their story would be
turned into a movie. But the glare has also revealed him as a man with
a history of drug abuse who, before his daughter's surgery,
disappeared with $1,300 in donated money. "I told him, 'If you took
that (money) out and spent it on drugs, you better get it straightened
out,' says Lakeberg's lawyer, James Lakin." (Twins' Father, Cash
'Disappeared, USA Today, 8/26/93)

"Kenneth Lakeberg...deserves a little less of the public's sympathy
today, and not just because a drug test turned up traces of cocaine in
his system. Lakeberg's crime is attempted murder of the public's faith
in charitable giving. The 26-year-old told a Chicago TV station...that
he'd taken $8,000 donated to cover the family's medical bills and
spent it on other things, including fancy meals and a $5,500
car...Lest anyone think this is unusual behavior brought on by grief
over his children's medical situation, the record indicates that self-
indulgence is not new to Lakeberg. Twice charged with drunken driving
(plea-bargained down to reckless driving in one case), he stabbed his
cousin during a family argument last Christmas." (Killing Kind Hearts:
It Should Be a Crime, editorial, Martinsburg Journal, 8/26/93)

Although 87% of the public favors higher taxes on alcoholic beverages,
according to a recent Wall Street Journal survey, the administration
omitted any increase in alcohol taxes from the health care plan's
revenue side. (Clinton Shies From Alcohol Tax, NCR, 8/29/93)

"It was Palm Sunday 1985--a 'pretty day,' as we say in Texas. About
4:40 p.m. my son Philip, 13, an aspiring musician, was riding his bike
home from a tennis match. The drunken driver who hit Philip was coming
from a party celebrating his 36th birthday. My son would never see 36,
26, or even 16. The blue and gray Blazer was doing 80 mph...when it
struck Philip--an impact a specialist at the trial compared to a semi
hitting a Volkswagen. Though he would be taken to the same hospital as
my son, the driver of the car escaped without a scratch. When they
brought the driver in to test his blood alcohol level, he joked to the
nurse...about his fear of needles, telling her: You be sure and don't
hurt me, now. My son was taken to another part of the hospital. He had
been decapitated in the crash." --Brenda Teichmann, president, Potter
& Randall Counties, TX Chapter, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. (A
Drinker Goes Free and Kills, Teichmann, op ed, USAT, 8/30/93)

"By taxing distilled spirits at a higher rate, we are sending
Americans, especially youth, the message that beer and wine are
somehow not as bad for them as distilled spirits. All three kinds of
drinks contain the same active ingredient--ethanol--and should be
treated the same. Equalizing alcohol excise taxes at the current rate
of distilled spirits would not only raise more than $3 billion a year,
it would also save lives." --Paul Wood, president, National Council on
Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, New York, NY. (Wine and Beer: Just as
Dangerous as Whiskey, Wood, letter-editor, Washington Post, 9/21/93)

Used for thousands of years in China, Radix puerariae or RP may hold
promise in the treatment of alcohol abuse. The herb, an extract of
kudzu, an Asian plant rampant in the southern USA, first appeared in
Chinese medical texts in China in 200 BC. As American regulations
require animal testing, researchers Keung and Vallee tested RP on
Syrian hamsters bred to prefer alcohol to water. A drug may be ready
for human testing within a year." (Kudzu May Cut Alcohol Abuse, Leslie
Miller, USA Today, 11/2/93)

"Ten years ago, Natalie Cole had reached rock bottom. Her singing
career was in shambles, her marriage had failed, and her mother had
gone to court to gain control of Natalie's financial affairs. There
were arrests for drug possession, and a car crash while under the
influence. 'Those moments of peril don't mean anything to drug
addicts,' Natalie Cole assures me. 'The next day you start right over
again.'" ('I Learned About Forgiveness,' Ovid Demaris, PM, 11/7/93)

"He pinches some buds, loads his pipe, thumbs a lighter, and
inhales.... Then he passes the marijuana to his daughter. She draws on
the pipe, burning her throat. She can't hold the smoke like her
father. She is 18, willowy, curled barefoot on a rocker in their
suburban Maryland living room....'I thought all parents did it,' she
says, recalling the fog that hung over their den couch as a child. Pot
was for grown-ups, her parents said but if she ever wanted to try
it...By seventh grade, she had lit up with Mom." (The '90s Family,
Gone to Pot, Laura Blumenfeld, Washington Post, 11/9/93)

                            Care Less

A Blue Cross-Blue Shield Association study reports that charging
everyone in a community the same health insurance rate generally
produces some savings for those small businesses that already cover
their workers. Meanwhile, a Senator whose support is  critical to
winning liberal support for Clinton's Health Security Act, Sen. Paul
Wellstone (D-MN) registers public concern about the bill's limits on
mental health care coverage. CURE Comment: CURE supports equal
treatment in health care coverage for all disabilities. (Community
Insurance Rates Less Costly for Small Business, MJ, 11/9/93).

                           Courting Disaster

"The former business manager and the former director of the Eastern
Panhandle Mental Health Center--both charged with obtaining money
under false pretenses--could also soon face charges of embezzlement.
...Embezzlement means that the person in question was legally in
possession of the money and then, after the fact, converted it to his
or her own use. Obtaining money under false pretenses alleges that the
person charged with the crime intentionally defrauded someone else to
obtain the money." (Berkeley Cases Returned to Jury for New Charges,
Kelli Shores, Martinsburg Journal, 7/14/93)

In a 4-to-1 decision the West Virginia Supreme Court returns four-and-
a-half-year-old Daniel Snyder to his mother Gretchen, 43, of Cross
Junction, VA, despite her history of mental illnesses and a suicide
attempt. Diagnosed with manic depression in 1979, Snyder had signed
over temporary custody to her sister Nancy Scheerer in March 1989
after release from her hospitalization following a suicide attempt.
Citing a 1981 US Supreme Court ruling rejecting termination of
parental rights solely on a history of mental illness, the WV high
court finds "little support" for the circuit's ruling that "the
potential for future harm justifies the denial of custody." "Such a
conclusion, while laudable in its obvious intent to protect the
innocent child, infringes too profoundly upon the rights of this
natural parent to her child and is based on mere speculation as to the
future course of the...disorder," the majority decision holds. (Court
Returns Boy to Custody of Mother, Martinsburg Journal, 7/18/93)

Kimberly Chandler, 27, who fatally shot her three children, ages 7
months to 7 years, was found not guilty by reason of insanity by a
three-judge panel, which "accepted the reports of psychologists who
diagnosed her as suffering from depression and paranoia. She will
remain at a maximum security psychiatric hospital until doctors say
she no longer is mentally ill. Police say she bought a pistol with
welfare money and shot her child and a neighbor's child. They said she
threatened to kill the children earlier because she couldn't take the
stress of being a single parent." (Woman Who Killed Her Kids Found
Insane, Washington Times, 7/28/93)

"The stocky, middle-aged man had been referred to me for psychiatric
treatment as part of a court-ordered rehabilitation program designed
to curb his domestic violence...'Take my daughter,' he said with
pride. 'She knows right from wrong now. When I call her she's already
petrified when she gets to my chair. She's in tears before I even
touch her. If I just use a certain tone of voice, she'll start
trembling.' Before he spent 15 minutes in my office, I knew I disliked
him intensely...If I had been introduced to him in...a social setting,
I would have done my bet to avoid him. As a psychiatrist, however, I
couldn't avoid him. Moreover, I knew I would have to forge enough of a
connection with him and delve deeply enough into his life to try to
help him. The empathic imperative is both the heart of effective
psychiatric practice and one of the most emotionally draining aspects
of practicing psychiatry...We are routinely called upon to summon a
regard even for those who have no regard for us, themselves, or
others." --Keith Ablow, MD, medical director, Tri-County Mental Health
Centers, Lynn, MA. (Personality Conflicts, Ablow, WP Health, 9/21/93)

                            Heart Stoppers

"A jolly Washington dinner party...was underway the other night when a
White House official present was called to the phone. A little teasing
followed him...These mid-dinner calls are a common enough occurrence
in Washington and invariably produce cracks from the other guests
about the summoned one's great importance...The man returned in a few
minutes only to summon...two other men who also work with the
president. Now the place got really interested, even a touch giddy.
Clearly we were in the midst of an unfolding big story. What would it
be? A foreign crisis? A breaking scandal?...Then they returned...They
conveyed complete grimness. The jokes stopped. Vincent Foster had been
found shot dead, an apparent suicide. There are two things about that
moment I will not forget. One is the way the men looked...the usual
bearing of White House personnel in these...situations--studiously
serious, a tad self-important...was totally absent. He looked forlorn,
winded. My other observation was of the rest of us. Self-confident,...
hard to fluster or surprise or in fact touch...we dropped our defenses
...It was as if each of us...became, in that moment, whoever we really
are...Suicide does that. It is a starkly humbling experience. We are
obliged to contemplate but cannot imagine this unconditional rejection
of life and obliteration of self." (A Death in Washington, Meg
Greenfield, op ed, Washington Post, 7/26/93)

"For years, psychoanalysts have viewed suicide as a kind of murder
turned inward. Now they are wondering whether it works the other way:
Is murder a kind of suicide turned outward? As improbable as that
sounds, the concept of homicide as a behavioral disease with some of
the same risk factors as suicide is gaining currency in certain
medical circles." (Twin Epidemics: Suicide, Homicide, Abigail
Trafford, Washington Post Health, 8/10/93)

According to Dr. David Douglas, a Harvard University psychiatrist, the
typical suicide victim is a male who is not being treated for his
depression and kills himself with a firearm on his first attempt. (The
Illness Behind Suicide Often Ignored, Experts Say, MJ, 9/6/93)

                        Lights, Cameras, Action

"'I cannot do this. Not only do I feel it's wrong personally, it's
totally against the character.'" --Susan Howard, actress. Ms. Howard,
a regular on the TV show 'Dallas,' rejected a script that called for
her to abort a Downs syndrome baby. The changed script provided for a
miscarriage with Ms. Howard subsequently doing volunteer work with
Downs children, a portrayal for which she won an acting award." (CGA
World, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1993)

                          Mental Health Memo

"In the past few years, there has been a groundswell of cases brought
by adults in psychotherapy who have remembered long-buried memories of
childhood sexual abuse...The numbers of victims are so great, the
alleged crimes against them so horrendous and often so hard to
believe, and the legal stakes for the accused are so high that
psychiatrists and other mental health workers are sharply divided over
whether the recollections are real or false." --Keith Ablow, MD,
medical director, Tri-County Mental Health Centers, Lynn, MA.
(Recovered Memories: Fact or Fantasy? Ablow, WPH, 6/22/93)

"The risk is that people who had a very short distance to travel, and
who often don't have a car, will now have to go to a place 45 minutes
away. That's when you begin to have a falling-off." --Johanna Ferman,
medical director, DC Institute for Mental Health, one of the city's
largest mental health service providers, cut 45% by the United Way.
(Mental Health Institute to Merge Offices, Washington Post, 7/1/93)

"More than two decades after eliciting primal screams from repressed
souls in his avant-garde approach to psychotherapy, Arthur Janov is
still trying to convert the analyst's couch into a crib. Get in touch
with those feelings of emotional pain inflicted early in childhood, he
says. Relive them. Become the child. Get the old emotions out of the
way so you can deal with the present. That was, and remains, the
essence of primal therapy, which Mr. Janov formally introduced by
founding the Primal Institute in Los Angeles in 1967 and writing 'The
Primal Scream,' a book that has sold more than a million copies...But
for all Mr. Janov's scientific claims. mainstream therapists remain
unconvinced because primal therapy research 'has not been rigorously
tested and published in peer-review journals funded by the National
Institute of Mental Health,' says Dr. Stephen Stahl, a professor of
psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego." (Screaming
for Respect, Jack Williams, Washington Times, 7/28/93)

"Studies estimate that 70% to 80% of people who commit suicide were
suffering primarily from severe depression...Psychiatrists now know
that depression--the most common form of serious mental illness--is
predominately the result of a biochemical imbalance in the brain that
in most cases can be corrected with drugs. Drug treatment is so
effective that nearly 80% of patients recover within a few weeks."
(High Quality Work Can Mask Depression, Boyce Rensberger, WP, 8/3/93)

"My son is dead because of practices that don't make sense to me. He
couldn't even go out to get fresh air; how can somebody climb over a
fence if it's closely supervised?" --George Berry Sr., on the
discovery of the body of his son, George Jr., 30, a patient at a
Maryland state psychiatric hospital, found "decomposed and curled
around the base of a tree on a wooded embankment near Interstate 97,
four miles from the hospital." (Parents Say Psychiatric Hospital
Mishandled Son's Disappearance, Meera Somasundaram, WP, 8/9/93)

"Virginia has an average of 1.7 staff members per patient, compared
with a US average of 2.2 staff members per patient in state hospitals.
It is ironic to note that Virginia ranks 12th in per-capita income and
37th in staffing of state hospitals. Surely, Virginia can do better."
--Bettie Dresser, Fairfax, VA. ABLEnews Editor's Note: For the full
text of this letter, see VA Fails Mentally Ill on ABLEnews, or watch
for it in the August ABLEnews Review. (Virginia Fails the Mentally
Ill, Dresser, letter-editor, Washington Post, 8/11/93)

The question of whether or not moderate drinking is practical for
people with severe mental illness is among the most hotly debated in
community psychiatry. Traditionally clinicians have warned people with
schizophrenia or manic depression not to drink alcohol, but recently
some physicians and community mental health workers have argued that
abstinence is impractical and social drinking is a legal right. Recent
research by Robert Drake, a professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth
Medical School, and Michael Walloch, a psychology professor at Duke
University, however, concludes: "Our data indicate that moderate
drinking is only rarely a stable...long-term strategy. Clients seem to
become aware of this risk over time and adopt abstinence." (Severe
Mental Illness and Alcohol Mix Poorly, Sandra Boodman, WPH, 8/17/93)

"Despite my patient's subjective sense of well-being, I didn't feel a
great sense of achievement. To me, it seemed that we had simply
returned to the status quo...The antidepressant may well have chased
away the clinical symptoms of depression, but what about the
psychological dynamics that lie beneath it? This is one of the most
critical dilemmas psychiatrists face. If patients are satisfied that
drugs have relieved their symptoms, should we prod them to examine
what we believe to be the root psychological causes?" --Keith Ablow,
MD, medical director, Tri-County Mental Health Centers, Lynn, MA.
(When Is Life Worth Examining? Ablow, Washington Post Health, 8/17/93)

"Everyone knows that madness and genius go together. The mad scientist
(Dr. Frankenstein), the mad artist (van Gogh) have long been staples
of the popular imagination. But the idea that the great are 'touched'
is more than popular prejudice. It is the subject of serious
scientific study. The latest is Kay Redfield Jamison's "Touched With
Fire,' a superb new study of the connection between artistic
temperament and manic depressive disease. It concludes with a
terrifying pantheon of writers, composers, and artists from Antonin
Artaud to Virginia Woolf who suffered serious psychiatric illness
(often to the point of suicide)." (Genius, Insanity, Innocence,
Charles Krauthammer, op ed, Washington Post, 8/20/93)

Brian Harvey, 29, escaped from St. Elizabeth's Hospital four times.
Only once did officials at the District of Columbia psychiatric
hospital notify the family. Denise Harvey believes it was because her
brother Brian had stolen keys belonging to a nurse. Brian had been
hospitalized at St. Elizabeth's after he tried to strangle his uncle
Sylvester, who has cerebral palsy (CP) "because he was snoring." The
young schizophrenic man had attempted to slash his father's throat,
taken his baby niece in the middle of the night and abandoned her on
the porch of an abandoned house, and intentionally burned his legs. He
escaped from St. Elizabeth's on August 21. On August 24 he stabbed
Sylvester Harvey, 78, to death as he lay on the couch listening to
country music. The family had not been notified of his escape.
(Hospital Unable to Warn Family of Dangerous Patient's Escape, Serge
Kovaleski, Washington Post, 8/26/93)

Despite closed doctors' offices, drinking water shortages, and a
multitude of germs lurking in flood waters, Iowans escaped the summer
floods with no major outbreaks of diseases. Still the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warn residents face injury as
they clean up and rebuild and farmers especially will suffer from
flood-related stress. "Overall the impact is going to be on their
mental health, as farmers are faced with meeting payments on loan when
they don't have any crops. You might be seeing more problems in
families, with substance abuse and suicides." --Lynn Quenemoen, CDC
investigator. (Iowans' Health Concerns Are Not Over, CDC Warns,
Washington Post, 9/3/93)

"As Dr. Judith Reisman wrote a decade ago, in his chapter on Child
Sexuality in 'Sexual Behavior in the American Male,' Kinsey & Co.
claimed that based on scientifically validated methods, they had
proven that children, including infants, 'sought adult sexual
attention naturally and were unharmed by adult and child sexual acts--
inclusive of fondling and intercourse and that in many cases children
were benefited and enriched thereby.'...In a new book, 'Degenerate
Moderns' (Ignatius Press) E. Michael Jones further investigates Dr.
Alfred Kinsey...'Beneath all the high-sounding ideas,' writes Jones,
'one detects the unsavory odor of hypocrisy and mendacity, and beneath
that sexual compulsion masquerading as scientific interest.'"
(Original Dirty Old Man, Pat Buchanan, op-ed, WT, 9/8/93)

The world's largest preventable cause of mental impairment, iron
deficiency, would costs pennies a day to prevent, James Grant,
executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF),
advises. (Iodine Deficiency Has Cheap Solution, Sandy Rovner,
Washington Post Health, 9/14/93)

"In late July [Hillary Clinton] and the president were shattered by
the suicide of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster, their
longtime friend and the First Lady's former law partner...'In debate
class you learn to attack the idea and not the person,' says a Clinton
friend. 'We've gotten away from that in this country. You attack the
person, destroy his credibility, then hope that undermines the idea.'"
(A Course Embedded With Personal Tragedies, Donnie Radcliffe,
Washington Post, 9/21/93)

"When a person has cancer, they receive protection and support, and
basically unlimited treatment. When a person is schizophrenic, he is
abandoned by the system and all around him." --hospital psychiatrist,
in Stuck in Time: The Tragedy of Childhood Mental Illness by Lee
Gutkin. "The Shulzes saw doctors, neurologists, and psychiatrists, and
tried intensive behavior modification programs, medication, and other
therapies. They spent $4,500 for a week-long consultation with Barry
and Suzy Kaufman at their Option Institute in southern
Massachusetts...Nothing worked...When he was 4, Jordan went for a year
to a school in Japan for autistic children, then to a school in Boston
that followed the Japanese philosophy...The book ends in 1990, when
Jordan is 8, with no improvement in sight. Craig Schulze concludes
that his son's 'existence is no less meaningful than anyone else's.'
He muses, 'I must recognize that my disappointment and periodic
sadness about Jordan reflect back on me. It is I am who am
deficient...for not accepting as he is." When Snow Turns to Rain: One
Family's Struggle to Solve the Riddle of Autism by Craig Schulze. (No
Light in the Tunnel, Ann Waldron, book reviews, WP Health, 9/21/93)

"You might call it the first day of the rest of Hillary Rodham
Clinton's political life. Never before has a First Lady been so
involved in an issue affecting the lives of the American people, or
had so much personally at stake...The American Health Security Act is
seen by some as the last great missing piece of Franklin Roosevelt's
sweeping New Deal reforms of the 1930s, which included Social
Security. It was Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor, more than any other First
Lady, who paved the way for Hillary Clinton to reach the plateau of
involvement that she has with Bill Clinton's presidency...It is,
however, that sort of implied authority to speak and act for her
husband that makes some Hillary-watchers warying, remembering Bill
Clinton's campaign promise of two-for-the-price-of-one--which
opponents interpreted as a co-presidency." (The Capitol Climb of the
First Lady, Donnie Radcliffe, Washington Post, 9/21/93)

A study published in the September issue of the American Journal of
Psychiatry finds daily dose of vitamin E can control tardive
dyskinesia in some patients taking anti-psychotic narcoleptic drugs.
Tardive dyskinesia may cause involuntary movements of the tongue which
affect speech and chewing, or the neck, trunk, and pelvis. It may
result in lip-puckering, leg-jiggling, and other uncontrollable
motions. (Vitamin E May Ease Side Effects of Drugs, Sandy Rovner,
Washington Post Health, 9/21/93)

"While mental illness is as much of a disease as cancer or diabetes,
there still tends to be a stigma associated with such a diagnosis....
'We're sort of at the point cancer was 30 years ago,' said Fred
Donovan, executive director of the [Eastern Panhandle Mental Health
Center]." (Fighting the Stigma of Mental Illness, Meg Partington,
Martinsburg Journal, 9/26/93)

"Worrying. It's a character trait so closely associated with neurosis
and anxiety that most people don't want to own up to it (who wants to
be called a 'worrywart'?), and yet everyone has grappled with it at
one time or another...Hypochondriacs are the classic worriers, but not
all worriers are hypochondriacs...Why is it that some people are
worriers and others aren't? 'Some people have found ways of repressing
their tendency to worry, because it is so incompatible with what they
think of themselves," says Adam Phillips, a London psychotherapist,
who examines worrying...in his book of essays, 'On Kissing, Tickling,
and Being Bored' (Harvard University Press...). According to Phillips,
...'Every man who doesn't worry is married to a woman who does, or
vice versa.'" ABLEnews Editor's Note: With all due respect, I would
not classify either of my parents as worriers. (What's to Worry?
Barbara Mathias, Washington Post, 10/1/93)

"Based loosely on historical fact, Alan Bennett's surprisingly shallow
play focuses on a brief period during 1788-89 in which [King] George
[III] was suddenly beset by a series of symptoms that seemed to
suggest he was going insane. What he most likely suffered from is a
rare metabolic disorder known as porphyria, which makes the skin
abnormally sensitive, turns the urine blue, and brings on a condition
similar to dementia; its comings and goings are still not fully
understood...'Do not look at me, I'm the king,' the babbling,
instantly aged soul in the soiled nightshirt pleads during one of the
most unsettling sequences. But as [Nigel] Hawthorne plays him, you
have to look. It isn't just the writhings and tortures and tongue-
waggings that keep you riveted. It's the actor's combination of polish
and utter rawness, regal bluster and pained humanity. And most of all,
his commanding sense of what it's like to spin totally out of control
and find your way back again." (A Commanding Method to this 'Madness,'
Pamela Sommers, review, The Madness of Georgia III, WP, 10/15/93)

"Alan Bennett...is the author of 'The Madness of George II,' the much
praised revisionist play about the monarch who let the American
Colonies slip away from the British Empire...Apparently assuming
Bennett had in store for them an evening of polite edification,
certain powers-that-be connected with the John Hopkins Medical Complex
arranged to sponsor the premier performance...as a benefit--only to
discover toward the middle of the first act that 'George III' is among
other things a delicious malicious satire of all men and matters
medical." (Regal Revisionism, Jonathan Yardley, WP, 10/18/93)

The Dana Foundation is underwriting a three-year, $2.5-million project
to discover the genetic basis for manic-depressive disorder which
affects one out of one hundred Americans (two and a half million).
Prof. Kay Jamison, of John Hopkins, says finding a genetic link will
add to early diagnosis. CURE Comment: Let's hope early diagnosis leads
to early treatment and not early euthanasia as all too often occurs.
(Genetic Source Sought for Manic-Depression, WP Health, 10/19/93)

"Charles Town City Administrator Jay Holcomb confirmed Tuesday that he
was admitted for treatment at the psychiatric hospital in Hagerstown
(MD) last week....Reached at the Brook Lane Psychiatric Center,
Holcomb said he'd 'rather not say' why he is at the hospital, adding
that things have 'been kinda rough.'" (Charles Town City Administrator
Is Treated at Psychiatric Hospital, Darcy Spencer, MJ, 10/20/93)

"At 50, David Rutherford isn't so much as retiring as changing
gears.... The chief executive officer of Brook Lane Psychiatric
Center, after 13 years at the helm, Rutherford is moving at the end of
the year....(to) become a gentleman farmer on his 16-acre spread
outside Newburg, PA.... That shouldn't be too hard for Rutherford
since transition has been part of his way of life since he graduated
from the University of Kentucky as a licensed certified social
worker." ("A Search for a Center in My Life,' Marlo Barnhart, Morning
Herald, 10/26/93)

"Patty White was so shy when she arrived at the Eastern Panhandle
Training Center in 1981, she wouldn't talk to anyone. 'It took her a
year to say good morning.' said Joel Galperin, executive director of
the...Center. 'She had come so far, it's amazing. We have a lot of
successes.' Now she prepares food for customers as a cook for
Barnhart's Supermarket in Ranson {WV]." (Training Center Helps Former
Shy Woman Bloom, Peggy Swisher, Martinsburg Journal, 10/27/93)

"Because Stern learned to get along in a shaming family environment
...he successfully recreates this pattern on his show. Underneath he
still fears the shame and humiliation of his childhood...His father
has always engaged in verbal put-downs. He calls Howard a moron, and
now Howard refers to others in the same manner. He learned from his
father the sense of power that comes from demeaning and humiliating
people." --one of two psychological profiles by psychotherapists of
Howard Sterns published in his book, "Private Parts." (Howard Stern,
All Id, No Lid, Richard Harrington, Washington Post, 10/28/93)

"For many years I have been looking at the dark side of human
behavior. I have explored the psychology of mass killing and genocide
in a study of Nazi doctors, the lasting effects of the atomic bomb on
the survivors of Hiroshima, and the war experiences of Vietnam
veterans. But from the same catastrophic historical events I have also
observed something more hopeful the emergence of a new human capacity
for transformation and change, a psychological pattern that can enable
us to avoid destructive behavior and enhance our everyday lives. I
call this pattern the 'protean self,' after Proteus, the Greek god
who, in the Odyssey, changed shape continuously."  Robert Lifton,
director, The Center on Violence and Human Survival, John Jay College
of Criminal Justice.(We Can Transform Ourselves, Lifton, PM, 10/31/93)

According to a survey conducted for Parade Magazine, more than one out
of four Americans "have felt so depressed or anxious, they thought
they might develop a mental illness. One in three knows someone adult
or child who should be receiving help with a mental problem but is
not." Former head of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Dr. Herbert Parades, of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of
Columbia University observes: "People are saying that mental illness
is a big problem. They're saying that you can get help and the costs
should be covered. If the same survey had been done forty years ago,
the results would have been very different." Survey  questions
included: "Do you believe that the mentally ill, with proper
treatment, can function normally in society?" and "Would you allow a
group home for the mentally ill to be built in your neighborhood?"
(What We Say About Mental Illness, Mark Clements, PM, 10/31/93)

"People who think they've seen a UFO or a space alien appear to be
just as intelligent and psychologically healthy as other people, a new
study says. Researchers found that the UFO reporters scored no worse
than other people on tests of psychological health, intelligence, and
fantasy-proneness. They appeared to be 'very normal,' said study co-
author Patricia Cross of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada."
(Study Says UFO Sighters Are Normal, Martinsburg Journal, 11/1/93)

"I have spent much of the past 15 years doing emergency room mental
health evaluations. Increasingly, I've found emergency psychiatric
patients are using drugs. In fact, emergency psychiatric admissions
that do not test positive for drugs now seem to be the exception, what
is most striking, however, is that even the most severely disturbed
patient is likely to test positive for cocaine." -Phil Eichmiller,
Columbia, MD. (Cocaine Interdiction Is a Farce, Eichmiller, letter-
editor, Washington Post, 11/9/93)

                              TABulations

"Eugenics, a science to 'improve' the human race by preventing births
of the handicapped and encouraging births of those with 'superior'
genes, was quite powerful in the United States in the early part of
this century. It led to compulsory sterilization of many retarded and
insane people and to anti-immigration legislation. After the horrors
of the Nazi regime in Germany discredited the idea of eugenics, the
American Eugenics Society lowered its profile and eventually changed
its name to Society for the Study of Social Biology--a group that
still exists today. Eugenicists helped establish such influential
groups as the Population Council, the Planned Parenthood Federation of
America, and the American Society of Human Genetics, a major force in
the spread of prenatal testing and 'selective' (eugenic) abortion." (A
Different Take on the March of Dimes, Mary Meehan, NCR, 8/29/93)

                            Under the Dome

"Mayor [Sharon Pratt] Kelly is taking a lot of heat for proposing
changes in local law, including modification of the provision
entitling the mentally ill to treatment 'in the least restrictive
environment.' That particular legal right, which a federal judge
interpreted as being implied in a congressional statute 17 years ago,
would be altered to give the city discretion in determining when and
to whom which mental services should be provided." CURE Comment: The
same city officials already found derelict in their care for mentally
ill citizens by the courts? Meanwhile, mental health advocates charge
"the proposed changes will take the city back to that unhappy era when
mentally ill patients were warehoused in hospitals or cut adrift in
the streets with nothing in between." (Caring for the City's Mentally
Ill, editorial, Washington Post, 7/12/93)

                        Wish We'd Said That...

     I am a middle-class person, but it is not enough to protect
     me if I or a member of my family needs psychiatric
     hospitalization for an illness that lasts a lifetime.
     (Raymond Bridge)

                           ...Glad We Didn't

     Both first and second ladies support extended mental health
     treatment in every standard benefits package and want
     coverage equivalent to that of physical illness. But you
     don't have to know how to analyze dreams to understand that
     such an approach would be a money nightmare. (Suzanne
     Fields)

     It's a hospital, not a prison...People walk away from hospitals
     all the time. (Michael Golden, Maryland Department of Health and
     Mental Hygiene, on the 83-year-old state institution from which
     George Berry Jr. was allowed to walk away to his death)

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