"Mental Health awareness raised in campaign"

The Bernardsville News posted my letter to the editor Thursday.  I’ve made progress this week.

I met today with Pam Mastro, the Somerset County Mental Health Administrator.  Pam has an open door policy and will take phone calls from anyone with a question or need about mental health.  She is eager to help roll out a education and awareness program in our town.  Her email is mastro@co.somerset.nj.us.

Earlier this week I met with Mary Lynn Bradshaw and Barbara Barklay.  They are coordinators for the Stephens Ministers program at the Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church.  The program is non-denominational, and is open to anyone in the community.  The Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church has this program as well.  A quote from their brochure:

Our congregation’s Stephen Ministry equips lay people to provide confidential, one-to-one, Christian care to individuals in our congregation and community who are experiencing difficulty in their lives.

One of the things I am focused on is how does someone make that first phone call for help.  Because of the many obstacles to seeking care, I think the Stephen Ministers are a good model of lay people, in the community, that are available and can help refer the person to the right place for care.  Each volunteer has 50 hours of training.  The have a list of doctors and therapists within the community, who are all credentialed, and have been endorsed by the local program.

I see the benefit of a group like this, and am wondering if a more secular version of this could also be created for people perhaps not comfortable with a Christian oriented ministry.

More discussion will be coming.

Against Depression

Dr. Peter Kramer’s 2005 book, Against Depression, blows me away. I have read a lot of books in the last couple of years, but this is a rare one, that has me jotting notes on every page.

His chapter 12, “Magnitude,” answers the question: how bad is depression:

“Depression is the most devastating disease known to human kind.” (Researchers measure this statistically in terms of “good days” lost.)

In 1996, the most extensive global-burden-of-disease study, conducted by the WHO, the World Bank, and Harvard, concluded that “depression will be second only to ischemic heart disease–in terms of disability caused.”

“Estimates put the annual workplace cost in … America at over forty billion dollars.”

“The best studies show that over 16 percent of Americans suffer major depression in the course of a lifetime.”

“Depression often begins in adolescence. A recent study looked at children between the ages of twelve and seventeen, a stage of life when illness is rare. In the prior six months, 7 percent of boys and almost 14 percent of girls had met the full criteria for major depression.”

Impact on the elderly, “researchers evaluated more than 5000 mean and women age sixty-five and older … over a six year period. Those with high depression scores were over 40 percent more likely to die than those with low depression scores.”

In a cardiac study: after controlling for variables like social class, health risk factors (such as smoking), and other concurrent disease, depression still accounted for a 24 percent increase in deaths–from such causes as heart attack and pneumonia. “Think of it: a cardiac study that finds depression as deadly as congestive heart failure.”

These statements all relate to major depression. Earlier in the book, on page 69, Kramer writes:

“Depression is characterized less by acuity than duration. Depression is what settles in to stay.” 

In these excerpts, I feel like I’ve done the book a disservice. I’m an engineer. Facts are my friends. So I start with the numbers. But Kramer’s writing is clear, convincing, artful. As I make my way through the book I see myself shifting seamlessly from one role to the next: patient, father, child, husband.

On VerbSap

http://www.verbsap.com/07fallnonfiction/kimzey.html

And a review of VerbSap
http://newpages.com/magazinestand/litmags/2007_11/litmagreviews_2007_11.htm