Posts Tagged: mental illness
News
Lee Davis says flatly that without involuntary treatment for her raging psychosis, she would be dead. “It saved my life.” A mental health activist who chairs the Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board, which advises the board of supervisors and county officials on mental health policy, Davis acknowledges hers is not a popular view among disability rights advocates,
Letters
Dear Editor: I want to commend reporter Sigrid Bathen for her thorough and excellent reporting on an issue important to so many people: providing mental health care for our loved ones. Ms. Bathen’s two-part series shined a critical light on some counties’ resistance to adopting Laura’s Law to enhance outpatient services to those with severe mental health issues.
News
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Stephen Manley refers to defendants in his courtroom as “clients” – an indication of the unusually informal and conversational tenor of the Behavioral Health Court he created more than two decades ago. “It tends to break through a barrier,” Manley said.
News
On the afternoon of May 8, 2017, the family of 32-year-old Mikel McIntyre called 911 for help in dealing with his increasingly erratic and threatening behavior. The former high school and college athlete, who lived in Antioch and had briefly played baseball in the minor leagues, had been showing signs of serious mental illness, and his mother was concerned. She hoped a visit with family in Sacramento might help. The first call, shortly after 3 p.m., indicated a possible mental-health crisis: McIntyre had locked himself in a vehicle and was being “slightly combative,”
Opinion
OPINION: Gov. Newsom pledged up to $1.4 billion to attack the homeless situation. To help people on the verge of homelessness keep their apartments, Newsom is proposing a sum of $750 million, some of which will go towards subsidizing rent to keep people from falling into homelessness. He also said he would sign an executive order to provide trailers and tents as temporary housing.
News
Mental illness cases in California jails have significantly increased since 2009, health policy experts reported Thursday. California Health Policy Strategies, a Sacramento-based consulting group, gathered administrative data from the Board of State and Community Corrections and discovered a 42 % increase in mental health cases reported and an 80 % increase in inmate medication prescriptions over the last 10 years.
News
The modern history of mental-health care in California begins more than half a century ago with passage of the landmark 1967 Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, an ambitious — but ultimately disastrous — overhaul of a draconian “system” of hoary old mental hospitals throughout California. Most of the hospitals were closed, but the “community care” that was to take their place never materialized.
Opinion
OPINION: The effects of poor behavioral health can be seen all around us every day. We see it in the form of alcoholism or drug addiction, including the epidemic of opioid use. It can be seen in the daily struggles of those with depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric conditions. It can make headlines, as with the shocking suicides of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and designer Kate Spade.
A woman in a medical ward ponders her situation. (Photo: Boyloso, via Shutterstock)
