CrossCurrents - The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health articles from June 2007

CrossCurrents - The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health archives from June 2007

Note from the editor.(Editorial)
June 22, 2007... Most mental illnesses have their roots in childhood and adolescence. That means that early intervention is critical in both prevention and treatment. But statistics show that a growing number of children are experiencing mental health issues...

A view from CAMH.
June 22, 2007... It sometimes comes as a surprise to people to learn that at CAMH, children are very much a part of our agenda with regard to clinical care, research, education, health promotion and prevention. This issue of CrossCurrents touches on the myriad...

PREVNet takes child bullying by the horns.(profile)(Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network)(Organization overview)
June 22, 2007... It's a brilliant, sunny day, and for most students in the schoolyard, recess is a welcome break from the classroom. But not for grade 5 student Mary, who is approached by two peers. The first girl threatens her life and then she and the other...

Toronto's centralized withdrawal service moves into its second year.(news)(Central Access by Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and local hospitals)
June 22, 2007... In an office at St. Michael's Hospital in downtown Toronto, two phone attendants spend their day taking calls from people looking to access withdrawal management services. These attendants are part of an initiative called Central Access,...

Sowing the seeds of health plants and clients thrive with horticultural therapy.(news)
June 22, 2007... Does being close to nature--more specifically, experiencing plants in a garden--heal? The answer is a vehement "yes" according to the very small but growing field of Canadian practitioners trained in horticultural therapy. Based on field...

Antidepressant use linked to reduced alcohol consumption in men, but not women.(research update)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... A study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in London, Ontario, has found that although people with depression consume more alcohol than those who are not depressed, depressed men who use antidepressants have lower alcohol...

Child's attachment to security blanket foreshadows adult attachments.(research update)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... Research from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom sees a child's attachment to a security blanket or stuffed toy as the origin of an adult's attachment to a work of art, a piece of memorabilia or a sentimental possession. The study...

Tobacco contributes to attention problems in teens.(research update)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... Children born to women who smoke during pregnancy are known to be more likely to experience attention problems later in life. Now, research from the Yale University School of Medicine has found that these problems are compounded when children...

Researchers closing in on genetic link to autism.(research update)
June 22, 2007... An international team of researchers has completed a study that has helped to clarify the genetic basis for autism. The research was conducted as part of the Autism Genome Project, involving scientists from 50 centres in North America and...

Early physical maturity leads to risky behaviour in teens.(research update)
June 22, 2007... Teenagers whose physical maturity is in advance of their peers are at risk for problem behaviours, according to research from the University of North Carolina. Teenage girls face an additional risk if they have an older romantic partner. The...

Antidepressants no help in treating bipolar disorder.(research update)
June 22, 2007... Antidepressants are often prescribed to treat depression among individuals with bipolar disorder. However, research from Massachusetts General Hospital indicates that antidepressants offer no real benefit. In this study, 366 participants with...

Improving school ethos reduces substance abuse and teenage pregnancies.(research update)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... Efforts to improve school ethos (institutional culture) can help to reduce substance abuse and teen pregnancy, according to studies included in a recent survey from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom. Such...

The promise of the next generation: reflections on the changing face of children's mental health.(focus)
June 22, 2007... "Mary," a wide-eyed 14-year-old, dressed in Goth garb, was pondering my question of how she got the idea to cut herself (she had numerous scars on both arms). "Easy," she replied. "From a chat room." Mary had been sharing her tales of woe with...

Early expectations: fostering secure infant attachment in at-risk populations.(focus)
June 22, 2007... Maybe the baby is holding back when he is upset--rather than crying out, for example, he shows no outward signs of distress. Or perhaps she is an inconsolable baby--when she is picked up, she continues to cry for fear that if she stops, she...

From deficits to strengths: how to help families nurture resilient children.(focus)
June 22, 2007... "Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," wrote the nineteenth-century Russian writer Leo Tolstoy at the opening of his tragic novel Anna Karenina. Only two decades ago, researchers and clinicians in the...

Home is where the hurt is: children exposed to domestic violence face psychological woes.(focus)
June 22, 2007... A group of pre-schoolers enters a playroom scattered with toys. One child heads straight for the police car, picks it up and runs it along the floor, announcing, "The police car is coming to the house to stop the daddy from hitting the mommy."...

Anxious kids: school-based cognitive-behavioural therapy shows promise.(focus)
June 22, 2007... As the principal of Hillmount Public School in Toronto, Jo-Anne Weinstein has seen a growing number of students struggling with mental health issues. "Kids are exposed to an awful lot more, and at a younger age," she says, "whether it's through...

How parental mental illness affects child development.(focus)
June 22, 2007... Parental mental illness may affect children in specific ways at different stages of their development. Here's how: INFANT (0-8 MONTHS) Developmental tasks * Learn basic trust to prepare for future relationships. * Connection and...

Common question about trauma in refugee children.(q & a)(Interview)
June 22, 2007... This Q&A is based on an interview with Dr. Lucie Nadeau, a child psychiatrist with the Transcultural Child Psychiatry Clinic at Montreal Children's Hospital. Nadeau offers helpful insights from her work counselling young newcomers to Canada in...

The McMaster approach: 20 years of a Canadian family therapy model.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... FAMILY PROCESSES and resilience expert Froma Walsh is said to have quipped: "The only normal family is the one which hasn't been assessed yet." Now here is a book summarizing several decades of research about "normal" as well as clinical...

Children and mental health in the schools.(downloaded)
June 22, 2007... Honouring the Spirit of Our Children www.ece.gov.nt.ca From Northwest Territories Education, Culture and Employment comes this resource to support school counselling programs. Schools are guided to develop supports to address a continuum of...

What is the best therapeutic care for children and youth with gender identity issues?(the last word)
June 22, 2007... I am writing this column (which, I hope, will not be my "last words") on a return flight from the Netherlands, where I attended an exciting planning meeting at the Free University Medical Centre in Amsterdam. A working group of specialists from...

Conferences.
June 22, 2007... CANADA 7th Intenational Congress of the International Society of Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology July 4-7, Montreal, Quebec Contact: Yolande Dagenais Programme de psychiatric, CHU Sainte-Justine, 3175 Cote Sainte-Catherine,...

Race and religion: the elixir of separation.(EDITORIALS)(Essay)
June 22, 2007... Race--it is America's rawest nerve and most enduring dilemma. From Birth to death, race is with us, defining, dividing, distorting. --Sig Gissler, Summer 1994 I add the following comment to Gissler's observation: From birth to death,...

Remember history: an interview with John Hope Franklin.(Interview)
June 22, 2007... named after John Hope, one of the founders of the Niagara Movement (the forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or the NAACP), historian John Hope Franklin has not only recorded American history, he has...

When the Mahatma met Jesus: Gandhianism, African American evangelism and the fight for racial justice.
June 22, 2007... Ed. Note: In Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, the first full-scale book on the Freedom Riders by a professional historian, University of South Florida history professor Ray Arsenault offers a number of examples of the...

"Be ye doers of the word, not just hearers only": faith and politics in the life of Victoria Gray Adams.
June 22, 2007... African American women's leadership significantly influenced the success of the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, while this is true, many of the early movement histories focused on national organizations and the men who led them. Within recent...

Righteous politics: the role of the black church in contemporary politics.
June 22, 2007... Someday the Awakening will come, when the pent-up vigor of ten million souls shall sweep, irresistibly toward the Goal, out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where all that makes life worth living-Liberty, Justice and Right- is marked...

America's original sin: the legacy of white racism.
June 22, 2007... The United States of America was established as a white society, founded upon the genocide of another race and then the enslavement of yet another. To make such a statement today is to be immediately accused of being rhetorical or, worse...

The power of reconciliation: from the apostle paul to Malcolm X.
June 22, 2007... As a Christian, I embrace a New Testament perspective on reconciliation. I write, teach, and often preach that through Jesus Christ we are reconciled to God and to each other. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was a re-creation event...

Repairing the past: polarities of restorative justice.
June 22, 2007... Forging links between academic analysis and the hard, practical work of politicians is a neglected art. Behind the difficulty are the threats of ambiguity. Making a decision to do something is different from thinking about doing. There is a...

Jesus and justice: an outline of liberation theology within black churches.(Essay)
June 22, 2007... The institutional development and infrastructure that mark the various African American denominations provide the physical structures through which African American Christians live out their doctrine, their beliefs. However, we often forget...

Prosperity theology: T.D. Jakes and the gospel of the almighty dollar.
June 22, 2007... There was a time when being Pentecostal meant eschewing the material blessings of the world by opting for a life of simplicity not unlike what Henry David Thoreau endorsed in his classic book Walden. Carlis Moody, a longtime bishop in the...

Words from the pulpit: faith in a foreign land.
June 22, 2007... I want you to consider a familiar passage of Scripture: By the rivers of Babylon we sat down; There we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows near by We hung up our harps.... Those who captured us told us...

Finding meaning in the harsh landscape of living.(Covenant: Scenes from an African American Church)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... Well, some people think Jesus is not white. Some people say Jesus is not black. They say He is a Hebrew. I really don't know what a Hebrew person looks like, but I just picture him like in the pictures. You know how people have the pictures...

Fighting health disparities: the educational role of the African American church.
June 22, 2007... Religion and religious institutions are an integral part of the lives of many Americans. For African Americans, the Black Church (1) has been the one entity that has constantly served their needs and interests. Even so, African Americans...

You got a right to the tree of life: African American spirituals and religions of the diaspora.(Essay)
June 22, 2007... Run, Mary, run Run, Mary, run I say Run, Mary, run You got a right to the tree of life. You got a right, you got a right You got a right to the tree of life. Little Mary you got a right You got a right to the tree of life....

Sorrow songs and flying away: religious influence on black poetry.(POETRY)(Essay)
June 22, 2007... When blacks first encountered Europeans and their religion, a strange and complex bond was forged. Newly encased in the manacles of slavery, they had their first taste of Christianity. Usually, there was a chapel at the center of each holding...

Bling and blessings: thoughts on the intersections of rap music and religious meaning.(POETRY)(Essay)
June 22, 2007... There is a long relationship between music and religious concerns, the former often serving as a vehicle for the articulation of the latter. What is more, one need not sing explicitly about heaven and hell in order for one's music to wrestle...

Riding into history.(BOOKS)(Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice)(Critical essay)
June 22, 2007... Raymond Arsenault Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice Oxford University Press, 2006, paperback 2007, 690 pp, $19.95 It lasted for only six months. But people who were directly involved in the civil rights...

Reconciliation then and now.(BOOKS)(Living Faith: How Faith Inspires Social Justice)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... Curtiss Paul DeYoung Living Faith: How Faith Inspires Social Justice Fortress Press, 2007, 186 pp, $15 In Living Faith, Curtiss DeYoung offers spiritual profiles of three figures who worked for social change in the 20th century:...

Christians and slavery.(BOOKS)(Slavery in Early Christianity)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... Jennifer A. Glancy Slavery in Early Christianity Fortress Press Edition, paperback, 2006, 203 pp. ($22) With Slavery in Early Christianity, Jennifer A. Glancy, Joseph C. Geog Professor of Religious Studies at LeMoyne College, may...

Scorning their own.(BOOKS)(Their Own Receive Them Not: African American Lesbians & Gays in Black Churches)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... Horace L. Griffin Their Own Receive Them Not: African American Lesbians & Gays in Black Churches The Pilgrim Press, 2006. 240 pp. $24 African-American culture is complex, fraught with paradox and contradiction, and no other area...

Out of Africa.(BOOKS)(African Immigrant Religions in America)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... Jacob K. Olupona and Regina Gemignani, eds. African Immigrant Religions in America New York University Press, May 2007. 338 pp. ($23) In 2003, demographers estimated that 1.1 million African immigrants resided in the United States....

Practicing diversity.(books on racial slavery as part of Christian history)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... Robert J. Priest and Alvaro L. Neives, eds. This Side of Heaven: Race, Ethnicity, and Christian Faith Oxford University Press, paperback, 2006, 356 pp. In this anthology of essays, a team of inter-ethnic and interdisciplinary...