CrossCurrents - The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health articles from March 2006

CrossCurrents - The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health archives from March 2006

Note from the editor.(prison based mental health service programs)(Editorial)
March 22, 2006... For centuries, mental illness, substance use and criminality have gone hand in hand. Even today, people with mental health or addiction issues languish in prisons because assessment spaces in psychiatric hospitals are scarce. Our failure to...

A view from CAMH.(Centre for Addiction and Mental Health)
March 22, 2006... The focus of this issue reflects the longstanding reality of an intersect among mental illness, substance use and correctional facilities. When the Provincial Lunatic Asylum opened in 1850 (on the same plot of land where the new Centre for...

Mental illness in the workplace: resources and action.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 22, 2006... The winter issue of CrossCurrents did a great service in focusing energy and attention on workplace and vocational issues. Mental health service providers know the startling numbers: that mental disorders result in half of all disability days...

First-person narrative: writing on the road to recovery.(Jan Lars Jensen a writer recovered from mental illness)(Column)
March 22, 2006... The notion of a connection between artistic expression and mental illness has a long history. But rarely do we learn of the multi-faceted ways in which illness affects the artist. For Canadian author Jan Lars Jensen, however, writing was a key...

Driving high: awareness campaigns target an emerging issue among youth.(news)
March 22, 2006... The signs of an alcohol impaired driver are quite clear: There's a lingering smell of alcohol in the car, and a breathalyzer shows the driver is over the legal limit. But when it comes to determining whether a driver has been smoking marijuana,...

Genetics plays role in relapse of illicit drug-seeking behaviour.(research update)(Brief article)(Clinical report)
March 22, 2006... Inbred strains of rats differ in how aggressively they seek cocaine after a few weeks of use, according to researchers at the Medical College of Georgia. The finding suggests that genetics plays a role in the relapse of drug seeking behaviour...

Personality traits linked to suicidal behaviour.(research update)(Clinical report)
March 22, 2006... Personality traits may contribute to suicidal ideation and suicide attempt in young adults, according to researchers at Douglas Hospital in Montreal, Quebec. The researchers investigated the association between personality traits and...

Pre-divorce turmoil hurts children.(research update)(Report)
March 22, 2006... The tension and turmoil leading up to divorce can be just as damaging to young children as the aftermath, according to research at the University of Alberta. Using data from Statistics Canada's National Longitudinal Survey of Children and...

Parental alcohol dependency puts children at risk for substance abuse.(research update)
March 22, 2006... Parental alcohol dependency represents a risk for maladaptive behaviours in adulthood that extend beyond alcohol dependency and into illicit drug use, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina and Arizona State University....

Black, white teens show differences in nicotine metabolism.(research update)
March 22, 2006... Some of the racial and ethnic differences underlying how adults metabolize nicotine may be apparent during adolescence, according to researchers at the Teen Tobacco Addiction Research Clinic in Baltimore, Maryland. Previous research with adults...

Heritability of depression higher in women than men.(research update)
March 22, 2006... Genes apparently play a bigger part for women than men in tire risk of developing major depression, according to results of the largest twin study of its kind conducted through the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in...

Substance misuse common with first-episode psychosis.(research update)(Brief article)(Clinical report)
March 22, 2006... A significant proportion of young people treated for first-episode psychosis persist with substance abuse and daily tobacco use, despite being aware of the negative effects on recovery, according to researchers at the University of Melbourne....

Breaking out: why do Canadian prisons still not have needle exchange programs?(focus)
March 22, 2006... OVER THE LAST FEW DECADES, CANADA HAS SLOWLY forged a path toward a more socially concerned and health-based drug policy, with proposed prescription heroin trials and cannabis decriminalization serving as markers along the road. But there is...

This is not Wonderland: an odyssey through mental health court.(focus)
March 22, 2006... IT WAS THE FOURTH OF JULY, A DAY ONE OFTEN THINKS OF in celebratory terms: America's birthday, which follows that of Canada. While images of marching bands and crowds of well-wishers at parades on sunny days come to mind, on this July 4, my...

Meditation behind bars: inmates break out of the prison of their minds.(focus)
March 22, 2006... EIGHT MEN, SOME WITH LARGE TATTOOS, OTHERS WITH shaved heads, sit cross-legged in a circle on the floor. Eyes closed, hands folded gently together in front of them, they all wear the same prison-issued jumpers. Practising meditation, they...

The forgotten offender: women in prison have unique substance use treatment needs.(focus)
March 22, 2006... IF THE EVENTS THAT TOOK PLACE IN 1994 AT THE PRISON for Women in Kingston, Ontario, taught us anything, it's that women offenders should not be treated the same way as men in correctional facilities. That incident, in which confrontations...

Mobile crisis teams partner police with mental health workers.(focus)
March 22, 2006... SANDRA * HAD BEEN BEHAVING STRANGELY FOR A FEW weeks. She was living at the YMCA in Hamilton, Ontario, and had started spying on other residents in the bathroom or approaching them and chanting "Die, babe, die!" She was heard talking to herself...

Common questions about drug treatment courts.(q & a)
March 22, 2006... What are drug treatment courts? Based on the belief that incarceration does more harm than good for individuals accused of non-violent drug related offences, drug treatment courts (DTCs) seek to divert these individuals from the punitive...

Person-centred care leads the road to recovery.(Treatment Planning for Person-Centered Care: The Road to Mental Health and Addiction Recovery book review)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Neal Adams and Diane Grieder state that they aim to convey a philosophy of "person-centred" mental health care. Treatment Planning for Person-Centered Care takes on this important task, complete with practical recommendations for practitioners....

Youth and the criminal justice system.(downloaded)(Brief article)(Work overview)
March 22, 2006... Department of Justice, Canada: www.justice.gc.ca For a refresher on youth justice in Canada, start with this site. Search, limiting to Youth Justice pages, or go directly to the Youth Justice Renewal home page by selecting Youth Justice under...

What treatment should psychopaths receive? The next two pages present two sides of the debate over how psychopaths should be treated.(the last word)(Disease/Disorder overview)
March 22, 2006... So little well-controlled research exists that no conclusions can be drawn about the efficacy of treatment for psychopathy. But the available work does offer some ideas about what is contra-indicated. Some readers might recall our research on...

Conferences.(Calendar)
March 22, 2006... CANADA Annual Convention of the American Counseling Association: "Culture-Centered and Diversity Counseling Empowers All Families" March 30-April 3, Montreal, Quebec Contact: ACA, 5999 Stevenson Ave., Alexandria, VA 22304-3302 USA tel...

The price of science without moral constraints: German and American medicine before DNA and today.
March 22, 2006... I want to talk today about the life and works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Though not a scientist, but rather a martyred German Pastor of the middle of the previous century, he has a lot to teach us about the necessity of taking a stand in public...

A Jungian perspective on religious violence and personal responsibility.(Carl Jung)
March 22, 2006... "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."--Pascal, Pensees The problem of religious violence is ubiquitous in human history, but attempts to explain it and perhaps thereby uncover a...

Financial globalization and crony capitalism.
March 22, 2006... Many economic transactions are characterized by asymmetric information; that is, one of the parties is more aware of or has more control over the circumstances and performance of the transaction than the other party has. This is particularly...

Can a war against terror be just? Or, what is just war good for?
March 22, 2006... It is widely recognized that we have entered a new era of warfare. With horrible poignancy, on September 11, 2001 terrorism announced that it had come of age. No longer are wars waged between symmetrical powers--state versus state. Now we are...

College and social class: the broken promise of America.
March 22, 2006... When I walk into the room where I work, I know it is a class-room. I know by how it looks. There are individual chairs for the students, lined up facing the front, where there is a desk with a different kind of chair and a blackboard. What I am...

Some Jewish reflections on Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration.(John Locke's a Letter Concerning Toleration)
March 22, 2006... One of the most provocative insights from the flood of punditry that followed the September 11th attacks came in October 2001 from Andrew Sullivan. Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Sullivan suggested that the Muslim world has not reached...

The hammer and the Free Spirit: toward a practical heresy.
March 22, 2006... I was scraping white paint from the business end of my hammer when it hit me--not the hammer, but the the idea I'd been waiting for all summer. I'd spent the time at my usual odd welter of projects (and some loafing). In May, right after the...

Theopoetics: that the dead may become gardeners again.
March 22, 2006... Running through the work of Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves is a story from Gabriel Garcia Marquez about a fishing village where, over generations, life has degenerated into routine, sameness, bored day after bored day. (1) Day in and day out,...

The cloud as symbol: destruction or dialogue.
March 22, 2006... The power images continue to wield over the human psyche was forcefully reaffirmed by the recent controversy over the satirical cartoons of Muhammad published in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, on September 30, 2005. Critics of the...

Paul's confrontation with class: the Letter to Philemon as counter-hegemonic discourse.
March 22, 2006... The claim that the Pauline letters have been most useful to systems of domination and oppression, is clear, well-documented, and has garnered proficient and erudite response. (1) The cultural currency of the Letter to Philemon in that regard...

Toward a progressive 'tipping point'.(The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Michael Lerner The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right HarperCollins, 2006. 408pp. $24.95 Historians from Henry Adams to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. have often pointed out how American culture oscillates...

Nice work if you can get it.(The Bones Reassemble: Reconstituting Liturgical Speech)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Catherine Madsen The Bones Reassemble: Reconstituting Liturgical Speech Davies Group, 2005. xi + 207p. $24 Catherine Madsen's bravely conceived, brilliantly argued, beautifully written book might be enough to launch a liturgical...

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time.(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Jeffrey Sachs The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time Penguin Press, 2005. 416 pp. $28 How do we explain recent celebrity attention to the plight of the 1.1 billion human beings living in extreme poverty, people...