CrossCurrents - The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health articles from September 2003

CrossCurrents - The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health archives from September 2003

Note from the editor.(overview of issue contents)
September 22, 2003... Today the traditional distinction between the mind and body has generally been discarded. Many psychiatric illnesses and substance use problems have very real and treatable physical components. And many physical illnesses have equally real and...

Site redevelopment plans continue.(news from the Centre)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... CAMH continues to meet with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) and the City of Toronto to work together on approvals for our Queen Street site redevelopment proposal. At a regular meeting, the MOHLTC asked CAMH to assess...

New products at CAMH.(news from the Centre)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... CAMH'S Education and Publishing Department has recently released a number of new products, which are targeted at health care professionals, front-line workers and other people interested in mental health and addiction issues. The new additions...

New executive structure at CAMH.(news from the Centre)
September 22, 2003... Following the retirement of Jean Simpson, Executive Vice-President (EVP) and Chief Operating Officer in June, a new executive structure has been developed to reflect the direction and focus CAMH will undertake over the next few years, including...

Letters.(fetal alcohol syndrome diagnosis)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... I am pleased that fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) received attention in the article "New test can determine newborn's alcohol exposure" in the Spring 2003 issue. However, I believe that some of the statements made may be overly...

PPAO celebrates two decades of advice and advocacy.(profile)(Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office )
September 22, 2003... "Our clients want the same things in life as we do: friends, a home, money, to be loved and cared for, to contribute to the community and to be affirmed as people. Just because you have a mental illness doesn't mean that you can't achieve great...

Family physicians learn to address alcohol use during pregnancy.(news)
September 22, 2003... Most physicians willingly embark on a discussion of prenatal care with clients, asking about folic acid intake and weight gain. Yet many may feel uncomfortable broaching the issue of alcohol use in pregnant women or women of child-bearing age....

Asthmatic smokers don't see the connection.(research update)
September 22, 2003... Although one third of people who are treated for asthma attacks in American and Canadian emergency rooms are smokers, few believe their smoking is responsible for the attacks. Researchers interviewed 1,847 clients at 64 emergency departments...

Gender and ethnicity can inhibit disclosure.(research update)(Author Abstract)
September 22, 2003... Mothers may be reluctant to disclose sensitive psychological and social information during initial visits to a pediatrician who is male or of a different ethnic background than the client, according to a study from Johns Hopkins University in...

Bipolar disorder increases women's risk of alcohol dependency.(research update)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles have found that women with bipolar disorder are seven times more likely than women in the general population to have a history of alcohol dependency, while men with bipolar disorder...

Distress speeds onset of AIDS in injection drug users.(research update)
September 22, 2003... Psychological distress is associated with a more rapid onset of AIDS in HIV-positive injection drug users (IDUs), according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The study followed 451 HIV-positive (bet AIDS-free)...

Epilepsy drug may aid treatment of alcohol dependency.(research update)
September 22, 2003... Topiramate, a drug used to control epileptic seizures, has been found to be effective in treating alcohol dependency. A clinical trial at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in Texas compared the effects of topiramate...

Personality disorders recognizable in adolescents.(research update)
September 22, 2003... A new study from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, indicates that personality disorders can be diagnosed in adolescence. This contradicts a caution against such diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth...

Violent lyrics increase aggressive thoughts and feelings.(research update)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... New research indicates that violent lyrics in songs increase aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings, and may subsequently contribute to aggressive behaviour. A series of five experiments were conducted at Iowa State University and the Texas...

Psychiatric disorders worsen outcomes for men with substance use issues.(research update)(Author Abstract)
September 22, 2003... Psychiatric disorders worsen the prognosis for drug dependence among men, but not among women, according to a study from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri Scientists recruited 401 individuals being treated at drug treatment...

Shared experiences enrich peer-support networks for professionals.(news)
September 22, 2003... Derek Freeman, a Toronto lawyer in private practice, spends his spare time assisting fellow lawyers with mental health or substance use issues. He helps get them into 12-step and other therapeutic groups, listens to their problems and dispenses...

Caring for mind and body: medical monitoring and lifestyle training key to good health for people with schizophrenia.(focus)
September 22, 2003... THE PSYCHIATRIC symptoms of schizophrenia are so profound that physical health is often the last thing on the agenda when people with schizophrenia visit a doctor. Blood pressure check-ups, weight monitoring or glucose tests take a backseat to...

Raising awareness of drinking and disease: groups push to get alcohol on the cancer prevention agenda.(focus)
September 22, 2003... WHEN IT comes and health, think of the news that has made headlines in the last little while: German researchers tell us that French wines are better than others because they contain more nitric oxide, which helps dilate our vessels and prevent...

Complementary therapies move into the spotlight: therapists embrace integrative approaches to mental health care.(focus)
September 22, 2003... JASON LOST his toddler son in horrific circumstances and has begun waking in the small hours of the night, gripped by panic and crippling sadness. He decides to seek professional help. Had he been referred for medical help 20, 10 or even five...

Physical and mental health in the community.(q & a)
September 22, 2003... DR. ERIC SOLWAY is a physician at the Queen-Dufferin Treatment Centre in Parkdale, an area of Toronto with a large population of people with psychiatric and substance use issues. Solway and one other physician see approximately 40 clients per...

Beyond the crazy house: going beyond pain.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... PAT CAPPONI'S NEW BOOK IS ABOUT PAIN AND THE growth that comes with it. Beyond the Crazy House: Changing the Future of Madness features many of society's lost souls who have found redemption. Laurie cut herself, Julie wrestled with her illness,...

Physical illness and depression.(Addressing the mind-body connection in health care)(Author Abstract)
September 22, 2003... Did you know that many physical conditions are associated with the risk of developing depression? Conditions most often associated with depression or depressive symptoms are coronary artery disease, HIV/AIDS and cancer. Other conditions include...

Shared care.(Addressing the mind-body connection in health care)(Author Abstract)
September 22, 2003... In recognition of the need for more integration between mental health and other health care services, in particular primary care, a shared mental health care (SMHC) movement is underway in Canada. The Collaborative Working Group of SMHC was...

Group therapy of substance abuse: a snapshot of the state of the art.
September 22, 2003... GROUP THERAPY HAS A WELL ESTABLISHED TRADITION AS the treatment of choice for people with substance use issues. In a climate of concern about rising health care costs, the modality has become increasingly preferred. David W. Brook and Henry I....

Lessons from 20 years of addiction treatment: look after individuals and public health improvements follow.(the last word)
September 22, 2003... IT MAY SURPRISE SOME COLLEAGUES, but it can be productive and rewarding to treat drug users in a medical setting. A minor crisis often brings people to treatment. This often reflects the world of dangerous and expensive drugs. These people may...

Conferences.
September 22, 2003... CANADA Women's Substance Use Treatment: Celebrating and Moving Forward--2003 National Conference September 25-26, Vancouver, British Columbia Contact: University of British Columbia, Interprofessional Continuing Education...

What James knew.(Editorial)(Editorial)
September 22, 2003... Neuroses differ from age to age and culture to culture, but the brain operates in certain consistent patterns. William James, speculating on the psychology of religion, saw how these patterns repeat themselves in both religious and irreligious...

The pragmatics of spirit: a centenary celebration of James's Varieties.(William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... It is the determination to safeguard the human spirit that I wish to celebrate in James's Varieties: not the content of the book, but the motivation for the book. As I see it, the motivation behind the Varieties is to enlarge our vision of...

The "twice-born".
September 22, 2003... I want now to engage with the very heart of James's discussion, which I identify with the description of the plight of the "twice-born." Their contrast case, the "once-born," are healthy-minded. They have the sense that all is well with the...

The varieties as an inspiration: confessions of a slow learner.
September 22, 2003... A recent survey designed to estimate eminence among psychologists in the twentieth century, which produced a list of the 100 most eminent ones (Haggabloom et al., 2002), ranked Willam James as number 14, above John B. Watson (17), the...

Implicit theologies in psychologies: claiming experience as an authoritative source for theologizing.
September 22, 2003... The beginning of this millennium is an especially appropriate time to consider the relationship between psychology and theology, and more particularly, the role of experience in theologizing, (1) since it marks the centennial of William James's...

A terrible good: William James, Charles Williams and divided consciousness.
September 22, 2003... In anatomizing religious experience, William James drew on an emerging body of psychological observation which had no well-defined relation to the phenomena of conversion and mysticism he was addressing. For about fifteen years before James's...

"Failure, then, failure!": shame and William James's "sick soul".
September 22, 2003... William James understood that any particular philosophy is in fact "the expression of a man's intimate character, and all definitions of the universe are but the deliberately adopted reactions of human characters upon it " (Allen, 1967, p. ix,...

Is healthy-mindedness healthy?
September 22, 2003... One of the famous distinctions William James makes in The Varieties of Religious Experience is between two different ways of viewing the world. The basic difference between these two views for James lies in their differing approaches to evil....

Ritual and religius experince: William James and the study of 'alternative spiritualities.'.
September 22, 2003... Our most unbelieving century... cannot have done with Religion... Were men stisfied to be Atheists, the melodius dithyrambs of Mr. Swinburne would never have awakened curiosity." (Quarterly Review, 1895: 51) Introduction The mid-to...

Definitions and hypotheses: William James, religion, and spiritual transformation.
September 22, 2003... For two years, I have been working with the Spiritual Transformation Scientific Research Program (STP), a novel research initiative, inspired by the work of William James's Varieties of Religious Experience and hosted by the Metanexus Institute...

Jewish renewal in pre-nazi Berlin: Abraham Heschel interprets William James.
September 22, 2003... In 1930 an earnest group of Jewish thinkers, under the shadow of Adolf Hitler's rising ascent to power, gathered weekly in Berlin to renew Jewish tradition. Its leader was Professor David Koigen (1879-1933), a social philosopher trained in...

Gomer's Complaint.(Poetry)(Poem)
September 22, 2003... The LORD said to Hosea, 'Co, Take yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD." Hosea 1:2 GOMER'S COMPLAINT Who is this man? This fool? He keeps...

Perhaps.(Poetry)(Brief Article)(Poem)
September 22, 2003... PERHAPS There is something worth fighting for in this world, we can sense it from where we are. But we are much too tired to struggle, weary from exercising what others died to secure. Perhaps tomorrow... we'll...

The Leaf.(Poetry)(Brief Article)(Poem)
September 22, 2003... THE LEAF I found a bright leaf half yellow half red laid to rest on its mossy green bed halfway in this world halfway in the light the spirit of the thing now coming in sight Down by the side of the path where I...

Kauai.(Poetry)(Brief Article)(Poem)
September 22, 2003... KAUAI Razor Rays who cut the deep and travel where I cannot go whose singing wakes me from my sleep to teach me what I cannot know Where time is such a precious thing where every moment's handed down too...

Night Fishing in Galilee: the Journey Towards Spiritual Wisdom.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... By Kenneth Arnold Cowley Publicatons 2002, $12.95 (paper) "I am as passionate about fishing," says playwright-publisher-deacon (Episcopalian)-Seelsorger-and-expert angler Kenneth Arnold, "as I am about the church." Well, maybe--if one...

At Home in the Cosmos.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... By David S. Toolan Orbis Books 2001, $47.95 Toolan builds on the work begun by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the eco-theologian Thomas Berry, to review the findings of hard science over the past generation, and apply them to Western...

The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... By Joel ben Izzy Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2003, $22.95 In lecture Six of The Varieties of Religious Experience, "The Sick Soul," William James quotes Robert Louis Stevenson: "There is indeed one element in human destiny that not...

Blackface as religious expression.
September 22, 2003... This past year, two young Jewish men toured North America with a seemingly odd pairing for a musical: the Book of Job and the politics of hip-hop's meteoric rise to power in the entertainment business. In their original production Job: The...

"Religion in this way is absolutely indestructible.".
September 22, 2003... To Henry William Rankin Edinburgh, June 16. 1901 Dear Mr. Rankin, I have received all your letters and missives, inclusive of the letter which you think I must have lost, some months back. I Professor-ed you because I had read...