trauma

APA: With digital mental health going mainstream, will/ should psychologists be able to “prescribe” interventions?

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Men­tal health, meet ven­ture cap­i­tal (APA):

Until recent­ly, men­tal health was a rel­a­tive blip on the radar of ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists. But over the past few years, and par­tic­u­lar­ly since the onset of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, pri­vate investors have made a dra­mat­ic run for this space, pour­ing $3.1 bil­lion into men­tal health ven­tures by the third quar­ter of 2021 alone, accord­ing to Rock Health, a seed fund that sup­ports star­tups work­ing in dig­i­tal health. That rep­re­sents a third of all dig­i­tal health fund­ing for 2021, more than 7 times the amount of fund­ing placed in such ven­tures in 2015. [Read more…] about APA: With dig­i­tal men­tal health going main­stream, will/ should psy­chol­o­gists be able to “pre­scribe” interventions?

Trend: School-based programs to enhance resilience and emotional/ cognitive flexibility

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Dozens of pro­grams to encour­age resilience have been intro­duced in schools all over the world, both to help chil­dren recov­er from trau­ma, but also cope bet­ter with their day-to-day stress­es. Many use tech­niques such as [Read more…] about Trend: School-based pro­grams to enhance resilience and emotional/ cog­ni­tive flexibility

Understanding, and Nurturing, Resilience and Adaptability

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Over and over again—in nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, after the SARS epi­dem­ic, fol­low­ing the loss of a child or spouse—Bonanno’s lon­gi­tu­di­nal stud­ies on loss and trau­ma revealed the exact same pat­tern at the pop­u­la­tion lev­el. No mat­ter how bad the trau­ma, rates of PTSD nev­er exceed­ed one-third, and rates of resilience were always found in at least one-third and nev­er more than two-thirds of the population.

“This pat­tern of response is so ubiq­ui­tous, and so con­sis­tent, it begs the ques­tion: Why are we, as a species, designed this way?” asks Bonanno.

One pos­si­ble answer is that the design ensures that there is always at least a siz­able minor­i­ty, or even a major­i­ty, to take care of those deeply affect­ed by a trau­ma. [Read more…] about Under­stand­ing, and Nur­tur­ing, Resilience and Adaptability

Report: Cognitive Testing Program Fails Soldiers, Leaving Brain Injuries Undetected

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Test­ing Pro­gram Fails Sol­diers, Leav­ing Brain Injuries Unde­tect­ed (ProP­ub­li­ca):

“In 2007, with road­side bombs explod­ing across Iraq, Con­gress moved to improve care for sol­diers who had suf­fered one of the war’s sig­na­ture wounds, trau­mat­ic brain injury.

Law­mak­ers passed a mea­sure requir­ing the mil­i­tary to test sol­diers’ brain func­tion before they deployed and again when they returned. The test was sup­posed to ensure that sol­diers received prop­er treatment.

Instead, an inves­ti­ga­tion by ProP­ub­li­ca and NPR has found, the test­ing pro­gram has failed to deliv­er on its promise, offer­ing sol­diers the appear­ance of help, but not the real­i­ty. [Read more…] about Report: Cog­ni­tive Test­ing Pro­gram Fails Sol­diers, Leav­ing Brain Injuries Undetected