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Ongoing Transformations at The MHA of Westchester
The Mental Health Association of Westchester (MHA) continues to actively transform the delivery of our expansive array of services, increasingly moving from a conceptual commitment to provide holistic services to operationalizing a unified fabric of existing and newly created services....
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“I’m Not Strong – I’m Steel” Life and Recovery with Co-Occurring Disorders
You may have heard it before: acceptance is the first step in recovery. Nothing could be truer, as was made abundantly clear as each of us shared our histories together in a discussion about Behavioral Health News “Understanding and Treating Co-Occurring Disorders” issue. Trauma leading to...
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Housing People with Serious Mental Illness in Jails and Prisons: Why Are We Still Criminalizing Mental Illness?
Lack of appropriate access to mental health care for the seriously mentally ill in the U.S. is a critical issue. Such lack of access can lead to significant, adverse living outcomes for individuals living with mental illness, including homelessness and incarceration. It is a disturbing fact that...
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From the Publisher’s Desk “The Handshake of Hope”
With the holiday’s only a month or so away, I recall a true story I wrote about several years ago in this publication. It began with, “Let me tell you a story about a simple handshake that saved the life of a man from New York suffering with mental illness.” The year was 1987 and he was 38...
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How ABA Improved Executive Functioning Deficits
Rosie is a young woman in her early 20s, who attends one of the senior CUNY colleges in New York City, Baruch University. Rosie is diagnosed with mild intellectual disability and schizoaffective disorder. She entered into her third year of her bachelor program in January 2015 realizing that she had...
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When Mental Illness Enters a Family
Families notice when a loved begins to be different from the child, spouse, sibling or parent that they have known. Their loved one isolates him(or her)self from family and friends; shows persistent changes in sleep, eating and hygiene; says or does odd things that suggest their thinking is off,...
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Second Chances
This is my story about my struggles with bi-polar disorder, substance abuse, and second chances. My journey began approximately 2 years ago. Between my undiagnosed mental illness and substance abuse, I was on a road of self-destruction. I was not capable of living a normal life. I couldn’t get...
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Services for the UnderServed Addresses Mental Illness Among Young Adults Under New Citywide Initiative
Many youth are hit suddenly with mental illness during their teens and early adulthood. For some, it may be as many as seven years between their “first break” and the first time they formally receive treatment. This results in many of them lagging behind their peers as they transition to...
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The Recovery Movement in New York State
What an exciting time to work in behavioral health! Practitioners are in a new frontier of best practices based upon significant research that provides a growing understanding about brain disease and appropriate interventions in behavioral health and recovery. The growing strength and influence of...
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Recovery from Mental Illness: Consumer Readiness as a Driving Force
In this account, I’m sharing our experience at The Bridge, the New York City non-profit mental health rehabilitation agency, to illustrate the key role that consumers play in moving service providers to a recovery/rehabilitation orientation. The Bridge was created in 1954 by a group of...
