Point of View – Generational Competence: A Conceptual Framework for Aging in America

Two major demographic trends will unfold in America during the first half of the 21st century. Minorities will grow from 29% to 47% of the American population, and older adults (65+) will increase from 13% to 20%, becoming roughly as large as the population of children and adolescents under 18 for...

Point of View – Looking Back with Pride: Mental Health Policy in the 2nd Half of the 20th Century

I have had the good fortune over most of the past two decades to participate in the vast effort made by the Mental Health Association movement to make life better for people with mental illness, especially those who are disabled and rejected by society. There are two tremendously important...

Point of View: Mental Health Needs in Kinship

There are 350-400,000 children and adolescents in New York State that are in kinship care. I.e., they are raised by relatives other than their biological parents. Although there is some evidence that these children do better psychologically than those who are in foster care with strangers, there...

Addressing the Needs of Caregivers

Our society relies on families to provide care for disabled family members. They provide 80% of such care, and the financial value of their work is close to $400 billion per year. If families did not provide this care, it would add 15 to 20% to the costs of health care in the United States. I...

Point of View – Paranoia Is a Barrier to Aging in the Community

Mrs. C lived alone in the apartment in which she and her husband had raised their children. She had always been a bit distrustful. The butcher put his thumb on the scale. A teacher had it in for a daughter who wasn’t doing well in school. But after her husband died, she became increasingly...

Point of View – Schizophrenia, The Mortality Gap, and Suicide

People with serious mental illness have a much lower life expectancy than the general population; estimates range from 9 to 32 years. Recent recognition of this mortality gap has led to increasing efforts to improve the health of these people by improving their access to health care and by...

How About Recovery for People with Psychiatric Disabilities in Long-term Care?

Happily, the concept of “recovery” has become a powerful force in the mental health system. We talk now about a “recovery-oriented system” and “recovery-oriented services.” In doing so we express our sense of hope—our conviction—that people with serious, long-term psychiatric...

Mental Health Policy in a Time of Economic Crisis

Do we need to shift mental health policy in this time of economic crisis? I think we do. I think we need to worry about the impact of economic decline on people with serious, long-term mental illness, and I think we need to build concern about the emotional well-being of the American people into...

Preparing Communities for The Elder Boom: Mental Health Matters

Happily, a number of efforts are now underway to prepare communities and the aging services system for the elder boom. Sadly, mental health doesn’t figure into most of them in any significant way despite the simple and obvious fact that you cannot age well without your mental health. The new...

Physical Health Should Be a Priority of the Mental Health System and Mental Health Should Be a Priority of the Health System

Over the past couple of years, it has become increasingly clear that physical health needs to be a priority of the mental health system and that mental health needs to be a priority of the health system. Why it took so long to realize this is not entirely clear to me, because the basic facts have...