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Beyond the Locker Room: Unmasking Hazing in the Military, Workplaces, and Sports Teams
Danny Chen's Story Danny Chen, a 19-year-old Army private from New York, died by suicide on October 3, 2011, while deployed in Afghanistan. His death followed hazing and racial bullying from fellow soldiers. Being of Chinese descent, Chen endured racial slurs like “gook" and “chink,” along...
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What Makes a Bully? Can Hazing Culture Temporarily Warp Someone’s Moral Compass?
I was a sophomore at Smoky Hill High School when the Columbine school shooting happened just 20 miles away. I remember the confusion as our school went into lockdown. None of us could have imagined the horror unfolding nearby. For 25 years, I’ve carried the weight of that day, and I’ve long...
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Under the Influence – How Hazing Drives Substance Use Among Students
Chase Roberts is a former student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After enduring severe hazing as a pledge in a fraternity, Roberts began using drugs as a coping mechanism. He described how the trauma from the hazing rituals led him to seek solace in substances like marijuana and...
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The Long-Term Psychological Effects of Hazing and How We Can Prevent Them
Danny Santulli, an 18-year-old college freshman, was a victim of a hazing incident in 2021. During a fraternity hazing ritual at the University of Missouri, he was forced to drink excessive amounts of alcohol, resulting in alcohol poisoning and brain damage. Danny was left unable to speak, walk, or...
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Understanding and Addressing Childhood Trauma
Everyone experiences scary or difficult events in their lives. For some children, these events can be so frightening or dangerous that they can have a lasting impact on their well-being. Trauma refers to the physical, cognitive, and emotional responses to an event (or events) that is physically or...
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Working Toward Employment: A Journey of Growth and Support
As a young woman, Lisa was told that she would never work. She suffers from serious mental illness and has experienced multiple traumas during her lifetime. Now 59 years old, she lives in a supportive group home and is a participant in the Personalized Recovery Oriented Services (PROS) program at...
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Just Another Day
What does mental illness feel like? It feels like drowning, alone and helpless, surrounded by nothing but inky black water, and deafening silence. As an icy chill creeps down your spine, a paralyzing numbness begins to set in. Breathing is very difficult now as you feel a sudden scalding hot...
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Basic Research Has Had a Major Impact on Developing New Treatments for Serious Mental Illnesses
Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, with an estimated $2 trillion annual economic impact. The cost in terms of human suffering is, of course, incalculable. Each year about 8% of adults—nearly 20 million Americans—experience major depression; 8% of adolescents experience at...
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Supporting Veterans and Families in Conquering PTSD
As the echoes of war fade, a different kind of battle wages on for many courageous veterans who return home. An estimated 6% of US adults, or 6 out every 100 people, will be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), at some point in their lifetime. In veterans, it increases to 7 out of...
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Preventing Suicide: Addressing Trauma-Related Symptoms in Individuals with Serious Mental Illness
The incidence of mental illness is pervasive in the United States, a recent estimate suggesting it impacts more than one in five adults (NIMH, 2023). While “mental illness” is a category that embodies all diagnoses, a subset of this category, serious mental illness (i.e., schizophrenia spectrum...
