| Documentary explores patients dying to be thin and one clinic's efforts to save them | | Posted Friday, November 10, 2006 7:05:24 AM by Blog57 Team | | One of the most revealing scenes in "Thin," an unflinching new documentary that chronicles the experiences of four young women being treated at a Florida center for eating disorders, occurs when a patient named Alisa Williams draws her shape on a white wall for her art therapist. The result is a fun-house distortion: hulking and masculine, nothing like the real Alisa, the therapist notes, tracing the actual contours of her slim, petite body well inside the line she has drawn. But articulate, engaging Williams, the veteran of multiple hospitalizations for bulimia, apparently does not recognize how skewed her perceptions have become. After 23 years of struggling with her weight - she was put on her first diet as a chubby 7 year old - she tells filmmaker Lauren Greenfield with chilling calm, "This is what I really want: to be thin.... | |
| |
| | | Careers: If channeled appropriately, worry works for you | | Posted Wednesday, August 30, 2006 3:01:14 PM by Blog57 Team | | My friends and I lean on one another to ease our worries, whether over dinner, e-mail or a weekend away. But no matter where we are or what we're doing, we worry. One friend is a super-worrier. She even worries that she worries too much. She recently had a work issue she needed to iron out. She fretted about it. She discussed with friends and her husband what she would say. And as soon as she and her boss finished their conversation, she called me to say the issue was under control. .... | |
| |
| | | Some say hope is the best antidepressant | | Posted Saturday, July 29, 2006 8:58:14 AM by Blog57 Team | | One of the fiercest debates in the mental-health field is whether medication is necessary to treat depression and anxiety. Some experts say the conditions have a biological cause and that pharmaceuticals can correct a chemical imbalance in the brain. Other people claim that mood disorders can be conquered with talk therapy (or exercise and vitamins, if you believe Tom Cruise) and that those who pop pills for all that ails them are simply looking for a quick fix. Two new books argue that nondrug approaches are where it's at. David D. Burns's When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life (Morgan Road Books, $34.95) promotes cognitive-behavioural therapy, which proponents say helps people learn how to change negative thoughts. The Stanford, California, psychiatrist is best known for Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (first published in 1980), which focuses on depression and has sold more than four million copies.... | |
| |
| | | State finds deficiencies at clinic where girl died | | Posted Friday, June 30, 2006 7:00:20 PM by Blog57 Team | | A state investigation into the death of 7-year old girl put in a control hold for 2 hours before she lost consciousness and died has produced a lengthy statement of deficiencies against the Rice Lake Day Treatment Center. Center client Angellika Arndt, of Ladysmith, was airlifted to Minneapolis Childrens Hospital, where she died May 26, the day after she was put in the control hold. We expect facilities to protect the health and safety of people in their care, and what our investigation found is that they failed Angellika, said Department of Health and Family Services spokesperson Stephanie Marquis. According to the statement, the DHFS found that the center staff had not provided Arndt with the proper care required for someone with her diagnoses.... | |
| |
| |
|
|
