Tuesday, August 31, 2004

APA Launches Redesigned Online Help Center
APA press release - "The American Psychological Association (APA) will launch a redesigned online help center on August 23. Consumers will be able to navigate a more user-friendly web site with expanded free information, facts, and tips about mental health issues. The new site is designed to appeal to users with a magazine-like format that gives easy directions to featured topics and articles and information on mental health. Although the American Psychological Association is not able to provide direct referrals, consumers can obtain a referral to a psychologist in their area by calling 1-800-964-2000. The operator will use zip codes to locate and connect people with the referral service used by their state psychological association. Because psychology is relevant to so many areas of everyday life, the site is organized into areas that consumers say make sense for them.." See also the APA Help Center web site.  
  

Mental Illness Survivors Demand Parity in Medical Coverage
Story in the New Standard - "...a bipartisan group of lawmakers, advocates, doctors and people living with mental illness are calling for passage of a bill that would mandate comprehensive and equal mental health coverage on a national level. Last February, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) introduced the Senator Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act, which would would require companies with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance plans with equal coverage for mental and physical illnesses. Under the bill, named after the late Minnesota senator, himself a long-time advocate for mental health coverage, health plans that covered physical illness would be required to cover mental illness as well. Although the legislation has 69 Senate and 246 House co-sponsors and the support of over 300 health organizations, including the American Medical Association, it has languished in various committees..."  
  

Artist's images indict mental health care's flaws (Massachusetts)
Berkshire Eagle story - "Walking through the gallery of Colleen Surprise Jones' paintings is partly a visit to her own troubled mind and partly a voyeur's view of her relationship with her brother, Nathan, who committed suicide July 2 at the age of 28. Jones describes her exhibit, 'Psychiatric Survival,' as a coming-out about her own mental health problems, a discussion of her brother's suicide and an indictment of a broken mental health system that she says has continually failed her and her brother, despite countless trips to psychiatric wards and hospitals and trials of dozens of medications..."