John and Johnson fined 572 million in opioid crisis.

Editor's note:

400,000 opioid deaths in the U.S. since 1999. 6,000 in Oklahoma. Johnson and Johnson get fined 572 million dollars.

How to encourage your kids to be honest (it works with adults as well).

The bias in medicine based on sex and race.

John Oliver, 08/18/19

Gotta Keep Reading

Editor's notes:

There are plenty of studies that show the benefits of reading. People who read books tend to more mentally healthy than people who don't. In fact, the opposite is true - Beware of the person who doesn't read books.

Bullying increases suicide risk 3 times in 12 - 15 year olds

From Science Daily on 08/15/19

A new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry(JAACAP), published by Elsevier, reports that bullying victimization may increase the risk of suicide attempts among young adolescents by approximately three-times worldwide.

"Globally, approximately 67,000 adolescents die of suicide each year and identifying modifiable risk factors for adolescent suicide is a public health priority," said lead author Ai Koyanagi, MD, and Research Professor at Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Deu, Barcelona, Spain.

The findings are based on nationally representative data collected through the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global School-based Student Health Survey, which is a school-based survey conducted in multiple countries across the globe.

The study included 134,229 school-going adolescents aged between 12 and 15 years from 48 countries across five WHO regions, including Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, South-East Asia, and the Western Pacific. The sample was comprised of nine high-income-, 33 middle-income-, and 6 low-income-countries.

For more click here.

Editor's note:

I see a lot of middle school kids who are bullied usually in school. There are many aspects to these situations but the two that are biggest are first, that is the shame attached to other people watching the bullying and sometimes egging it on and joining in with excited shouts and derrogatory laughing and cat calls, and the second, is helping the victim stick up for himself and get out of the victim role. There are many ways to do this and the victim usually needs coaching and support.

Do you play the victim? Want to give this game up?

Editor's note:

Sometimes people are victims and need understanding, consolation, and compensation for the harm that has been done to them. This is NOT what Dr. Marks is talking about in this video. What she is referring to is a habitual pattern of dysfunctional behavior which is manifested in the complaint, "Why do these things always happen to me?"

A statement like "Why do these things always happen to me?" indicates a familiar rut, a familiar pattern of behavior, a "thing which the person seems to repeatedly do." This is the major schema of what is called a "personality disorder."

"Playing the victim" is an maladaptive attempt to get one's needs met. This method or strategy is usually below the person's level of conscious awareness. Becoming aware that one has a tendency to play the victim is the first step in escaping and changing this long term schema or way of behaving in one's interactions with other people.

As I like to say, "If you can't name it, you can't change it. But once you can name it and are aware of it, you can imagine other ways you might manage your emotions and the circumstances you find yourself in. Dr. Marks suggests five possibilities. Maybe you can imagine five more.

What are the criteria for PTSD diagnosis in the DSM - 5?