 |
Tribute Dinner Slated for March 25
A Tribute to Our Friends, to Honor Mary Ellen & Alan Cassman
|
 |
Mary Ellen & Alan Cassman |
• A Tribute to Our Friends gala
• AMCS Awarded $42,000
• New Interns Join AMCS
• Groups Forming for Spring
• AMCS Recruits New Board Members
• Vets Need Mental Health Help
• Mental Health News Briefs
Want to Learn More?
Click Here to Visit our Web site |
Chronic Pain and Disabilities Groups Forming for Spring Counseling |
Airport Marina Counseling Service offers group counseling sessions this spring including a chronic pain and a disabilities group.
Led by psychology intern, Dennis Hogan, from Ryokan University, the Chronic Pain Group will meet for
12 weeks and will focus on managing life while dealing with chronic pain. Members will learn different skills designed to deal with pain such as meditation, visualization,
reaching out to group members or seeking support from friends or relatives.
The Disabilities Group, also a 12 week program, will provide a safe and supportive environment which will allow members an opportunity to work through issues of living life with a disability.
Come join us. Contact AMCS today for more information at (310) 670-1410.
|
New Board Members Bring their Talents to AMCS
Four new board members — Kristin Linden, Ph.D.; Mike Mitchell; Howard Pollack; and Monica Kahn — have joined the Airport Marina Counseling Service's Board of Directors.
Kristin Linden, who is the Director of Student Psychology Services at Loyola Marymount University, joined the board in October of 2006. Mike Mitchell, a real estate agent with Innovative Realtors, came on board in November 2006. In 2007, AMCS recruited Howard Pollack, businessman and owner of Rainbow Acres, and most recently, Monica Kahn, the founder of Helen’s Room, a non-profit program for women cancer survivors connected with Daniel Freedman Hospital.
"We are delighted to have these outstanding members of the community bring their talents to our board, and we look forward to their contributions to our work here at AMCS," said Kathleen O'Leary Lefferman, Executive Director. |
|
|
The Airport Marina Counseling Service (AMCS) will host its annual A Tribute to Our Friends, gala, Sunday, March 25 at Loyola Marymount University’s Roski Dining Hall in Westchester.
The festivities, which will honor Mary Ellen and Alan Cassman with The Community Builder Lifetime Achievement Award, will begin with cocktails at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner at 6:30 p.m. Entertainment will be provided by the improv group, Off the Wall.
Longtime friend and supporter of AMCS, |
Alan acted as the incorporating attorney for both AMCS and the Westchester Mental Health Guild (WMHG), and has continued to serve as consulting attorney.
Mary Ellen, a member of the founding committee for AMCS, has been Chair of the Board at AMCS, President of the WMHG, and was Executive Director of AMCS from 1974 until her retirement in 1990. Both Cassmans have volunteered for key fundraising events such as the annual Jet to Jetty run and the Guild’s Home and Garden Tours.
|
|
AMCS Awarded $42,000 Grant to Develop Psychological Testing Services
Airport Marina Counseling Service has received a  $42,000 grant from the Robert Ellis Simon Foundation. The grant was awarded to expand the Family-Child Intake and Assessment program, and to provide comprehensive psychological and psycho-educational testing, and treatment advocacy for identified children and families.
A psychologist will be recruited to work with a multidisciplinary team to serve low income, ethnically diverse families, in the greater LAX and South Bay areas and on the Westside, who have little access to resources in the community or schools.
In addition to outcome measures based on treatment intervention, the psychologist will give families the tools to access services and to have a voice in their child’s education that lasts beyond the moment and becomes available for the educational life of the child.
Six New Interns Join AMCS Training Program
Six new intern therapists joined the 32 currently on staff this month, bringing the total to 38. Graduate students, from 18 surrounding colleges and universities, serve the community under the supervision of some of the area's leading licensed psychotherapists. Interns have the opportunity to train in several different programs including Family and Child Counseling, Initial Consultation Training, Intermediate Intervention Program, the Westchester High School program, and Boys & Girls Club of Venice Family Support Program. They also work with individual adults and groups. For more information on how to become part of our internship program call Nancy Iben, Clinical Director at 310-670-1410.
Mark Your Calendar!
Mark your calendar for Sunday, May 6, 2007 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., when the Westchester Mental Health Guild will showcase some of the most beautiful gardens of Westchester and Playa del Rey at its Annual Garden Tour. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Airport Marina Counseling Service (AMCS).
 The 23rd Annual AMCS JET TO JETTY 5K/10K Walk / Run for Mental Health will take place Saturday, August 25, 2007. It's not too early to start thinking about getting your teams together for this exciting event!
For more information, call AMCS at 310-670-1410. |
Mental Health News Briefs ...
|
New Vets Show Mental Health Problems |
Scientists Uncover Cause of Antipsychotic Drug Weight Gain
Johns Hopkins brain scientists have hit on how and why some powerful drugs used for treating mental illnesses cause patients to gain so much weight that they often develop life-threatening complications such as diabetes and heart disease.
“We’ve now connected a whole class of antipsychotics to natural brain chemicals that trigger appetite,” says Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “Our identification of the molecular players that link such drugs to increased food intake means there’s now hope for finding a newer generation of drugs without the weight-gain side effects.”
The discovery will be published online next week at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The research was funded by the U.S. Public Health Service, Canadian Institute of Health Research, National Institutes of Health and National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Source: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Linked
to Childhood Events
Traumatic events in childhood and stress or emotional instability at any period in life may be associated with the development of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), according to two articles in the of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The findings suggest that CFS and similar illnesses may result from the brain’s inability to cope with challenging experiences.
CFS affects between 400,000 and 900,000 U.S. adults. The condition is defined as unexplained fatigue that lasts for at least six months, does not get better with rest and interferes with daily activities.
Christine Heim, Ph.D., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University, Atlanta, and colleagues compared 43 individuals with CFS to 60 controls without CFS, who were all part of a large study of Wichita, Kansas, residents. All participants (average age 50.5) underwent a medical examination, provided their medical history, and were interviewed to detect psychiatric disorders. They then responded to a questionnaire that assessed for five types of childhood trauma: emotional, physical and sexual abuse, and emotional and physical neglect. Responses to each item were numbered and added to produce a score for each type of trauma and one overall trauma score.
Individuals with CFS had higher overall trauma scores than those without CFS. Exposure to trauma increased the risk of CFS between three and eight times, depending on the type; emotional neglect and sexual abuse during childhood were most strongly associated with CFS. For each additional type of childhood trauma experienced, the risk of having CRS increased by 77 percent; the risk increased by 6 percent for each additional point increase in total trauma score. Not all patients with CFS had experienced childhood trauma, but those who had tended to have worse symptoms than those who had not.
CFS patients were also more likely than controls to have psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. These conditions appeared to be associated with childhood trauma. “In sum, it appears that CFS is part of a spectrum of disorders that are associated with childhood adversity,” the authors write.
“In fact, these disorders might reflect the brain’s inability to adapt or compensate in response to challenge, leading toward maladaptive responses and ultimately disease,” they conclude.
Source: American Medical Association (AMA) |
|
A quarter of all veterans treated at Veterans Administration (VA)  hospitals after returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan brought mental health problems back with them, reported investigators.
When psychosocial and behavioral problems were thrown into the mix, nearly a third of all veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq who sought care at a VA facility had a diagnosis of a mental-health-related disorder, reported Karen H. Seal, M.D., M.P.H., from the University of California San Francisco, and the San Francisco VA.
In fact, more than half of the returning vets who had a mental health diagnosis were found to have two or more mental health disorders, the investigators wrote in the March 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
In the current study, Dr. Seal and colleagues looked at records of US veterans separated from service in either Iraq or Afghanistan, or both, who were first seen at a VA health facility from Sept. 30, 2001 to Sept. 30, 2005.
They found that of the 103,788 veterans of the two campaigns, 25,658 (25%) received at least one mental health diagnosis, and of this group, 56% had multiple diagnoses. Specifically, 7,342 had two diagnoses, and 6,997 had three or more diagnoses.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was the most common diagnosis, occurring in 52% of all patients with a mental health problem, and 13% of the veterans in the overall sample.
"When we broadened our definition of 'mental health problems' to include those with a mental health diagnosis overall, 32,010 Iraq or Afghanistan veterans (31%) were coded as having 'mental health problems'," the investigators wrote.
Veterans from the ages of 18 to 24 years were most at risk for PTSD and other mental health problems compared with veterans 40 years or older. The youngest vets had a more than three-fold risk for at least one mental health diagnosis compared with active-duty veterans 40 years or older.
Source: Archives of Internal Medicine
Visit our Web site at:
http://www.airportmarina.org
Call 310.670.1410 |
|
|
