MetaFilter posts tagged with mental and health

Graeme Obree

entropone — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 12:33:11 -0800

Earlier today, Graeme Obree revealed that he is gay, attributing his struggles with mental health in the 1990s to this. "I was brought up thinking you'd be better dead than gay." Graeme Obree was an outsider athlete, an ordinary bloke with a feverish commitment to breaking one of cycling's most honored records, the Hour Record. He used never-before-seen techniques perfected on homemade equipment, and changed it up each time the UCI, cycling's governing body, outlawed his new techniques. For years in the 1990s he was locked in rivalry with Chris Boardman (Documentary on youtube: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), each upping the ante with new records for riding the furthest on a velodrome in one hour. Boardman responded to Obree's innovation with unusual, high-tech, super-aerodynamic bikes of his own. Eventually, out of concerns that records were being set because of technological developments rather than a rider's own abilities, the UCI outlawed aerodynamic techniques in pursuit of the Hour Record, establishing in separate categories The UCI HOur Record and the "Best Human Effort" category. Obree and Boardman's battles were relegated to the latter, with Boardman getting the last word in September 1996 with a record of 56.375km in one hour. To translate, that's riding a bicycle at 35mph - for an hour. Obree, defeated and embittered about a career that never took off due to his refusal to take performance enhancing drugs, attempted suicide twice. His struggles were chronicled in an autobiography and subsequent film. [Previously and previously.]

A day with mental health professionals in North London

handee — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:43:45 -0800

A day with mental health professionals in North London - a Guardian article by Deborah Orr

Aaron Beck & Cognitive Therapy

Non Prosequitur — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:05:20 -0800

“The psychoanalytic mystique was overwhelming. It was a little bit like the evangelical movement.” How Aaron Beck and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helped increase empiricism in psychotherapy.

Trapped: Mental Illness in America's Prisons.

chunking express — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:06:16 -0800

Trapped: Mental Illness in America's Prisons by Jenn Ackerman. It's kind of very depressing. A mix of video, interviews and photographs. via HCSP.

Seven Interview with Foster Children

chunking express — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:29:32 -0800

I took my video camera to a Foster Care Alumni meeting and asked seven foster kids to tell me about there experiences in Child Protective Services while wards of the state: Tristen, Andrew, Kyle, Aisha, Elnita, Ashley, Joshua. The author of the video is interested in how these children were drugged from a young age, but they each talk about their experiences in general, which usually aren't that great. I thought Tristen's video was particularly depressing.

The impact of food on mental health

Lanark — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 11:45:24 -0800

Feeding Minds - the impact of food on mental health. 3Mb PDF, Google cache. Only 3% of men and 5% of women now eat five portions of fruit and veg per day. This report lays out the evidence linking trends in food consumption with mental ill-health.
See also: Myths About Food and Low Income (PDF 168Kb)

Radio La Colifata

Mo Nickels — Sun, 06 Feb 2005 11:04:17 -0800

The patients are running the microphone. "Health is not the absence of infirmity...Health is the dignity of being human." A live radio show produced by residents of a mental institution in Buenos Aires. (Link in Spanish; English creator bio, news stories: BBC, VOA; documentary info (French); some MP3 episodes; related audio: otras colifatas, Radioteatro de Ever.)

TLE

scazza — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 13:15:43 -0800

TLE, possibly one of the most common diseases, believed to affect 600,000 to a million Americans, remains obscure. It is what afflicted Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, and Dostoyevsky. Known through the work of Bear and Geshwind, it is virtually impossible to diagnose except in a severe cases where a seizure can be witnessed by an MRI or EEG, also because of the controversial theories on personality. While a neurological disorder, it is treated by psychiatrists, and when medicated, artists have often felt that the muse has left them.

Save your local insane asylum.

oh posey — Sat, 09 Nov 2002 08:13:52 -0800

Save your local insane asylum. When I was young and my mother would get frustrated with her brood she would merely have to say, "You are all going to send me straight to Milledgeville!" to strike terror in our souls and cause us all to behave for at least the rest of the day.