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The Immortality Experiments (Part 2)

Romeo Vitelli — Sun, 19 May 2013 08:00:00 -0400

In March 1926, the Soviet government granted Alexander Bogdanov a large building in downtown Moscow, not far from the Kremlin itself. It was an impressive looking structure; a former mansion built by a prosperous merchant in the 1890s. Despite assorted delays, Bogdanov used his generous budget to renovate the building and hire new staff. Much as his appointment had been controversial, so was his choice of staff members since they were mostly his fellow blood-transfusion enthusiasts instead of any of the prominent members of the Moscow medical community already experienced in blood transfusions. The institute's special status meant that the health ministry could not oversee its operations. Instead, Bogdanov and his institute only answered to the commissar directly.

While the institute's reports were kept confidential, Bogdanov published glowing reports on his progress in Isvestiia including ambitious plans for using blood transfusions to treat a range of diseases such as trauma, anemia, and blood poisoning. He also stressed that the Soviet Union lagged far behind other countries in availability of blood transfusions (which was true enough) and that the new procedure would help combat the "Soviet exhaustion" killing older Soviet workers. By the time renovations were finished, Bogdanov's institute was expanded to a ten-bed clinic though many of his promises had yet to materialize. His 1927 treatise, Struggle for Viability, was hardly the comprehensive manual for blood transfusion medical doctors had been promised. According to medical historian Douglas Huestis, who provides one of the first English translations for Bogdanov's monograph, The Struggle for Viability proposed a "physiological collectivism" with blood transfusions not only extending life but effectively rejuvenating older people as well. A rehashed version of Bogdanov's earlier work on tectology , it did little to help the Soviet Union catch up to the West in blood medicine.

Alexander Bogdanov was hardly the only Russian doctor making bold claims about solving the problem of aging, though. Elie Metchnikoff had done the same years before. Though Metchnikoff's claims had been just as grandiose in linking aging to "toxicity" of intestinal bacteria, his scientific credentials were far greater than Bogdanov's (Metchnikoff won the 1908 Nobel prize in Medicine). Many other researchers around the world were also pursuing the dream of rejuvenation, whether through gland injections or actual organ transplants. Serge Voronoff's research into transplanting monkey testicles into elderly humans during the 1920s and 1930s appeared to be succeeding, at least according to the enthusiastic newspaper coverage he was receiving at the time. Along with funding Bogdanov's clinic, the Soviet Health Ministry established a primate breeding station to supply monkey glands for transplants.

For his part, Bogdanov argued that monkey gland transplants, Metchnikoff's yogurt remedies, and all the other rejuvenation treatments being offered could be replaced by regular blood transfusions which would be safer and more effective. Blood was a "universal tissue" that could be "purified" through transfusions and he specifically viewed aging as being due to a "weakening" of the sex glands. Since young people had "too much" sex hormone and older people "too little", blood transfusions could be beneficial to both. Bogdanov also maintained that blood transfusions could be used to "transfer" immunity with diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis being treated by blood exchanges between healthy and non-healthy subjects. Along with his own radical notions about collectivism, Bogdanov promoted basic misconceptions regarding safe blood transfusion. He argued against transfusions between men and women due to the incompatible hormones involved, for example.

The reaction to Bogdanov's flamboyant claims were less than positive. Legitimate medical researchers with greater experience with blood transfusion pointed out that Bogdanov's ideas were based on a small number of clinical trials and lack of any real method of measuring the benefits he claimed to have produced through transfusions. In his laboratory, Bogdanov simply asked subjects how they felt after the transfusion without bothering to do any actual medical tests to measure improvement.

As for Alexander Bogdanov and his Politburo backers, they ignored the criticism and the institute soon began publishing progress reports which proudly described carrying out over a hundred transfusions. Again, these reports were extremely light when it came to actual statistics although they contained case histories describing (mostly anecdotal) recovery from conditions including burns, anemia, and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. Bogdanov's reports were aimed directly at the Politburo members funding his research and the general public. He made no attempt to win over his actual medical colleagues and none of the Institute staff bothered attending medical meetings. Even the long-promised training courses for physicians never materialized.

Despite the controversy, the Institute grew and expanded to include laboratories for animal experiments and biochemistry. He also hired eminent pathophysiologist Oleksandr Bogomoletz, a respected authority on aging and endocrinology, to oversee operations. Along with being a noted medical researcher, Bogomoletz was also a longtime Bolshevik sympathizer (which likely secured the position for him). Bogdanov also hired more clinical experts to provide medical services to patients at the Institute's clinic. After a mishap in which two patients were accidentally infected with syphilis, Bogdanov hired a specialist in venereal diseases as well.

Unfortunately, Bogdanov often clashed with the Politburo over many of the hiring decisions. Politburo members often insisted on hiring their own political appointees and Bogdanov threatened to resign in 1928. Though he won that battle, the Institute was still under pressure to provide more concrete results to justify the money being spent.

All of which led up to the fateful transfusion of March 24, 1928 when Bogdanov selected a twenty-one year old male student at Moscow University for his twelfth mutual blood transfusion. Although this student had an inactive form of tuberculosis, Bogdanov considered himself immune to tuberculosis. Within hours, both the student and Bogdanov developed an adverse reaction despite having the same blood type (possibly due to an incompatible Rh factor). While the student recovered, Alexander Bogdanov died two weeks later of what his doctors described as acute "hemolysis" resulting in liver and kidney failure.

While Bogdanov was honoured as a medical hero, his ambitious plans ended with his death. The Institute (which was renamed the Bogdanov State Scientific Institute of Blood Transfusion) abandoned the notion of "physiological collectivism" under the leadership of Bogdanov's replacement, Oleksandr Bogomoletz. Mutual blood exchanges were stopped and blood transfusion began following the accepted standard common in most Western countries by that time. When the Bogdanov Institute finally published a manual of blood transfusion for doctors in 1930, none of Bogdanov's ideas were mentioned. The name attached to the Institute was his only legacy.

While the Institute went on to revolutionize blood transfusion across the Soviet Union making it a standard medical procedure by the mid 1930s, Alexander Bogdanov is still better remembered as a science fiction writer and political theorist than he was a scientist. Ultimately, he was extremely lucky to have died when he did since Stalin's purges were only just beginning and he likely would not have survived considering his radical politics and his previous arrest by the Bolsheviks. Given the convenient timing, some biographers even suggested that his final transfusion may have been a deliberate suicide but no real evidence of that has ever surfaced.

Still, Alexander Bogdanov's political ideals managed to shape Soviet science for years to come. His views on proletarian science would definitely have an impact on how science would be practiced during the Stalinist era with ideology trumping actual science. That it would help set the stage for demagogues such as Trofim Lysenko, whose rejection of Mendelian genetics would devastate Soviet biology and cost countless lives, was likely an outcome that the idealistic Bogdanov could never have foreseen.

Procrastination: When Good Things Don’t Come to Those Who Wait.

Romeo Vitelli — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:00:00 -0400

Procrastination is a well-known phenomenon that often entails negative outcomes with regard to performance and subjective well-being. In an attempt to understand the (alarming) character of procrastination, a large body of research on the causes, correlates, and consequences of procrastination has been accumulating over the last 40 years. A paper recently publised in European Psychologist provides a systematic characterization of the trends in procrastination research and to suggest future directions for research and practice. The systematic characterization comprises a comparison of procrastination to functional forms of delay (referred to as strategic delay) and a presentation of the theoretical approaches to explaining procrastination. The future directions suggested pertain to the development of a differentiated understanding of procrastination and of integral interventions.

For the abstract

Learning to be Scientists

Romeo Vitelli — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:24:25 -0400

Why do people believe the things that they do? While only science can generate testable hypotheses, advocates of various paranormal claims tend to rely more on anecdotes, appeals to authority and “intuition” and the general public tends to be ambivalent about the distinction between science and the supernatural. Ongoing controversies over intelligent design in schools, climate change and vaccination have demonstrated that the public perception about science is often shallow due to misunderstandings about how science works.

A recent article published in the Journal of Educational Psychology presents the results of a research study directly comparing the processes that influence how people form opinions on scientific and paranormal concepts. Written by Andrew Shtulman of Occidental College in Los Angeles, the article is part of his research program studying conceptual development relating to science education and how people weigh the actual evidence involved before forming opinions on complex subjects.

To read more, check out my new post on the James Randi Education Foundation blog.

Are Antipsychotic Medications being Overused in Veterans with PTSD?

Romeo Vitelli — Tue, 14 May 2013 08:00:00 -0400

When the Australian special forces soldier identified as only "Trooper M" returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, his frequent nightmares and anxiety led him to seek professional help. In an interview with Lateline, the 23-year old veteran reported that he was prescribed Seroquel, (quetiapine) for his symptoms. An atypical antipsychotic used for treating schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, it has also being used off-label for treating posttraumatic stress disorder.

In Trooper M's case, he was prescribed Seroquel for his nightmares without ever seeing a psychiatrist. "So the mental health nurse liaised with one of the medical officers and from that... before I saw a psychiatrist or anything like that, they decided that Seroquel would be the choice of medication", he said. He took the medication as prescribed despite adverse symptoms such as extreme sleepiness. One time after accidentally taking 400 mg, he slept longer than 24 hours which he described as a "wake-up call."

Based on complaints from soldiers such as Trooper M, psychiatrists in Australia and the United States are calling for a formal review of the off-label use of quetiapine for treatment veterans with posttraumatic symptoms. Australia's Department of Defense has confirmed that prescribing Seroquel alone has increased 600 per cent over the past five years. Though prescribing anti-psychotics for PTSD is still controversial, many soldiers report that they are often placed on the medication just to help them sleep.

According to the Lateline news story looking at Seroquel use in treating traumatized veterans, military doctors or family doctors sanctioned by Australia's Defense Department often prescribe Seroquel as a sedative despite lack of actual research relating to off-label use. Along with hypersomnia, other adverse effects include fatigue, hypotension, blurred vision, and stomach problems. In more extreme cases, Seroquel can also cause slurred speech, hypothyroidism, language problems and hallucinations. In the United States, the deaths of six U.S. soldiers have been linked to "drug cocktails" that include Seroquel and AstraZeneca is facing over 10,000 lawsuits relating to adverse effects of Seroquel ranging from slurred speech to death.

News stories about antidepressant overuse in soldiers deployed in combat situations have attempted to call attention to the potential dangers involved. A 2008 expose by the Denver Post, "The Battle Within" showed the "pharmaco-battlefield" in Iraq and other high-risk settings. Seroquel has been specifically implicated in suicides by soldiers on actual deployment and in veterans following their return to civilian life. More psychiatrists are speaking out against its use for off-label treatment without proper clinical trials. According to one critic, Professor Stan Catts of the University of Queensland in Australia, using Seroquel as a sedative is counterproductive since the underlying issues such as PTSD are largely ignored.

"I think the Seroquel issue is worrying because it is an indicator, probably, (of) poor quality treatment." he said. "It is an indicator that treatment that can be administered through a minute of a prescription is replacing intensive psychological treatments that require highly trained staff and require a lot more time to administer." While implementing trauma and stress counseling

For more information

Learning to be Resilient

Romeo Vitelli — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:20:52 -0400

Does surviving traumatic situations make people stronger? A recent research study investigating suicide rates following the L’Aquila earthquake that struck central Italy in 2009 actually showed a lower number of suicides in the years that followed. Though most people are going to encounter a major traumatic experience at least once in their lives and we are all bombarded by daily “hassles” on a regular basis, how we respond to stress can vary widely. Even in extremely negative situations involving poverty, physical and verbal abuse, and parental mental illness, there are still going to be children who somehow manage to cope and even thrive successfully. Early research looking at protective factors that allow some people to cope better than others have identified a key quality in these cases that has been labeled psychological resilience.

While researchers have agreed on a common label, the various definitions of resilience have been very different. A review of resilience research published recently in European Psychologist lists as many as nine different definitions given by researchers looking at resilience including: “The process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances’’, “The personal qualities that enables one to thrive in the face of adversity’’, and “The capacity of individuals to cope successfully with significant change, adversity or risk’’.

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.

Conspiracy Theories over Boston Marathon Bombing Popular in Chechnya

Romeo Vitelli — Mon, 13 May 2013 08:00:00 -0400

Following the two explosions on April 15, 2013, the intense manhunt for the ones believed responsible led to the arrest of 19-year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the death of his older brother, Tamerlan. As events continue to unfold and more information becomes available, conflicting news stories have generated a sense of cynicism among many observers. While conspiracy theories continue to flourish over the Boston Marathon bombings being a "false-flag operation" orchestrated by the Federal government, particularly among conservative groups, the bombings received little notice in the former Soviet Union. That is, until the discovered that the main suspects were Chechens.

Since the involvement of the Tsarnaev brothers became public, their role in the Boston bombings have dominated the Russian language Internet (known as RuNet for short). Due to the popularity of conspiracy theories among RuNet users, accusations that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were framed by the U.S. intelligence community have become especially well-received in their native Chechnya. With members of the Tsarnaev family being particularly outspoken in demanding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's release and calling for an investigation into his brother's death.

Many of the most extreme conspiracy theories, including accusations that the widely-seen pictures of victims who had lost limbs following the explosion were all faked using actors. Using pictures and materials taken directly from American conspiracy sites, RuNet bloggers including fralik are largely repeating claims that have since been debunked in the Western media. These include claims that one victim, Jeff Bauman Jr., who lost both his legs in the bombing was actually a previous amputee named Nick Vogt. While other bloggers have tried to rebut these claims, the idea that the FBI and the CIA was actually behind the bombings is definitely appealing.

Chechen bloggers are extremely outspoken in rejecting evidence that the Tsarnaev brothers are responsible for the bombings. Along with members of the Tsarnaev family, Chechen defenders include the Chechen President, Ramzan Kadyrov, and even his political opponents. Even in a country as divided as Chechnya, the innocence of the Tsarnaevs seems to be one topic on which everyone agrees. In commenting on the Boston bombings, President Kadyrov has stated that "what happened in Boston is the fault of the American security services" while his political opponents are blaming American and Russian security agencies alike.

Along with endless speculation about who was actually responsible for the bombings, there is also an active defense of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev underway. An April 21 petition on Avaaz.org titled "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is innocent” has already gathered thousands of signatures by Russians and Chechens alike. The petition has since been closed with no word about what the petition's author plans to do with the names received to date. As events unfold and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev goes on trial, the political storm will likely become even more intense.

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The Immortality Experiments (Part 1)

Romeo Vitelli — Sun, 12 May 2013 08:00:00 -0400

On April 7, 1928, Dr. Alexander Aleksandrovitch Bogdanov carried out what proved to be his last experiment. Already well-known for his research into prolonging life through blood transfusions, Bogdanov had reported positive results from the eleven previous blood transfusions he had undergone. Whatever his reason for the last experiment, the research subject whose blood Bogdanov decided to use was already suffering from tuberculosis, and the results were quickly fatal. Whether Bogdanov's death was due to infection or blood type misidentification, he continued making detailed observations about his condition until his death weeks later.

Long before he began his blood experiments, Alexander Bogdanov was already famous (or notorious depending on who you asked) across the Soviet Union. Born in 1873 in Czarist Russia as Alexander Malinovsky, he was a medical student when his political activities led to his five-year exile. During this exile, he met and married Natalya Bigdanova Korsak and eventually assumed the name Bogdanov as a nom de plum (being a political writer was hardly a safe activity for an anti-Czarist). Though eventually returning to his medical studies, political activism was still an important part of his life. Despite graduating as a medical doctor, the Czarist police continued to keep an eye on him and Bogdanov was eventually arrested and exiled once more.

It's probably not surprising that he joined the Bolsheviks in 1903 and quickly became a key figure in the movement. Along with being one of the most prominent intellectuals of the movement, he also became Vladimir Lenin's chief rival for leadership. After Lenin eventually forced him out of the party completely in 1909, Bogdanov went into exile in Italy but returned to Russia to tend wounded soldiers during World War I. Unfortunately, the 1917 Russian Revolution would eventually prove his undoing since Lenin still regarded him as a political rival. Though Bogdanov had no political role in the Revolution, he was an outspoken critic of many of the Bolshevik policies. That his old rival, Lenin, was in absolute control hardly deterred Bogdanov from speaking out.

Along with his political writing, Alexander Bogdanov became one of the fledgling Soviet Union's first science fiction writers and also proposed a new scientific discipline which he named "tektology". Essentially a precursor to systems theory, Bogdanov proposed that social, biological and physical sciences could be better understand in terms of universal principles of organization. He also suggested an "empirio-monistic principle" to describe how observation allowed for essential conclusions about nature, physical matter, and behaviour to be integrated into a larger system. Many of these same ideas would be independently developed by Norbert Wiener and Ludwig von Bertalanffy in their own revolutionary scientific theories.

In many ways, Bogdanov was far more ambitious though. His tectology system was meant as a way to understand everything, whether it be art, music, literature, politics, biology, etc. The entire gamut of human experience, in other words. In his 1922 three- volume book, Tektology: Universal Organization Science, he outlined the central organizing character of the universe as perceived by humans and even drifted into a critique of certain Communist policies. It was his occasional straying into political writing that kept Bogdanov under the watchful eye of the Bolshevik government though. Vladimir Lenin certainly never forgot his old rival though Bogdanov's influence had long since faded. Taking advantage of some of Bogdanov's more inflammmatory writings, Bogdanov was eventually arrested by the GPU in 1923 and held for over five weeks. Despite being released, his file remained unclosed until long after his death.

With his political activities being curtailed, Alexander Bogdanov moved into more ambitious areas of medical research. All of which brings us back to his blood experiments...

After Karl Landsteiner first identified the main blood groups in 1900, blood transfusion rapidly became accepted as a valuable tool in saving human lives in many countries though Russian doctors had been slow to catch up. When Bogdanov worked as a surgeon during World War I, he became aware of the various innovative techniques used by Allied doctors to save wounded soldiers. Though not in a position to use these methods to save his own patients, he was impressed enough to recognize their potential value. He even incorporated the idea of regular blood transfusions into his science fiction novel, Red Star, although it was set on a utopian Mars, not on Earth. While transfusions still carried some risk in Bogdanov's time (among other things, the Rh factor would not be identified until the 1930s), he was inspired enough to propose that life could be radically extended through regular transfusions from younger humans. Based on his own tectological theory, he reasoned that a communist system of mutual exchange of blood could be developed for the benefit of all Soviets.

The experimental setup was simple enough. Bogdanov or one of his other collaborators, including his wife Nataliia, would exchange as much as 700 cubic centimetres of blood from a younger subject (the blood exchange prevented problems with blood loss) and various measures would be taken to see if there were any changes. Most of the measurement tended to be subjective (whether or not the older subject felt better or not) but there were a few objective measures thrown in as well (blood pressure, pulse frequency, muscle tone, lung capacity, etc.). Enthusiastic reports by more-or-less impartial witnesses described how Bogdanov and his wife looked as much as five or ten years younger after the repeated transfusions.

That Bogdanov and his fellow researchers/enthusiasts never published any of their findings hardly seemed to matter to the various politicians following their work. One of them, Leonid Krasin, an old friend of Bogdanov who had been appointed People's Commissar of foreign trade decided to have Bogdanov treat his acute anemia using blood transfusions. Bogdanov, to his credit, was reluctant to consider it and suggested that Krasin travel to London and consult with doctors who had greater experience with his condition. After consulting his own reference textbooks on using blood transfusions to treat anemia, Bogdanov decided to try a similar treatment with Krasin which was an apparent success. Krasin recovered enough to take on a new post as Soviet ambassador to Great Britain in 1926 and Bogdanov's reputation as a miracle worker received an important boost among the Bolsheviks in power.

All of which led to an extremely important meeting between Alexander Bogdanov and the man who would become his most important patron, Joseph Stalin. While well on his way to becoming Lenin's succcesor by 1925, Stalin was still establishing his power base when he met with Bogdanov. The recent death of Lenin and the serious illnesses affecting many other Politburo members had already led to the establishment of a "Supreme Medical Commission" and the passing of a special resolution to "protect the health of the old party guard." While there are no records of what actually passed between Stalin and Bogdanov, the prospect of using regular blood transfusions to extend the lives of important Bolsheviks (including Stalin) had to have figured into the conversation. Since the Politburo was already sponsoring various health initiatives to improve the general medical practices of the new Soviet Union, a new institute to study blood transfusions made eminent sense. And so the "world's first" institute on blood transfusion was born in 1926 but it was still up to Bogdanov to make it happen.

While Bogdanov was at least nominally qualified to head up a medical institute (he was a medical doctor after all), the prominent researchers passed over for the honour were likely cynical about his prospects for success. It also must have set an uncomfortable precedent though no one suspected then what Trofim Lysenko would do just a few years later. As he would later admit, Bogdanov had been doing secret transfusions for years with a small group of supporters (mostly using himself as the guinea pig). Beginning in 1924, he would receive as many as ten transfusions from younger donors and openly boasted of how his health had improved as a result. This determination to carry on this research was likely spurred on by his own health worries and the recent death of the three-years-younger Vladimir Lenin. The threat of imminent mortality made the prospect of rejuvenation more appealing for many of Bogdanov's supporters.

Rather than trying to win over his scientific colleagues, Bogdanov focused on raising public awareness of his experiments instead In an article he published in the newspaper Isvestiia on April 4, 1926, Bogdanov boasted that his new institute was the first in the world to be dedicated exclusively to blood transfusions. Noting that the Soviet Union had lagged behind other countries up to that time, his "physiological collectivism" would increase the "viability of individual organisms through regular blood exchanges". He also noted that his institute "became the first in the country to practise blood transfusion." This revelation likely came as a surprise to many prominent Soviet surgeons who had been doing original research into blood transfusion for years and had not even heard of Alexander Bogdanov as anything other than a fiction writer and a political theorist. Up to that time, Bogdanov had never published in any scientific or medical journal and his colleagues, rightly miffed at being excluded from his ambitious new institute despite being far more qualified, wondered how someone with no real scientific credentials could be placed in charge.

Continue to Part 2

Race and Gender Discrimination in the Marines.

Romeo Vitelli — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:00:00 -0400

Although women of color have been hypothesized to experience double jeopardy in the form of chronic exposure to both race-based (RBD) and gender-based discrimination (GBD; Beal, 1970), few empirical investigations that examine both RBD and GBD in multiple comparison groups have been conducted. In addition to being one of the only simultaneous examinations of RBD and GBD in multiple comparison groups, the current study includes both self-report and objective behavioral data to examine the independent and interactive effects of both forms of discrimination. A study published recently in Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology is the first of its kind to examine these constructs in these ways and to explore their impact in a unique sample of ethnically diverse male and female Marine recruits (N = 1,516). As anticipated, both RBD and GBD had a strong and consistent negative impact on mental health symptoms (e.g., depression, anxiety), independent of the contributions of gender and race. Partial support was found for the hypothesis that people of color are able to maintain resiliency (as measured by physical fitness testing) in the face of low levels of RBD, but are less able to overcome the negative effects of discrimination at high levels. It is interesting to note that the interaction between race, gender, and levels of discrimination was only found with objective physical fitness test scores but not with self-report measures. These findings underscore the importance of including objective measures when assessing the impact of discrimination in order to understand these complex interrelationships.

For the abstract

May is Mental Health Awareness Month

Romeo Vitelli — Tue, 07 May 2013 08:00:00 -0400

While attitudes towards mental illness are slowly changing, people experiencing mental health problems still face enormous stigma that can delay their recovery and prevent them from becoming reintegrated into their community. To help improve the quality of life for the estimated one in four people living with mental illness, the month of May has been designated Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States. First launched as Mental Health Awareness Week during the 1940s, it was later expanded to a full month during the 1960s.

The 2013 theme for Mental Health Month is Pathways to Wellness. Among the key messages by Mental Health America as part of this broader theme are:

Wellness is essential to living a full and productive life. It's about keeping healthy as well as getting healthy.
Wellness involves a set of skills and strategies that prevent the onset or shorten the duration of illness and promote recovery and well-being. Wellness is more than just the absence of disease.
Wellness is more than an absence of disease. It involves complete general, mental and social well-being. And mental health is an essential component of overall health and well-being. The fact is our overall well-being is tied to the balance that exists between our emotional, physical, spiritual and mental health.
Whatever our situation, we are all at risk of stress given the demands of daily life and the challenges it brings-at home, at work and in life. Steps that build and maintain well-being and help us all achieve wellness involve a balanced diet, regular exercise, enough sleep, a sense of self-worth, development of coping skills that promote resiliency, emotional awareness, and connections to family, friends and community.
These steps should be complemented by taking stock of one's well-being through regular mental health checkups and screenings. Just as we check our blood pressure and get cancer screenings, it's a good idea to take periodic reading of our emotional well-being.
Fully embracing the concept of wellness not only improves health in the mind, body and spirit, but also maximizes one's potential to lead a full and productive life. Using strategies that promote resiliency and strengthen mental health and prevent mental health and substance use conditions lead to improved general health and a healthier society: greater academic achievement by our children, a more productive economy, and families that stay together.

During the month of May, other mental health campaigns will be run across the United States with similar campaigns being run in Canada. To participate in National Mental Health Month or to get further information, check out the various resources available on the Mental Health America site including factsheets and the 2013 Media Toolkit.

Does Psychotherapy Work?

Romeo Vitelli — Mon, 06 May 2013 08:44:58 -0400

How effective is psychotherapy, really?

Though Sigmund Freud and his followers regularly published case histories describing how patients could be cured of their psychological problems through therapy, exactly how treatment effectiveness could be measured was rarely discussed. Even as psychotherapy became more popular and new kinds of treatment were developed, few therapists seemed interested in putting actual science into psychotherapy to bring it up to the same standard as regular medicine.

Then along came Hans Eysenck and psychotherapy would never be quite the same again…

A German-born psychologist who spent most of his life in Great Britain, Eysenck is likely best remembered for his work on intelligence, personality, and genetics. He is less well-known as a major critic of psychoanalysis though this is where he had the greatest influence. In 1952, he published one of the first comprehensive reviews looking at research studies evaluating psychoanalysis and other psychotherapy schools. Based on the limited number of studies available, Eysenck concluded that only 44% of psychoanalysis patients receiving Freudian treatment showed any kind of real improvement over a five-year period. Though the numbers were somewhat higher for eclectic therapy (64%), the improvement rate was still well below the 72% rate for patients treated in hospitals or by general practitioners.

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post here.

Providentia

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