This article introduces a Wellness First Approach to addressing adverse community experiences and encouraging community healing and resilience. Structural violence and traumatic conditions can contribute to poor mental health outcomes for communities.However, communities have the capacity to amplify protective factors to mitigate the negative effects of adverse community experiences, toxic stress, and trauma. The authors offer that a better understanding of these experiences can transform the ways mental health is approached. Rather than predominantly focus on prevention and treatment practices on an individual level, there is a need to engage in prevention and healing through an ecological approach that includes whole communities. Recommendations of frameworks for mental health and well-being promotion that are aligned with a Wellness First Approach are provided.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between mother-child mediated learning experience (MLE) strategies and mothers’ attachment and mental health. Fifty two Israeli mother-child dyads were videotaped at home in two interaction conditions: free play and structured. The interactions were analyzed using the Observation of Mediated Interaction (OMI). Mothers rated themselves on the Attachment Scale and the Mental Health Inventory. MLE strategies were found to be positively predicted by secure attachment and negatively by anxious attachment. In addition, MLE strategies were positively predicted by feelings of wellbeing. Gender differences are discussed. The findings support previous findings about affect-cognition relationships, and indicate the importance of perceiving the mediator from a holistic point of view. Mediation is perceived not only as a determining factor of affective processes, but also as being determined by them.

Reductionism is usually taken for granted in many areas of science, neuroscience and psychology being no exceptions. It is often assumed as scientific orthodoxy that human behavior can be reduced to “what the brain does” without recourse to a consideration of cognition. Although many philosophers and ethicists may seek to reduce or eliminate the concept of mind, other philosophers and ethicists have continually pointed out the logical inconsistencies of such an approach. Via a discussion of efficient and final causes in Aristotelian philosophy, I seek to argue that the understanding of human beings as rational and social creatures has guided and should continue to guide our approach to the care and treatment of the mentally ill. Observations concerning rational behavior and cognition, by necessity, have provided the benchmarks by which clinicians evaluate the effectiveness of somatic/pharmacological or psychological/ behavioral interventions: Eliminative reductionism is inappropriate in this area. In approaching issues pertaining to the relationship between human cognitive functioning and neural functioning, the distinction between capacity and vehicle will be used. However, the fact that mental and behavioral functioning can alter neuronal functioning (and vice versa) necessitates that those working with the mentally ill need to know both the efficient causes—the vehicles of certain capacities—and the role of the capacities themselves and how they relate to possible final causes in giving explanations for behavior. These issues become more significant when considering the ethics of treatment choice for those with mental disorders.

Established in collaboration with the Office of Consumer Affairs at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Mental Health Empowerment Project, Inc., the New York City Trauma-Informed Learning Community (NYCTIA-LC) represents a unique partnership between the community, local government, and trauma survivors. The NYCTIA-LC is comprised of individuals with lived experience who are committed to learning about trauma and trauma-informed approaches, advocating for the creation of trauma-informed environments, and the use of these approaches in behavioral health. This article will chronicle the development and evolution of the NYCTIA-LC and explore how local government and individuals who have been directly impacted by trauma can partner to consider a community response to this crisis.

Without data, many people may think pharmaceutical companies' influence over mental health services is negligible. We audited the marketing activities of, and payments to, drug companies in relation to public mental health services in England. Forty-three of 53 Trusts responded to Freedom-of-Information-Act requests. Trusts' policies varied in covering seven activities: from 86% (gifts) to 37% (leaflets). In practice, industry-sponsored training events (51%) and direct talks (40%) were common (averaging 36 events or talks per Trust annually). Only 22% of Trusts produced legally required Conflicts-of-Interests registers; and 14% had none. All 22 Trusts that reported which company received the largest share of their drug expenditure named the same company. On average, Trusts spent 44% of their drugs budget on long-acting injectable antipsychotics (13% to 77%) and 32% on brand name drugs (5%–74%). Five Trusts ban the Pharma marketing activities investigated. Independent post-qualification medical education, and marketing-bans, are needed to avoid over-medicalized practice.

The purpose of this study is to examine the debt burdens, perceived capabilities, and mental health of young adults. Panel data constructed from the 2009 to 2013 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and its Transition to Adulthood (TA) supplement are used in this study. The multinomial logistic regression analysis findings showed that the amount of revolving debt was negatively associated with young adults' mental health. On the other hand, perceived abilities in acting responsibly, in solving problems, and in managing money were positively associated with the mental health of young adults. The fixed effects regression analysis results indicate that the amounts of credit card and student loan debt from the previous period were negatively associated with an increase in the mental health continuum scores of young adults over time. A discussion of the implications of this study's key findings for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners is included.

Institutional characteristics may help mitigate trauma associated with sexual assault. This study examines associations between resources on college campuses for sexual violence prevention and the emotional well-being of female students who have experienced sexual assault. There were 495 female college students who have experienced sexual assault who provided survey data in 2010–2011. Sexual violence resource data from 28 college campuses were combined with student survey data in multilevel analysis. Dependent variables include diagnosis with anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and PTSD, and models adjust for covariates and clustering of students within colleges. Participants attending colleges with more sexual violence resources had lower rates of mental health conditions than those attending colleges with fewer resources. Colleges are encouraged to expand their array of sexual violence resources to create a supportive environment for victims of sexual assault and to connect affected students with appropriate services.

Current domestic violence policy was shaped both by second wave feminist initiatives formulated in the 1970s and 1980s and by the culturally conservative concerns of the emerging punitive era. The policy framework that has emerged from the intersection of the seemingly incompatible positions of conservative views of crime and progressive feminist views of liberation in fact has come to resemble more conservative social control than progressive feminism. In spite of known empirical links between domestic violence and psychological disorders, this policy framework ignores many of the principles of forensic mental health practice. Growing awareness of the costs and failures of mass incarceration and the overcriminalization of certain behaviors is leading to a reconsideration of the role of mental health problems in crime overall. These trends may foreshadow a return to a more rehabilitative view of crime and corrections, presenting domestic violence policy with an opportunity to move toward a standpoint more scientific, more compassionate, and more effective.