This chapter discusses comprehensive school crisis interventions, identifies the characteristics that define a crisis, finds ways to assess for the level of traumatic impact, and determines what interventions can be provided to help with response and recovery. It highlights the PREPaRE Model of crisis prevention and intervention. There are six general categories of crises: acts of war and/or terrorism; violent and/or unexpected deaths; threatened death and/or injury; human-caused disasters; natural disasters; and severe illness or injury. Children are a vulnerable population and in the absence of quality crisis interventions, there can be negative short- and long-term implications on learning, cognitive development, and mental health. Evidence-based interventions focusing on physical and psychological safety may be implemented to prevent a crisis from occurring or mitigate the traumatic impact of a crisis event by building resiliency in students. Crisis risk factors are variables that predict whether a person becomes a psychological trauma victim.

An individual’s identity development, including his or her preferred gender identity, is a lifelong process, which starts with the earliest interactions with the world. The concepts of gender identity have been explored, studied, debated, and discussed for decades and are currently going through a resurgence of examination, especially in Western cultures. This chapter provides an overview of gender identity development, beginning with an explanation of terms, followed by an exploration of theoretical perspectives which includes cognitive developmental theory, social learning theory, gender schema theory and feminist theory. Topics include current research and perspectives on how gender identity evolves in children and recent shifts in understanding atypical gender identities, including transgender, gender neutral, and gender fluid identification. Finally, implications and strategies for mental health professionals are discussed, especially related to counseling those who are experiencing conflict or distress surrounding issues of gender and gender identity.

This chapter explores three ’classic’ studies of creativity and mental illness. The first is Jamison whose focus is on the connection between bipolar disorder and creativity. The second is Andreasen, who used structured interviews to analyze 30 creative writers, 30 matched controls, and first-degree relatives of each group. The writers had a higher rate of mental illness, with a particular tendency toward bipolar and other affective disorders. The third major work is Ludwig, who utilized the historiometric technique. All three studies have come under serious criticism. Many of the studies of Big-C creators are historiometric, akin to Ludwig’s work. Some such studies claim that eminent creators show higher rates of mental illness. A much more common approach is to look at everyday people and give them measures of creativity and mental health. Typically, researchers look at what are called subclinical disorders—in other words, they’re not clinically significant.

This chapter focuses on office automation and systems that are useful in the mental health field, along with principles to be aware of when considering the use or purchase of such systems. Most managers have to rely on input from outside in order to form an opinion about how to resolve complex issues. The complexity of the issue increases significantly when the current federal health care laws are incorporated into the task of choosing appropriate clinical information management software. The significance of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) would seem to dictate at least a brief foray into its content because it lays the foundation for virtually everything that is happening in the clinical information management (CIM) realm. The information provided in the chapter can give a backdrop by which current practices can be examined for goodness of fit with the available client information management systems.

This chapter presents the best measures for resilience and community protection for some of the social determinants of digital diseases in the future for further discussion with families, school workers, and allied health professionals. It suggests that high levels of resilience may prevent development of mental health problems, like depression, stress, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, supporting the suggestion that fostering resilience may prevent development of mental health problems in adolescents. The chapter presents a case report of a 14-year-old, brought to consultation by his mother, who has been worried about his weight. This case report points out how important it is to build up resilience skills through the development of caring and supportive relationships within and outside the family. The chapter suggests a four-pronged approach to prevent the excessive use and the problems associated with the Internet. It includes regulatory, parental, educational, and technological approaches.

This chapter discusses current thinking in the field of social support and social relationships, and physical and mental health among older racial and ethnic minorities. Social relationships are an important predictor of health and psychological well-being across the life course. Many minority older adults will face the continued challenges of declining functional status due to physical and mental health conditions over the course of their lives. Most empirical studies on social support among older racial and ethnic minority adults explore the association between social support and both physical and mental health. The wealth of studies on social support among minority older adults has much to offer with respect to understanding the correlates of emotional support and patterns of assistance. The biological mechanisms explaining the link between social support and physical health outcomes have been largely unexplored among older racial and ethnic minority groups.

In the therapeutic community (TC), recovery is viewed as a change in lifestyle and identity. It is a view that can be contrasted with the conventional concept of recovery in medicine, mental health, and other substance abuse treatment approaches. In the public health experience of treating opioid addiction and alcoholism, drug abuse is viewed as a chronic disease, which focuses treatment strategies and goals on improvement rather than recovery or cure. The TC view of recovery extends much beyond achieving or maintaining abstinence to encompass lifestyle and identity change. This chapter outlines this expanded view of recovery and details the goals and assumptions of the recovery process. It presents the TC view of right living, which summarizes the community teachings guiding recovery during and after treatment. The terms “habilitation” and “rehabilitation” distinguish between building or rebuilding lifestyles for different groups of substance abusers in TCs.

A growing body of research documents racial and ethnic disparities in physical and mental health among older Americans. This chapter discusses larger stress process literature and reviews research on discrimination as a source of stress that is an influential determinant of racial and ethnic differences in the health status of older Americans. It provides a brief overview of disparities in health among older Americans. The chapter discusses the biology of stress, elaborates on key elements of the general stress process framework, and highlights findings pertinent to the health of older minorities. It reviews the research on personally mediated discrimination and health that includes findings from both age-diverse samples and those specific to older adults. The chapter also reviews the literature on coping with discrimination and the contribution of institutionalized discrimination to health inequalities. Lacking are investigations on the joint impact of perceived discrimination and residential segregation.

This chapter helps readers to understand the main characteristics of the three major types of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating. It also examines each disorder from a neurobiological perspective, including genetic factors when known, neuroimaging results, the understanding of neurotransmitter dysregulation, cognitive performance, and various types of treatment. The chapter then presents the consideration of the unique challenges associated with comorbidity, societal pressure, and medical implications. Eating disorders are increasingly common, debilitating, and potentially life-threatening disorders that are clearly linked in their neurobiological basis. Mental health professionals should be aware of the signs and symptoms of eating disorders, as individuals might not disclose their eating habits as readily as their mood, anxiety level, or other symptoms. Treatment is complex, as no medication has been shown to be consistently effective, and each eating disorder will bring with it specific goals.