I’m heading to Grand Rapids this week for the Festival of Faith and Writing at my alma mater, Calvin College.
I’m looking forward to discussing journalism, hearing wonderful writers and seeing old friends — and maybe making some new ones!
If you hear or see me at the festival and are inspired to check out this site, […]

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Finals are over, and I’m back! — for a day or two, anyway.
Check out my final project to see what I’d do with Millennial Mind if I had a million dollars (or two).
Here are some other links for your spring-break-reading pleasure:
- Study finds teen girls with ADHD are more likely to develop eating disorders.
- Jim […]

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The worse a war goes, the worse the people fighting in it feel — and vice versa.
So says a new Army study. Troops in Afghanistan reported lower morale as fighting there got worse, while troops in Iraq reported better morale. But altogether, people were more likely to show mental strain the longer they were deployed.
This […]

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One day during a summer journalism program in Washington, D.C., six years ago, I was walking around one of the House office buildings when I encountered a group of visitors.
A man wearing an FDNY baseball hat told me that he and the others were there to lobby for mental-health parity — that is, laws that […]

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This blog got started as an assignment for my New Media Storytelling class at Medill.
Now the quarter’s almost over and it’s time to do my final project.
But I need your help!
Please take a few minutes to fill out this survey so I can get some ideas on how to improve things and who exactly is […]

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As you’ve probably noticed by now, I have a lot of opinions about mental illness.
But I don’t always have the facts to back them up.
That’s why I’m so happy about a story I came across today: Testosterone may prevent eating disorders.
It helps support what I wrote yesterday about biology being a likely reason why women […]

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In recognition of Women’s History Month in March, here’s a gender-specific look at mental illness.
According to the federal government’s Office on Women’s Health, many women are in a bad place psychologically:
Women suffer twice as often as men by most forms of depression and anxiety disorders, and nine times as often by eating disorders.
Some of that […]

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Here in Chicago, the kids have off from school today to honor the great Polish Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski.
For me, it’s a good excuse to listen to one of my favorite Sufjan Stevens songs.
And of course, I get to share the latest batch of mental-health news with you.
- The always-reliable World of Psychology has […]

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Got a bad case of Seasonal Affective Disorder?
Watch and learn:

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I love dogs.
My family has two — a pug/Boston terrier mix named Rosie and a fluffy mutt named Pixie.
They can get annoying sometimes, like when they follow you all around the house or constantly bark to be let outside. But they’re also great faithful friends, showing appreciation just for scratching or petting them.
Various studies have […]

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