Shrinking It Down: Mental Health Made Simple

We shouldn’t need science to tell us that getting together with other people is beneficial. Still, the science is pretty fascinating, and in the data-driven age in which we live, knowledge is power! In this episode, Steve and Gene dig into the biology and neuroscience beneath why connecting with others in our communities—particularly those outside of our everyday circles—not only feels great but is really important for our physical and mental health. We think it’s so important, in fact, that we have a summer challenge for you all. Tune in for more!

Thank you for joining us in this conversation. Please write to us over the summer!

Media List

• Get Together (Video – The Youngbloods)
• The Benefits of Gardening for Children Will Make You Want to Start a Flower Plot With Them Right Now (Romper)
• Rohina Hoffman: Hair Stories
• PorchFest.org
• Creativity Gives Our Brains a Boost (MGH Clay Center)
• Prosocial Behavior Mitigates the Negative Effects of Stress in Everyday Life (Clinical Psychological Science)
• Affiliative and prosocial motives and emotions in mental health (Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience)
• Could ‘mirror neurons’ explain brain mechanisms of empathy? (Medical News Today)
• The Anatomy of Empathy (Vice)
• Kansas City-Area Tornadoes Add to 12 Straight Days of Destruction (New York Times)
• Talking to Kids About Disasters (The Weather Channel)
• There Are All Sorts of Ways of Making Things Better (MGH Clay Center)

Episode produced by Sara Rattigan

Music by Gene Beresin

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the Clay Center, we often stress the importance of creativity for supporting healthy youth development and community relationships. So, we’re thrilled to have socially engaged multimedia artist Elisa H. Hamilton join Gene and Steve in today’s episode! Elisa is a visiting artist with the Clay Center. Since January, she’s been developing a project to help everyday families and communities become more aware of and engage with young people around issues of mental health. All of this using art as the entryway to these conversations. Tune in for more and stay tuned for the launch of her project in Fall 2019! 

Thank you for joining in this conversation. Have questions or ideas you’d like to share about art and mental health? Write to us at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you. 

Media List 

• Creativity Gives Our Brains a Boost (MGH Clay Center) 
• Elisa H. Hamilton, Multimedia Artist 
• Emerson College, Media Design Program  
• Old & In The Way (Grateful Dead Records)  
• Public Artwork Picked for Cambridge's Foundry (City of Cambridge) 
• Illuminating Mental Health, A Project By Elisa H. Hamilton  
• Beta Testing The Illuminated Collage (MGH Clay Center) 
• What is Vellum? (LCI Paper Co.)  
• Met Gala 2019: See All the Red Carpet Fashion (The Cut) 
• Superheroes & Child Development Go Together Like Batman & Robin, According To Experts (Romper)

Episode edited by Sara Rattigan

Music by Gene Beresin

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you know Ellen enjoys boxing for self-care, and that Gene depends on daily interactions with his dog, Bear? This week is Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week! What better way to celebrate than by focusing on self-care, and on building resilience in young people from the earliest ages? When we help them work self-care into their routines now, they’ll have it to fall back on as they enter adulthood.

Self-care can mean different things depending on the stage of child development, family dynamics, and more. Gene and Ellen talk through it all in today’s episode. Thanks for joining in the conversation. What do you do for self-care? E-mail us!

Media List

• April 2019 Saw The Most Days With Rain In Boston Since 1872 (WBUR)
• National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day (SAMHSA)
• Association Between the Release of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and Suicide Rates in the United States: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis (Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry)
• Investigating harmful and helpful effects of watching season 2 of 13 Reasons Why: Results of a two-wave U.S. panel survey (Social Science & Medicine)
• Self-Care in High School – Video (MGH Clay Center)
• Self-Care in Middle School – Video (MGH Clay Center)
• Follow us on Facebook
• Follow us on Instagram
• Self-Care and Stress Management Resources (MGH Clay Center)

Episode produced by Sara Rattigan

Music by Gene Beresin

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We all get distracted and disorganized. Today, it seems more than ever with digital media consuming our lives. We bet you’ve even wondered, at some point in your life, whether you might have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Heck – do we all have some form of it? Like all things in mental health, it’s complicated. Not all that’s inattentive is ADHD. In today’s episode, our co-director Dr. Ellen Braaten joins Gene to really delve into what ADHD is, what it’s not, the different ways it can present in kids, and things we can do to manage it.

Thanks for joining in the conversation! If you have questions or comments about ADHD, write to us at [email protected].

Media List

• Driven to Distraction (Edward Hallowell, MD)
• Doctors in the US have less time to treat patients (Univerzita Karlova)
• What is ADHD? (Video – Massachusetts General Hospital for Children)
• How Do You Measure Executive Function Skills in Kids? (MGH Clay Center)
• Intro to Processing Speed (MGH Clay Center)
• What If My Child Has an Anxiety Disorder (MGH Clay Center)
• Learning Disabilities 101 (MGH Clay Center)
• What Are the Different Types of Evaluations? (MGH Clay Center)
• “We Don’t See Time; We Feel It” (ADDitude)
• Is It Safe to Use Stimulants to Treat ADHD? (MGH Clay Center)
• Pete’s Story: Living With ADHD (MGH Clay Center)

Episode produced by Sara Rattigan

Music by Gene Beresin

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Flowers are blooming. People are smiling. On the surface, it seems like spring is the sweetest season of all. And while it is rejuvenating and joyful in many ways, it’s also associated with the highest rates of psychiatric issues. Gene and Steve take a closer look at why this might be, from research to theories to their own clinical experience. They also talk about steps you can take to manage this time of year if your child or you are struggling. With the right strategies and supports, we can get through this together. Thank you for joining us in this conversation.

If you have questions or comments about today’s episode, write to us at [email protected]. 

Media List

• Nod to National Poetry Month: The Waste Land (T.S. Eliot)
• Seasonality of Suicidal Behavior (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)
• Spring Suicide: An (Un)Likely Combination? (MGH Clay Center)
• Study: Many Anti-Inflammatories Show Antidepressant Effect (Psychiatry & Behavioral Health Learning Network)
• There Are All Sorts of Ways of Making Things Better (MGH Clay Center)
• What Parents Can Do to Promote Mental Wellness in Children (MGH Clay Center)

Episode produced by Sara Rattigan

Music by Gene Beresin

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s not the most fun part of the job, but parents know they have a responsibility to discipline their kids when they do something that’s not right – stealing, hitting, staying out past curfew. But how do you make the punishment fit the crime, and help your kid to process the situation after the fact so that it doesn’t happen again? Also, why might a psychologist or psychiatrist ask a child about discipline measures at home? In this episode of Shrinking It Down, Gene and Steve put their heads together to think about discipline, punishment, and what makes sense for children and teens.

Have questions or comments about this episode or another child mental health topic? Write to us at [email protected].

Media List

·     Happy Spring! (MGH Clay Center)

·     Discipline Shouldn’t Lead to Tears (Fatherly)

·     Giving a 2-Year-Olda 15-Minute Time-Out (MGH Clay Center)

·     A 9-Year-Old Has No Remorse for Stealing But Always Lets Himself Get Caught: What Should Parents Do? (MGH Clay Center)

·     Spanking and child outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyses (Journal of Family Psychology)

·     How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (NPR)

·     New Zealand Bans ‘Every Semi-Automatic Assault Weapon Used in the Terrorist Attack,’ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern Says (Newsweek)

Episode edited by Sara Rattigan

Music by Gene Beresin

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s show, Dr. Ellen Braaten joins Gene and Steve to think deeper about our American culture that’s contributed to issues like the recent college admissions scandal, and also less extreme (and less fraudulent) measures we take to ensure our kids succeed at a level that’s well above-average. What message does it send to young people when we have expectations of true perfection and even take actions that suggest they’re not good enough to succeed on their own?

We’ll discuss this and more. Write to us with your thoughts at [email protected].

Media List

• CVS pharmacy plans to change music played when your call is put on hold (Good Morning America)
• 30 Fast Facts About The College Admissions Scandal (Forbes)
• Academic Testing Accommodations for ADHD: Do They Help? (Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal)
• IDEA Act (US Department of Education)
• Use of ‘smart drugs’ on the rise (Nature)
• We Can’t Talk About The College Admissions Scandal Without Discussing Mental Health (Huffington Post)
• High School Junior Stresses (MGH Clay Center)
• From the ashes, the dark phoenix rises again! (imgur)
• David Bowie – Space Oddity (Official Video, YouTube)

Episode edited by Sara Rattigan

Technical direction provided by Andrew Bergner

Music by Gene Beresin

Special vocal solo by Ellen Braaten

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to today’s “pot-cast”! Marijuana is on everyone’s mind, especially the parents of tweens and teens, as it becomes legal in more states – not just for medicinal use, but for recreation. We’ve learned from alcohol that teens are going to have easier access to cannabis the more state laws ease up, even when the age minimum is 21. But pot today and pot in the 70s are almost like two different drugs. And the truth is, we don’t know all the ways that it affects teen development because it hasn’t been studied for that long.

So, what do we know about weed and its effects on the teen brain? Gene and Steve welcome special guest Jodi Gilman, PhD, a neuroscientist at The Center for Addiction Medicine at Mass General Hospital, to discuss. Her research focuses on the effects of alcohol and cannabis on the brains of adolescents and young adults – be sure to check out her most recent study at the top of today's media list.

Media List

• One Month of Cannabis Abstinence in Adolescents is Associated With Improved Memory (Journal of Clinical Psychiatry)
• When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves (NPR)
• Marijuana and the Young Brain (VIDEO – MGH Advances in Motion)
• Wondering What the Law Is Your State? (DISA Global Solutions)
• Teen and Parent Misconceptions About Driving and Marijuana (MGH Clay Center)
• Q+A: Once You’ve Discovered Your Teen is Using Pot, What’s the Next Step? (MGH Clay Center)
• April 20 is Upon Us: Making Sense of Marijuana (MGH Clay Center)
• Ray Charles – Georgia on My Mind (YouTube)

Episode edited by Sara Rattigan

Music by Gene Beresin

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.