Race, Ethnicity, Community

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reports that racial and ethnic minority groups in the U.S. are less likely to have access to mental health services, less likely to use community mental health services, more likely to use emergency departments, and more likely to receive lower-quality care. Poor mental health care access and quality contribute to poor mental health outcomes, including suicide, among racial and ethnic minority populations.

The Office of Minority Health (OMH) is dedicated to improving the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will help eliminate health disparities. Share their resources and publications to raise awareness during National Minority Mental Health Awareness in July or anytime during the year.

Psychologist and African American mental health expert, Rheeda Walker, Ph.D., offers important information on the mental health crisis in the Black community, how to combat stigma, spot potential mental illness, how to practice emotional wellness, and how to get the best care possible in a system steeped in racial bias. The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health | Rheeda Walker, Ph.D. | New Harbinger Publications | 2020 | 232 pages | ISBN: 978-1684034147

Graphic Medicine

Ian Williams, M.D. coined the term Graphic Medicine for the website https://www.graphicmedicine.org. Graphic Medicine refers to the use of graphic novels, comics, and visual storytelling in medical education, patient care, and other applications related to healthcare and the life sciences. Just as there are many genres of books and films, there are many genres of comics and graphic novels. They may be fiction or nonfiction. They may be funny, sad, informative, or provocative. The illustrations may be elaborate while others are simple. However, they all use visual storytelling to connect with the reader. For programming ideas, use the National Library of Medicine Traveling Exhibit and educational website, Graphic Medicine: Ill-Conceived and Well-Drawn! as well as Graphic Medicine & Health: Storytelling in support of the NNLM NER Graphic Medicine Initiative.

Picture Book

Sadness is an emotion that everyone feels at some time or another. But sometimes you might feel a sadness so long and so deep and dark that it seems impossible to find happiness. That kind of sadness is called depression. Meh is a wordless picture book about one boy's journey through depression. Discussion questions at the back of the book are intended for parents or teachers to discuss depression with children. Meh: a story about depression | Deborah Malcolm | Thunderstone Books | 2015 | ISBN: 978-153411003

Library Skills Training

Caring for the Mind is an NNLM online course for library staff to learn how to effectively provide mental health information at their libraries. Participants learn about the best electronic resources to consult as well as ways to improve their print collections. Best approaches for handling interactions with emotional patrons are also discussed.

• Printer-friendly handout (8.5"X11") Mental Health Support for Public Library Staff​
• Printer-friendly handout (8.5"X11") Caring for the Mind: Mental Health Resources for Library Patrons

Mental Health First Aid is an 8-hour course that gives people the skills to help someone who is developing a mental health problem or experiencing a mental health crisis. The evidence behind the program demonstrates that it does build mental health literacy, helping the public identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illness. Find a Mental Health First Aid course near you using the search tool.

Race, Gender, and Community

Not only is resiliency an individual trait, communities collectively overcome adversity when faced with mass violence, natural disasters, and unprecedented pandemics. Biases, fear, and hatred also create stress, trauma, and life-threatening events for groups of select persons. How can communities foster resilience?

Incidents of increased prejudice and violence during COVID reflect a long history of how power, prejudice, and public health have intersected throughout American history. For Asian Pacific American History Month, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History held conversations in a series called Viral Histories: Stories of Racism, Resilience, and Resistance in Asian American Communities with community leaders combating racism while serving on the front lines.

Viajando por Las Americas: From Guatemala to Washington, D.C. by Michelle Aranda Cross. 2017 Folklife Festival on the Move, Crafts, Immigration & Migration. August 31, 2017

The Digital Transgender Archive was born out of two researchers’ frustration with finding materials by and about transgender people. The online hub encompasses more than 20 public and private collections of documents, ephemera, and memorabilia from gender-nonconforming people in an attempt to make their history more visible. This Transgender Archive’s Oldest Artifacts Tell a Story of Courage and Community by Erin Blakemore. SmithsonianMag.com, March 29, 2016

Racial and Ethnic Socialization (RES) is a process through which parents influence “children's racial identity and self-concept, beliefs about the way the world works, and repertoire of strategies and skills for coping with and navigating racism and inter-and intra-racial relationships and interactions.” (From Resilience in African-American Children and Adolescents: A Vision for Optimal Development)

The RESilience Initiative of the American Psychological Association provides resources for parents and others to assist them in promoting strength, health, and well-being among the youth of color. Positive racial identities serve as protective factors and bolster resilience.

Building community resilience is going from surviving to thriving. THRIVE: Tool for Health and Resilience In Vulnerable Environments is a framework for understanding how community conditions impact health and a tool for engaging others to take action to improve those conditions.

Founded in 2001, The Greater Good Science Center, based at UC Berkeley, provides a bridge between the research community and the general public. The center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society. Its aims are to:

• Equip individuals with science-based knowledge and skills that shape their beliefs and broadly improve social and emotional well-being;
• Empower people to become agents of change in their organizations and communities, thus changing institutions from the inside out.
• Engage in “field-building” by fostering a broad, inclusive cultural conversation about the importance of compassion, connection, gratitude, and meaning, while bringing a trusted, science-based voice to the public.

There's an NIH for that...

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) is the National Institutes of Health lead agency for scientific research on the diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine. Mind and body practices are included in this field of study. The 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) showed that yoga, chiropractic, and osteopathic manipulation, and meditation are among the most popular mind and body practices used by adults. Stress management programs commonly include relaxation techniques. Find more information about the benefits of relaxation techniques that may aid in stress management and help build resilience.

Book

Two sisters: Miranda, the older, responsible one, always her younger sister's protector; Lucia, the vibrant, headstrong, unconventional one, whose impulses are huge and, often, life-changing. When their mother dies and Lucia starts to hear voices, it's Miranda who must fight for the help her sister needs — even as Lucia refuses to be defined by any doctor's diagnosis. Determined, impetuous, she plows ahead, marrying a big-hearted Israeli only to leave him, suddenly, to have a baby with a young Latino immigrant. She will move with her new family to Ecuador, but the bitter constant remains: she cannot escape her own mental illness. Lucia lives life on a grand scale until, inevitably, she crashes to earth. And then Miranda must decide, again, whether or not to step in — but this time, Lucia may not want to be saved. The bonds of sisterly devotion stretch across oceans, but what does it take to break them? 

Name a Best Fiction title of 2018 by Amazon, O Magazine, Real Simple, and the Goodreads Readers Choice Awards

Everything Here is Beautiful: A Novel | Mira T Lee | Pamela Dorman Books | 2018 | 368 pages | ISBN: 978-0735221963

Author

Mira T. Lee’s work has been published in numerous quarterlies and reviews, including The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, Harvard Review, and Triquarterly. She was awarded an Artist’s Fellowship by the Massachusetts Cultural Council in 2012 and has twice received special mention for the Pushcart Prize. She is a graduate of Stanford University and currently lives with her husband and two young sons in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Official Website of Mira T Lee

Multiculturalism and Mental Illness: An Interview with Mira T. Lee. Eleanor J Bader for Los Angeles Review of Books. January 16, 2018

Author Mira T. Lee on Dealing with Mental Illness in Families. Kerri Miller for MPR News: People Places. February 28, 2018

Book

Zack McDermott, a 26-year-old Brooklyn public defender, woke up one morning convinced he was being filmed, Truman Show-style, as part of an audition for a TV pilot. Every passerby was an actor; every car would magically stop for him; everything he saw was a cue from "The Producer" to help inspire the performance of a lifetime. After a manic spree around Manhattan, Zack, who is bipolar, was arrested on a subway platform and admitted to Bellevue Hospital. So begins the story of Zack's free-fall into psychosis and his desperate, poignant, often hilarious struggle to claw his way back to sanity. It's a journey that will take him from New York City back to his Kansas roots and to the one person who might be able to save him, his tough, big-hearted Midwestern mother, nicknamed the Bird, whose fierce and steadfast love is the light in Zack's dark world. 

Gorilla and The Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother's Love | Zack McDermott | Little, Brown and Company | 2017 | 288 pages | ISBN: 978-0316315142

Author

Zack McDermott has worked as a public defender for The Legal Aid Society of New York. His work has appeared in the New York Times, This American Life, Morning Edition, and Gawker, among other places. He lives in New York and LA

"This is a true story, and I have done my best to ensure accuracy in its telling. As my memory is sometimes fallible, the dialogue is approximate. In cases where the events described took place when I was too young to understand what was happening around me, I have relied on my mother, the Bird, to fill in the gaps. The names and identifying details of some individuals have been changed."

Zack McDermott on His Memoir and His Mom by Stephanie Stephens, bphope.com, October 9, 2018

Book

What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author, Robert Kolker, uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope. 

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family | Robert Kolker | Doubleday | 2020 | 400 pages | ISBN: 978-0385543767

Author

Robert Kolker is the New York Times bestselling author of Lost Girls, named one of the New York Times 100 Notable Books and one of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Books of 2014. As a journalist, his work has appeared in New York magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, Oprah, and Men’s Journal. He is a recipient of the Harry Frank Guggenheim 2011 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

Official Website of Robert Kolker

Book

Growing up in the 1970s and 80s in New York, Amanda experiences the magic and madness of life through the filter of unrelenting panic. Plagued with fear that her friends and family will be taken from her if she's not watching - that her mother will die, or forget she has children and just move away - Amanda treats every parting as her last. Shuttled between a barefoot bohemian life with her mother in Greenwich Village, and a sanitized, stricter world of affluence uptown with her father, Amanda has little she can depend on. And when Etan Patz disappears down the block from their MacDougal Street home, she can't help but believe that all her worst fears are about to come true. Tenderly delivered and expertly structured, Amanda Stern's memoir is a document of the transformation of New York City and a deep, personal, and comedic account of the trials and errors of seeing life through a very unusual lens.​ 

Little Panic: Dispatches From an Anxious Life | Amanda Stern | Grand Central Publishing | 2018 | 400 pages | ISBN: 978-1538711927

Author

Amanda Stern is the author of the novel The Long Haul and the nine-book middle-grade series, Frankly Frannie. Since 2003, she has helmed the Happy Ending Reading series and she's been an NYFA Fiction Fellow and held residencies at the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Salon, Post Road, and St. Ann's Review.

Official Website of Amanda Stern

Book

Every year, nearly 30 million Americans sit on a therapist’s couch—and some of these patients are therapists. In her remarkable new book, Lori Gottlieb tells us that despite her license and rigorous training, her most significant credential is that she’s a card-carrying member of the human race. “I know what it’s like to be a person,” she writes, as a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but. As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives — a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys — she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell. 

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone | Lori Gottlieb | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 2019 | 432 pages | ISBN: 978-1328662057

Author

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist and New York Times best-selling author who writes the Atlantic's weekly Dear Therapist advice column. A contributing editor for the Atlantic, she also writes for the New York Times Magazine and appears as a frequent expert on mental health in media such as Today, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, CNN, and NPR.

Official Website of Lori Gottlieb

Book

Resilience is a key ingredient for psychological health and wellness. It’s what gives people the psychological strength to cope with everyday stress, as well as major setbacks. For many people, stressful events may include job loss, financial problems, illness, natural disasters, medical emergencies, divorce, or the death of a loved one. But if you are queer or gender non-conforming, life stresses may also include discrimination in housing and health care, employment barriers, homelessness, family rejection, physical attacks or threats, and general unfair treatment and oppression—all of which lead to overwhelming feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness. So, how can you gain resilience in a society that is so often toxic and unwelcoming? The Queer and Transgender Resilience Workbook will teach you how to cultivate the key components of resilience: holding a positive view of yourself and your abilities; knowing your worth and cultivating a strong sense of self-esteem; effectively utilizing resources; being assertive and creating a support community; fostering hope and growth within yourself, and finding the strength to help others.

The Queer & Transgender Resilience Workbook | Anneliese Singh, PhD, LPC | New Harbinger Publications | 2018 | 224 pages | ISBN: 978-1626259461

Author

Anneliese Singh, PhD, LPC (she/they) is a Professor in the School of Social Work with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology and serves as Associate Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity/Chief Diversity Officer at Tulane University. Her scholarship and community organizing explores the resilience, trauma, and identity development experiences of queer and trans people, with a focus on young people and BIPOC people. She has written extensively on multicultural and social justice competency development in the helping professions, and equity and justice efforts in higher education. Dr. Singh is the author of The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing and The Queer and Trans Resilience Workbook. Dr. Singh founded the Trans Resilience Project to translate her LGBTQ+ research findings into school and community-based change efforts, including NIH funded work with trans and non-binary people in Project AFFIRM. Her TEDx Talks, have explored gender liberation, and she has been described as a transformative speaker inspiring “real-world” social change. Anneliese passionately believes in and strives to live by the ideals of Dr. King’s beloved community, as well as Audre Lorde’s reminder that “without community, there is no liberation.”

Official Website of Anneliese Singh, PhD

Book

True resilience is much more than enduring terrible conditions. We need resilience every day to raise a family, work at a job, cope with stress, deal with health problems, navigate issues with others, heal from old pain, and simply keep on going. Dr. Rick Hanson shows you how to develop twelve vital inner strengths hardwired into your own nervous system. Then no matter what life throws at you, you’ll be able to feel less stressed, pursue opportunities with confidence, and stay calm and centered in the face of adversity. This practical guide is full of concrete suggestions, experiential practices, personal examples, and insights into the brain. It includes effective ways to interact with others and to repair and deepen important relationships. 

Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness | Rick Hanson, Ph.D. | Harmony | 2020 reprint | 304 pages | ISBN: 978-0451498861

PRH Audio · Resilient by Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Forrest Hanson, read by Rick Hanson

Author

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and New York Times best-selling author. His books are available in 26 languages and include Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture. He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin and has numerous audio programs. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA and founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, he’s been an invited speaker at NASA, Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, and other major universities, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. His work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, and NPR, and he offers the free Just One Thing newsletter with over 120,000 subscribers, plus the online Foundations of Well-Being program in positive neuroplasticity that anyone with financial need can do for free.

Official Website of Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

Book

In her early twenties in New York City, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Rachel Lindsay takes a job in advertising in order to secure healthcare coverage for her treatment. But work takes a strange turn when she suddenly finds herself on the other side of the curtain, developing ads for an antidepressant drug. Day after day, she sees her own suffering in the ads she helps to create, trapped in an endless cycle of treatment, insurance, and medication. Overwhelmed by the stress of her professional life and the self-scrutiny it inspires, she begins to destabilize and finds herself hospitalized against her will. In the ward, stripped of the little control over her life she felt she had, she struggles in the midst of doctors, nurses, patients, and endless rules to find a path out of the hospital and this cycle of treatment. This is the author's story of being treated for a mental illness as a commodity and the often unavoidable choice between sanity and happiness. 

Rx: A Graphic Memoir | Rachel Lindsay | Grand Central Publishing | 2018 | 256 pages | ISBN: 978-1455598540

Author

Rachel Lindsay is a Burlington, Vermont-based cartoonist. She is the creator of the comic strip Rachel Lives Here Now (2013-present), which appears weekly in Seven Days. She is a graduate of Columbia University. This is her first book. Rachel gives book talks at libraries! Contact her at RachelLivesHereNow.

Cartoonist Rachel Lindsay discusses Rx: A Graphic Memoir with Jane Lindholm on the Vermont Edition, September 4, 2018

Rachel Lindsay’s Rx Proves Comics Are Perfect for Tackling Mental Illness by Abraham Riesman. The New York Magazine: Cartoon. September 4, 2018

Graphic Medicine

What do Graphic Medicine books have in common? "...their ability to punch the reader in the face with a stark image that instantly registers, and with sparing text that is, due to the economy of a page, more like poetry than prose. You can also read a graphic memoir/novel in a single sitting in a way you can’t with even the most masterful prose books. When you’re in the hole, you may not have the energy to process big blocks of words. A comic, though, can be far more digestible."

These Are Not Sad Stories: How graphic medicine humanizes the world of health care by Edith Zimmerman and illustration by Rachel Lindsay. The Cut: The Science of Us. December 20, 2018.

Book

In The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health, psychologist and African American mental health expert, Rheeda Walker, offers important information on the mental health crisis in the Black community, how to combat stigma, spot potential mental illness, how to practice emotional wellness, and how to get the best care possible in system steeped in racial bias. 

This breakthrough book will help you:

• Recognize mental and emotional health problems
• Understand the myriad ways in which these problems impact overall health and quality of life and relationships
• Develop psychological tools to neutralize ongoing stressors and live more fully
• Navigate a mental health care system that is unequal

The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health | Rheeda Walker, PhD | New Harbinger Publications | 2020 | 232 pages | ISBN: 978-1684034147

Author

Rheeda Walker, PhD is a tenured professor of psychology in the department of psychology at the University of Houston. She is a behavioral science researcher and licensed psychologist who has published more than fifty scientific papers on African American adult mental health, suicide risk, and resilience. Walker is recognized as a fellow in the American Psychological Association due to her scholarly accomplishments. Dr. Walker has been a guest expert psychologist on T.D. Jakes’s national television talk show, and her work has appeared or been cited in The Washington Post, CNN Health, the Houston Chronicle, and Ebonymagazine. Her expertise has been critical to mentoring doctoral students in cross-cultural psychology since 2003. Walker was previously a lead consultant in the statewide African American Faith-Based Education and Awareness initiative in Texas. She conducts workshops, and coordinates with churches and other organizations to address emotional wellness.

Official Website of Rheeda Walker, PhD