NNLM Network of the National Library of Medicine

Race, Ethnicity and 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.

There's an NIH for that... and more

• The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the lead federal agency for research on mental disorders. Its website offers basic information on a wide range of mental health topics. You also can download or order a variety of brochures and fact sheets, both in English and Spanish.
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA) leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. Its mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America's communities.
• MentalHealth.gov is the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services website with access to evidence-based information for a variety of mental health and behavior conditions and psychotic disorders.
• The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is an organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. Use the NAMI Fact Sheet Library to share Infographics or ready-made social media messages.

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 | WorldCat |  

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 | Back Bay Books | 2018 | 288 pages | ISBN: 978-0316315142 | WorldCat |  

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 | WorldCat |  

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

Interview

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 | WorldCat |  

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

Interview

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 | WorldCat |  

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.