I am in Washington, DC, for the 30th International Conference on Eating Disorders. Since its inception, I have looked forward to attending this meeting every spring given that research, treatment, and advocacy in this field have been core to my professional work for nearly four decades. With over 1,000 people
This spring is the first time since I can remember that I do not have any children, nieces, nephews, other close family, and friends graduating from high school or university. While most people I know would consider this a blessing, as a committed graduation junkie, I couldn’t stay away and
It is a great irony that the beauty industry makes so many women feel just the opposite. Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign is something else. It addresses head-on the negative beauty stereotypes and standards that are created and perpetuated by the beauty industry and challenges conventional standards of beauty to connect
A delegation of Advisory Board Members from our Columbia WHO Center for Global Mental Health joined me in Israel for a 10-day trip that concluded earlier this week. Interspersed with the more typical sightseeing, we focused on learning about mental health priorities in Israel – specifically, conflict, trauma, resilience, and
Employed adults spend more of their waking hours engaged in work than in any other single activity. In the best of circumstances, work is not only a source of income, but also purpose. As Sigmund Freud said, “love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” The problem is that
At 10:00 AM this past Tuesday, across Israel, a siren wailed for two minutes as it does each year on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day – it is two minutes out of the day set aside to remember the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. When it starts,
The need to make work work for women is not a new issue. What does a recent study from McKinsey and LeanIn.Org suggest about US workplace efforts to evolve the way we work so that work supports women’s mental health? 1. Women are Exiting the Workforce in Droves. The 2022
I was scheduled to spend time as a visiting scholar in Israel in the spring of 2020. Postponed and rescheduled a few times due to global and personal circumstances, I finally arrived in Tel Aviv last week to collaborate with Israeli colleagues on several mental health initiatives over the coming
From the time we learn to count, we track all manner of life milestones with numbers. We mark how many years lived with birthday candles. How many years of marriage with wedding anniversaries. How many years since a loved one passed with memorial rituals. How many years since graduation with
If you aren’t Irish, no need to worry. By tradition, everyone’s a little bit Irish on St. Patrick’s Day! While it’s the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade I’m most familiar with, waltzing up Fifth Avenue is just one of the global celebrations of this beloved Irish Saint.
Judith Ellen Heumann died on March 4, 2023. Maybe it is coincidental, but I tend to think it is supremely befitting that she died at the start of Women’s History Month. Hers is a story that should be told far and wide. Judith Heumann was a lifelong civil rights activist
