Search

ARCHIVES
CONTACT US
WORLD NEWS

National mental health educator visits UA

Mental health educator Dr. Howard Goldman visited the UA yesterday to share remarks on the current Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health and to accept an award for the advancement of mental well-being.

Goldman, a professor of psychiatry from the University of Maryland, described the 500-page document - the first of its kind - as a "bible" for mental health advocates. Goldman served as the report's senior scientific editor.

"We now have a report that's almost too heavy to pick up that you can use for advocacy," Goldman told the 80-person audience at the University of Arizona "Swede" Johnson building. "Your job is to let us open this Trojan horse and let all the soldiers of advocacy out."

The eight-chapter report highlights mental health issues for children, the elderly and middle-aged adults, financial aspects of mental health services and policy-themed future visions for mental health.

The report can be purchased from the U.S. Public Health Service or downloaded from the Internet.

Goldman said about 22 percent of Americans have a mental condition - a statistic not well understood when represented numerically, however.

"The public is confused by science," Goldman said. "And by being confused by science, they have turned away from science and authority to some extent."

Putting statistics in human terms, though - such as stating that one in five people suffer from a mental affliction - would cause the reality of mental health issues to set in with the American public, Goldman said.

Goldman also said mental and physical illness are not separate entities and are not treated as such in the report.

"Not only is human experience a part of the brain, but human experience shapes the brain," he said. "It's not just rhetoric now. It's science."

In addition to his talk on the surgeon general's report, Goldman was the recipient of the fifth annual Schorr Family Award for Distinguished Contribution in Furthering Public Understanding of Mental Health, an endowment bestowed by Tucson mental health advocates Eleanor and Si Schorr.

Si Schorr said Goldman was a worthy recipient of the honor because he believed Goldman contributed to a comprehensive report on mental health that would have a major impact on society.

"We felt that the Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health would have the same impact on social consciousness that the surgeon general's report on tobacco did years ago," Schorr said.

Goldman's appearance was sponsored by the UA College of Medicine, the Community Partnership of Southern Arizona and the Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Southern Arizona.