"It is critical that relevant eating disorder services prioritise the use of psychological interventions, and alternatives to CNF interventions under manual restraint where practically possible, given the highly distressing impact this practice may have on both nursing staff and patients. This can include offering a range of psychological interventions (e.g., art, family, individual and group therapy, etc) and dietary choices to patients (e.g., diverse food types, liquid supplements, etc), with such options frequently being re-communicated to patients who refuse them. The provision of staff training in communication and trauma-informed approaches may help nursing staff develop improved therapeutic relationships with patients (Maguire & Taylor, 2019), which in turn may have an impact on patients’ receptiveness towards staff support, their willingness to accept dietary intake, and in turn, their recovery from AN (Sly et al., 2013). CNF interventions under manual restraint should only be used as a last resort after exhaustive unsuccessful attempts have been made to offer oral dietary intake to patients, and there is a clinical need for feeding. This is particularly important for patients who present with ongoing refusal of significant dietary intake, where there may be a risk of the habitual use of manual restraint for CNF as a first resort intervention rather than a last resort. The findings of this study can be used as a useful source of information for relevant eating disorder services, to illustrate the potential adverse physical, psychological and interpersonal challenges that administering manual restraint for CNF of patients with AN, could pose to their nursing staff. The findings from this study could also be used as a reference for manual restraint for CNF training programmes to highlight the challenges this practice may pose to trainees."

"More than 250 medical experts have signed a letter condemning the US for force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The experts, from seven nations, said physicians at the prison had to respect inmates' right to refuse treatment. The letter, in the medical journal The Lancet, said doctors who used restraints and force-feeding should be punished by their professional bodies."

"The open letter in the Lancet was signed by more than 250 top doctors from seven countries - the UK, the US, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands. "We urge the US government to ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians and that techniques such as force-feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned," the letter said. The doctors said the World Medical Association - a world body representing physicians, including those in the US - specifically prohibited force-feeding. They said the American Medical Association, a member of the world group, should instigate disciplinary proceedings against any members known to have violated the code. Detainees at the camp have said hunger-strikers were strapped into chairs and force-fed through tubes inserted in their noses."

"Dr David Nicholl, a UK neurologist who initiated the Lancet letter, told the BBC's World Today programme that US doctors going to Guantanamo Bay were being screened to ensure they agreed with the policy of force-feeding. "In effect they are screened to make sure they don't have doctors with a conscience." Dr Nicholl said it was the patient's decision to go on hunger strike and the doctor's responsibility was to explain the consequences and confirm the patient was sane. In February, Lt Col Martin, chief military spokesman at the US detention facility, said force-feeding was administered "in a humane and compassionate manner" and only when necessary to keep the prisoners alive. But Dr Nicholl said that "horrible as it may sound" the doctor had to conform to the wishes of hunger strikers, even if it led to their deaths. Dr Nicholl said the letter's signatories felt there was not enough publicity about the matter in the US media and that Americans needed to be challenged."

"Another reason that physicians and bioethicists so strongly oppose forcible feeding is that this procedure is intimately tied to the ugliest passages in the history of modern medicine and associated with the worst political and social abuses of the calling. Great Britain inadvertently turned public opinion in favor of women's suffrage by force-feeding hunger-striking suffragists before World War I. Britain used the same tactic, with no more success, against Irish Republicans -- a practice that led to the gruesome death of Tom Ashe at Dublin's Mountjoy Jail in 1917. Finland adopted such tactics to suppress Communists in the 1930s; Turkey allegedly force-fed leftist prisoners as recently as 2001. Most notoriously, the Soviet Union pumped food into the stomachs of prominent dissidents, including Vladimir Bukovsky and Andrei Sakharov, to prevent the negative publicity that might have stemmed from their starvation. In Bukovysky's description of his torment, among the most haunting of all descriptions of human torture, he wrote, "I would have screamed if I could, but I could not with the pipe in my throat. I could breathe neither in nor out....I wheezed like a drowning man -- my lungs felt ready to burst." That is the species of "medical care" that Connecticut now seeks to defend."

"Leaflet issued by the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement referring to 'The Case of William Ball.' In 1912 William Ball was sentenced to two months in Pentonville prison for breaking a window in the Home Office in protest against the sentence passed on a fellow suffragist. Subtitled 'Official Brutality on the Increase' the leaflet written by Henry W. Nevinson refers to the hunger-strike and force-feeding of William Ball whilst in prison and his subsequent detention in a 'lunatic' asylum for the mentally disturbed. The militant Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement was founded in 1910 by Victor Duval as a male counterpart to the Women's Social and Political Union. This leaflet, printed in purple and green reflects the close links between the two organisations that shared the same colour scheme."

"Coleman's stated purpose in starving himself was to draw attention to perceived injustices within Connecticut's legal system. He was neither suicidal nor mentally ill -- and, even today, retains his full mental capabilities. On September 16, 2008, he raised the stakes of his protest by refusing liquids. Shortly afterward, the prison's medical director, Dr. Edward Blanchette, had Coleman strapped down and -- without sedation -- tried to force a feeding tube through his nose into his stomach. This first attempt failed. "Success" only came after the inmate was screaming in agony and sneezing up blood. Eventually, Coleman succumbed to this torture and agreed to ingest liquids once again. He is now fighting in court for the right to resume his hunger campaign."

"July 2005: 52 detainees begin hunger strike, second of the year, in protest at detention and treatment 14 Sept: Lawyers say more than 200 are refusing food. The US military says 128 21 Sept: US says number falls to 45. No explanation given but some tube-feeding admitted 7 Oct: US says number down to 28, 20 of whom are force-fed 27 Oct: US judge "deeply troubled" by force-feeding 25 Dec: Hunger strikers leap to 84, the US says 9 Feb, 2006: US says number down from 84 to four but gives no reason"

"One of the nation's preeminent bioethics scholars, Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania, testified on Coleman's behalf that the feeding of competent prisoners against their will -- even to save their lives -- violates the most basic tenets of the medical profession. Rational, competent adults have a fundamental right to reject medical care. Force-feeding prisoners is no different than forcibly transfusing Jehovah's Witnesses or providing unwanted chemotherapy to terminally-ill cancer patients. The World Medical Association's 1975 Declaration of Tokyo strictly prohibits physicians from engaging in such practices, which it describes as "contrary to the laws of humanity." The AMA has fully embraced this document. When the United States began force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, two hundred fifty prominent physicians signed an open letter to a leading British journal, The Lancet, called for sanctions against the medical professionals involved in these nonconsensual interventions. Among the reasons for this outcry is that forcible feeding through a naso-gastric tube ranks alongside the most unpleasant and downright horrific experiences that one human being can inflict upon another. The British journalist Djuna Barnes volunteered to be "forcibly" fed for a muckraking exposé in The World Magazine (1914) and later wrote that "it is utterly impossible to describe the anguish of it." Others have compared it to being orally sodomized while paralyzed. Having placed such tubes into the noses of willing patients myself, in order to save their lives, I can assure you that driving one down the throat of an unwilling subject must be unspeakably ghastly."

"The participants in this study were recruited from a single inpatient eating disorder service in the UK, meaning that their experiences are likely to have been specific to this service. Caution is thus needed when transferring the findings of this study to other inpatient eating disorder settings. Further research exploring the phenomenon of CNF under manual restraint within different inpatient eating disorder services would be valuable in clarifying the extent to which the experience described in this study is common. The first author [MK] had lived experience of administering manual restraint for CNF of patients with AN, and conducted all interviews and performed data analysis. Although he maintained a descriptive phenomenological stance throughout, kept a reflexive diary, and made revisions to the analysis following discussions with [JM] and [NS] who both had no lived experience of manual restraint, his lived experience is likely to have had some influence on the analysis. However, we employed member checking to improve credibility, and all our participants expressed that the analysis had accurately captured their experiences. Notwithstanding, it may be beneficial for future research exploring staff’s experiences of CNF under manual restraint to be conducted by researchers who do not have lived experience of this practice, in order to reduce potential bias. The participants in this study were nursing assistants and thus were not registered nurses. Consideration thus needs to be taken into account of how this participant group may differ to registered nurses, for example, in their training, experience, duties and levels of responsibility. Although the majority of our participants were educated to degree or masters level in related subjects such as Psychology and Biology, and were supervised by registered mental health nurses (so it is likely that they possessed adequate clinical knowledge and skills), the aforementioned points still need to be taken into consideration when transferring the findings of this study to other inpatient eating disorder settings. Participants all volunteered to participate in this study. Therefore, they were self-selected. Consequently, the participants may have potentially represented those who were more vocal or those with more negative or positive experiences. This needs to be taken into consideration when interpreting the findings of this study."

"Mr Nowak has not been to Guantanamo, and turned down an invitation to the camp because the US refused to give him unrestricted access to the detainees. He told the BBC that he had received reports that some hunger strikers had had thick pipes inserted through the nose and forced down into the stomach. This was allegedly done roughly, sometimes by prison guards rather than doctors. As a result, some prisoners had reported bleeding and vomiting he said. "If these allegations are true then this definitely amounts to an additional cruel treatment," Mr Nowak said."

"Importance of Coping Seven of the eight nursing assistants valued coping, and this was evidenced by the strategies they consciously employed which helped them cope with applying manual restraint for CNF. Coping strategies were typically utilised during and after manual restraint use. Two subthemes are reported."

"Thor involved a prison physician petitioning the court to allow him to force-feed a quadriplegic patient who had decided to die. Id. The court considered four state interests: preserving life; preventing suicide; maintaining the integrity of the medical profession; and protecting innocent third parties. Id., at 737, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 357, 855 P.2d 375. Finally, the court considered how this would affect orderly administration of the prison system. Id., at 744, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 357, 855 P.2d 375. In considering the first four factors, the court, noted that this patient was quadriplegic and serving a life sentence; the patient's decision to refuse medical treatment was an informed decision, and there were no other persons involved in this decision. Id., at 743-44, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 357, 855 P.2d 375. Finally, the state had presented no evidence on the effect this would have on administration of the prison system. Id., at 745, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 357, 855 P.2d 375. The third case prohibiting state interference with a prisoner's hunger strike is from Florida. The inmate went on a hunger strike to protest his transfer to a different prison and to protest the lodging of complaints against a prison chaplain. Singletary v. Costello, 665 So.2d 1099, 1101 (Fla.App.1996). The court first recognized a strong interest in the inmate's rights to privacy and to refuse medical treatment. Id., at 1104. The court then weighed the state's interests in preserving life, preventing suicide, protecting third parties, maintaining the ethics of the medical profession, and maintaining order in the prison. Id., at 1105. On the facts of the case, the court stated that "although the state interest in the preservation of life is powerful, in and of itself, it will not foreclose a competent person from declining life-sustaining medical treatment.... This is because the life that the state is seeking to protect is the life of the same person who has competently decided to [forgo] the medical intervention." (Citation omitted.) Id., at 1109. The court found it important, also, that the prisoner had expressly stated that he did not want to die, meaning that the state's interest in preventing suicide was not implicated. Id. Finally, no evidence was offered on the other factors; therefore, the court denied the state's petition."

"Nasogastric/Orogastric Tube Placement Indications: * Pre-term: immature suck swallow reflex * Neurological disease: impaired sucking reflex * Respiratory support: increased tachypnea with risk of aspiration * Gastric decompression * NEC * Abdominal surgery"

"The United States could be violating the U.N. Convention Against Torture by force-feeding immigrant detainees on a hunger strike inside an El Paso detention facility, the United Nations human rights office said Thursday. The Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is concerned that force-feeding could constitute “ill treatment” that goes against the convention, which the United States ratified in 1994, spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told The Associated Press. The U.N.'s statement echoes concerns raised by 14 Democratic lawmakers who sent a letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday requesting more information about nine Indian men who are being force-fed through nasal tubes after refusing to eat to protest what they described as unfair treatment. One of the hunger strikers, a 22-year-old asylum seeker who has not eaten in more than a month, said he was dragged from his cell three times a day and strapped down on a bed as a group of people poured liquid into tubes inserted into his nose. “It is critical that ICE commit to ending this practice,” said the letter spearheaded by Texas Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, who toured the El Paso Processing Center and met with the men after AP reported on the force-feeding last week."

"Early histories of the suffrage movement present a more sympathetic picture of prison life than many subsequent accounts. Metcalfe, for example, writing in 1917, speaks of the “scenes of horror which had taken place in Holloway and other prisons ... in the unavailing effort to govern women against their consent”. However, it is the history written by the constitutional suffragist, Ray Strachey, a member of the NUWSS and hostile to the WSPU, that became the influential text. Strachey blames the WSPU women themselves for the treatment they received... Unwilling to acknowledge the hunger strike as a political tool, Strachey comments how the suffragettes, once in prison, ceased to be militant and created a number of protests including the refusal to eat food. “Forcible feeding was tried in vain”, she continues; “the prisoners struggled so violently against it that the process became actually dangerous, and the prison officials were obliged to let them starve till they came to the edge of physical collapse, and then to let them go”. In spite of the severe pain and damage to health which the process involved, “scores of suffragettes adopted it ... The officials tried everything they could think of in vain ...”. This picture of irrational women, deliberately seeking their own torture was eagerly seized upon by male historians who sought to ridicule the WSPU and its politics. George Dangerfield’s The Strange Death of Liberal England, first published in 1935, discusses the suffragette movement as... a form of “pre-war lesbianism” of “daring ladies”... Dangerfield too presents the suffragettes as fanatical women who chose the hardships of prison life in a sado-masochistic way ... “How can one avoid the thought”, he questions, “that they sought these sufferings with an enraptured, a positively unhealthy pleasure?” If the victim does not resist, “forcible feeding is no more than extremely unpleasant. But the suffragettes were determined to resist”. In view of the fact that Dangerfield’s account contained no footnotes whatsoever to primary sources to support his claims, it is incredulous that his analysis was received so enthusiastically and became so influential. The Times and Tribune, for example, hailed it as “brilliant”... Thus the scene of the drama is set and the props are changed only with slight variations. Roger Fulford in 1957... mocked their prison experiences, claiming that solitary confinement in prison was “not always unwelcome to adults”. Furthermore, although “forcible feeding is a disgusting topic ... it was not dangerous ... [It] is of course a familiar form of treatment in lunatic asylums”. While Andrew Rosen is much more sympathetic to the women prisoners, he too, in a matter of fact way speaks of how forcible feeding involved mouths being prised open, lacerations, phlegm, vomiting, pain in various organs, loss of weight “and so on”..."

"I don't know my weight. By knowing, I get a little traumatized. I purposely try to avoid getting on a scale."

"A 2015 study conducted by American University revealed that Millennials grew up hearing about mental illnesses—including eating disorder and suicidal tendencies—more than any other age group. This younger society is reportedly more accepting of mental health challenges and is also more likely to talk about mental health issues than their parents or grandparents. In the American University survey of 900 Millennials, more than 70 percent said they would be comfortable visiting a counselor or therapist..."

"Millennials were found to be the most anxious generation. Women reported higher anxiety than men, and people of color scored 11 points higher on the anxiety scale than Whites. Research suggests that African-Americans are 20 percent more likely to experience a mental health disorder as opposed to the general population, but many factors may inhibit proper treatment. Only 25 percent of Blacks seek professional help, compared to 40 percent of Whites with mental health disorders. Daily stress can be an enemy of your mental health. It causes a chemical reaction that occurs when the body goes into “fight-or-flight” mode. Your heart rate increases and blood pressure rises."

"Mental health experts agree that when a person is experiencing excessive stress and it is interfering with daily activities, seeking help is key. In addition to discussing the situation with a professional, reach out to friends; look for local support; and find therapeutic resources. Some stress tools worth trying include, acupuncture; aromatherapy; art therapy; deep breathing; exercise; healthy eating; massage therapy; stretching; and yoga. Your mental health affects your physical health. Don’t ignore the signs."

"The call to defund the police is, I think... about shifting public funds to new services and new institutions — mental health counselors, who can respond to people who are in crisis without arms... It’s about building anew... about rethinking the kind of future we want, the social future, the economic future, the political future."

"What we choose to define (and stigmatize) as 'mental illness' is itself a matter of politics. For instance, our perception of homosexuality as an identity instead of a disorder is a relatively recent development, made possible by decades of campaigning to depathologize it."

"In a recent Legal Times article, Janet Benshoof and Laura Ciolkowski, of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, charge that some prochoice legislators have consciously bought into the antiabortion movement's "devaluation of women's mental health." Whether or not this is true, recent actions beg the question of why providing equitable treatment for people with mental illness is gaining currency in virtually every public policy context except abortion, where it is fast losing ground. Indeed, the voting records of the 29 senators who voted both for the Daschle amendment and on the Mental Health Parity Act highlight this troubling contradiction: 23 of those 29—all of whom were prochoice or had mixed voting records—voted in favor of the Parity Act. In other words, they took the position that in the insurance context, mental health concerns are sufficiently legitimate to warrant equitable treatment with physical health concerns but that mental health concerns can never present a sufficiently grave threat to a woman's health to justify a postviability abortion."

"I've spent most of my professional life counseling people in despair... people don't usually come to me because things are going well... I know the emotional terrain of desperation fairly well. Such ground is no longer shocking to me. It has a strange familiarity. Since groups of people are simply a collection of individuals, the same psychological principles apply to a collective as to one person. The desperate group in question now is the people of the United States. To put it simply, America is having a nervous breakdown. A spiritual crisis. A complete disassembling of the personality after which a more authentic self might emerge. Yet for that transformation to occur, as a nation, we're going to have to do the work any individual must do to turn such a crisis into an opportunity. It won't be easy... But ultimately, if we're to emerge intact, we're going to have to do what anyone must do at such a time as this. We're going to have to look in the mirror. We're going to have to take full responsibility for the thoughts and actions that led us here. Then, and only then, will we be on the path to recovery."

"One thing I really prioritize is sleep, and it has changed my life genuinely. Another is focusing on how I can nurture and help my self-talk. When I notice negative self-talk happening, how I can sit with it and be friends with it instead of constantly feeling I'm in this rat race of not good enough, not this enough. Becoming a witness to it instead of a victim to it has also dramatically improved my health. Plus, I use astrology: It's simply a tool to give ourselves permission, to accept ourselves and understand ourselves more. The minute I understand that I was built to think this way, instead of judging myself for it, I have acceptance for myself. It's an allowance to have more self-compassion."

"[A] number of measures have been introduced in recent years—largely by prochoice legislators—that treat women seeking abortions for mental health reasons differently from those with physical health concerns. While these initiatives first grew out of a perceived need among many prochoice legislators for a political alternative to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, they have significant implications within the larger abortion-rights context—and beyond."

"The main place we need more mental health counselors is in American public schools. Right now we have one mental health counselor for every 1500 children...yet we have school “trauma rooms”...and elementary school kids on suicide watch!"

"Humans are a dangerously insane and very sick species. That's not a judgment. It's a fact. It is also a fact that the sanity is there underneath the madness. Healing and redemption are available right now. See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always non-acceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness. p.56"

"Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing. Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don't let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it. If there is truly nothing that you can do to change your here and now, and you can't remove yourself from the situation, then accept your here and now totally by dropping all inner resistance. The false, unhappy self that loves feeling miserable, resentful, or sorry for itself can then no longer survive. This is called surrender. Surrender is not weakness. There is great strength in it. Only a surrendered person has spiritual power."

"Modern-day mental-health practitioners often look back at previous generations of psychiatrists and psychologists with a thinly veiled pity, wondering how they could have been so swept away by the cultural currents of their [[time. The confident pronouncements of Victorian-era doctors regarding the epidemic of hysterical women are now dismissed as cultural artifacts. Similarly, illnesses found only in other cultures are often treated like carnival sideshows. Koro, amok and the like can be found far back in the American diagnostic manual (DSM-IV, Pages 845-849) under the heading “culture-bound syndromes.” Given the attention they get, they might as well be labeled “Psychiatric Exotica: Two Bits a Gander.” Western mental-health practitioners often prefer to believe that the 844 pages of the DSM-IV prior to the inclusion of culture-bound syndromes describe real disorders of the mind, illnesses with symptomatology and outcomes relatively unaffected by shifting cultural beliefs. And, it logically follows, if these disorders are unaffected by culture, then they are surely universal to humans everywhere. In this view, the DSM is a field guide to the world’s psyche, and applying it around the world represents simply the brave march of scientific knowledge."

"The debate over the health exception took on a surprising new twist, however, when prochoice legislators began seeking to exclude mental health from the equation in the context of "late" abortions. Searching for "common ground" in the debate over so-called partial-birth abortions, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) drafted the Comprehensive Abortion Ban Act, which would make all abortions after viability illegal unless continuation of the pregnancy would threaten the woman's life or "risk grievous injury to her physical health" (emphasis added). Daschle's proposal, which was offered but rejected in May 1997 as an amendment to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, would have excluded the possibility of a postviability abortion for any mental health condition, no matter how severe. (The mental health exception is also critical because it has been the aegis under which most abortions in cases of severe fetal abnormality have been justified.) Just over one year later, in September 1998, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), another consistent supporter of reproductive rights, went a step further. With a bipartisan group of prochoice senators, he introduced the Late-Term Abortion Limitation Act, which incorporates Daschle's proposal, including its distinction between physical and mental health conditions, but adds another requirement—that a second physician, not involved in performing the abortion, be consulted to certify that the reason for the abortion meets the narrow requirements of the bill. Durbin is expected to reintroduce his bill again within the coming months."

"Different powerful groups within a society characterize social deviance in different ways, so the types of social deviance considered 'mental disorders' are a reflection of the relative influence of different institutions in the community at a particular point in time. In most Western countries the influence of the medical establishment and the high profile of psychiatry within medicine result in a strong tendency to medicalize many forms of social deviance, to label them as mental disorders, and to develop corresponding treatment facilities. However, based on my observations during a dozen years as a practising psychiatrist in China, the medical institutions there are relatively weak - medical care only accounts for 3.2 per cent of GNP - and psychiatry has a very low status within medicine. The influence of medical and psychiatric institutions on the understanding and management of socially deviant behaviours is correspondingly small and the range of available mental health services is quite limited."

"Better a poor man healthy and fit, than a rich man tormented in body. Health and vigor are worth more than gold, a robust body, more than great wealth. No riches are preferable to physical wellbeing, and no joy is greater than a cheerful heart."

"There is evidence of a positive relation between level of activity and mental health. Involvement in physical activity may prevent the onset of mental health problems or may ameliorate such problems before they escalate to levels of clinical relevance. Exercise has been shown to help reduce the effects of insomnia, stress, depression, and chronic illness. It also plays a vital part in improved weight control, body image, and, especially in the case of the elderly population, independence. Physical activity can also provide an alternative to alcohol and substance misuse and may help patients who have mild to moderate depression."

"The scary truth is that ordinary human hatred and aggression are far more dangerous than any psychiatric illness."

"The willingness of some prochoice members to sacrifice the mental health exception in order to appear "reasonable" in the context of the postviability abortion debate is beginning to have significant repercussions beyond that specific issue, seriously reviving a legislative attack on abortion rights that largely has been dormant for two decades. For example, the Medicaid abortion funding ban (commonly known as the Hyde amendment) has included an exception to the prohibition in cases of life endangerment since it was first enacted in 1976. Taking a predictable turn in the wake of the Daschle initiative, Hyde successfully narrowed his language in 1997 to permit abortions to be funded under Medicaid only when a woman's life is endangered by "a physical disorder, a physical injury, or physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself" (emphasis added). It had not been since the late 1970s, when the Hyde amendment in FY 1978 and FY 1979 also contained an exception for "severe and long-lasting physical health damage" (emphasis added), that the legitimacy of a mental health exception had been seriously debated and rejected."

"It is not known if an exercise programme will enhance psychological variables in women who are not experiencing defined mental health problems. Most research on the effects of exercise on mental health has used young and middle aged subjects or has been conducted in clinical settings. There is a paucity of research on the influence of exercise on the mental health of older healthy women."

"Mental health is not for ‘mad people’. It is basically your psychological and emotional wellbeing."

"Self-acceptance is the key to personal growth. By embracing our flaws and limitations, we can develop resilience and a deeper understanding of ourselves, leading to improved mental health and well-being."

"True mental well-being begins with embracing your inner struggles. By acknowledging and addressing these challenges, you pave the way for lasting personal growth and resilience."

"...guarding yourself against partnerships that want to suck the life out of you not because they share the same value, but because they like the fame you’re getting. So you need to be discerning in terms of working with people... Take care of your own mental health and well being because that is very important... there’s nothing impossible to do except you don’t just have the will to do it."

"As with other serious illnesses, mental illness is not your fault or that of the people around you, but widespread misunderstandings about mental illness remain. Many people don't seek treatment or remain unaware that their symptoms could be connected to a mental health condition. People may expect a person with serious mental illness to look visibly different from others, and they may tell someone who doesn't "look ill" to "get over it" through willpower. These misperceptions add to the challenges of living with a mental health condition."

"Every year people overcome the challenges of mental illness to do the things they enjoy. Through developing and following a treatment plan, you can dramatically reduce many of your symptoms. People with mental health conditions can and do pursue higher education, succeed in their careers, make friends and have relationships. Mental illness can slow us down, but we don't need to let it stop us."

"Austerity, inequality and job insecurity are bad for mental health and governments should counteract them if they want to face up to the rising prevalence of mental illness, the UN’s top health envoy has said."

"Most people with mental illness are not violent. In fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence. Research on the relationship between mental illness and violence shows that there are certain factors that may increase risks of violence among a small number of individuals with mental illness."

"The idea that anxiety, autism or major depression could be transmitted through contact may sound crazy — and it probably is. There's a lot we don't know about the origins of mental illness, but the mechanisms identified so far point in other directions. Nonetheless, we do know that people's emotions can be affected by the emotions of those around them — a phenomenon known as "emotional contagion" — and that specific symptoms of mental disorders, such as binge eating, can sometimes spread among peers."

"People's willingness to interact with someone with a given disorder was best predicted by their belief about the communicability of that disorder, with other beliefs — about, for instance, the disorder's psychological basis and the extent to which an individual can control the symptoms she displays — playing a much smaller role."

"Everyone thinks that the biggest problem in mental health’s depression, anxiety, suicide. Biggest problem in mental health is we’re all pretending we’ve got our shit together. First rule of mental health, no one’s got their shit together, and if everyone knew that no one’s got their shit together, we’d all be in a better place."

"The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n."

"Even in the best states, you have a 50-50 chance of getting care if you need it. That’s horrible,” she says, and the numbers highlight a real problem. Maine ranked the best in this measure, but still, 41.5% of adults in the state are not being treated for mental illness. Hawaii ranked the worst with 67.5% of adults going untreated."