Mental Health

Latest Articles

Getting Better

Measuring growth in approach, not in pounds
"Do you ever really get over something like anorexia?"
By CAROLINE KNAPP | August 06, 2010

The anatomy of an eating disorder
From the summer of 1982 to the winter of 1985, I ate the same thing every day: a plain sesame bagel for breakfast, a Dannon coffee-flavored yogurt for lunch. an apple and a one-inch cube of cheddar cheese for dinner. Nothing more.
By CAROLINE KNAPP | August 08, 2010

By | January 01, 0001

Review: Cyrus

Umbilical discord: The Duplass Brothers get Oedipal
Helicoptering parents and stay-at-home adult children have been popular issues of late, and at first, the Duplass Brothers' third feature (and their first made with a studio) seems poised to exploit them.
By PETER KEOUGH | June 28, 2010

Death penalty possible for Watland

Prison Murder
Gary Watland, the brilliant and mentally ill convicted murderer whose 2006 scheme to have his wife smuggle a loaded handgun into the Maine State Prison in Warren was foiled when another prisoner tipped off officials, faces a possible death penalty if convicted of a second murder.
By LANCE TAPLEY | May 26, 2010

Review: Shrek Forever After

Far, Far Away meets It’s a Wonderful Life .
For his fourth outing, Shrek has entered a midlife crisis.
By BRETT MICHEL | May 21, 2010

Bike Week and beyond

From bike week to bike month, a line-up of great rides, summits, and get-togethers are helping make 2010 the year of the bike in Boston.
Boston is a great bicycling city. Sure, you have to deal with sociopathic, maniacal motorists who’ve never heard of a turn signal. And yes, you have to contend with a bunch of inconsiderate, entitled pedestrians who act like they own the road and can wander across the street whenever they feel like it, then give you a dirty look as you whiz by them.
By RYAN STEWART | May 17, 2010

How Rhode Island can eliminate homelessness

The concept is as simple as it is radical: give the homeless a place to live, with no strings attached
Making it a reality is a matter of political will.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 14, 2010

How can those in the box think outside of the box?

Letters to the Portland editor, May 14, 2010
I was disgusted on multiple levels with what the article revealed about the Maine State Prison.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | May 13, 2010

Are doctors complicit in prison torture?

The Maine medical community looks at solitary confinement
In the past few years an outcry has arisen over the involvement of military and CIA medical professionals and psychologists in torture. Some critics have even suggested criminal prosecution of the medical staff involved or, at least, revocation of their professional licenses.
By LANCE TAPLEY | April 21, 2010

A ‘moral victory’ against supermax torture

Analysis
At times the legislative debate on LD 1611, the bill to limit solitary confinement of the state’s prisoners, became surreal.
By LANCE TAPLEY | April 15, 2010

Ex–porn star blogs her way sober

Jennie Does Harvard
This past week at the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS), Jennie Ketcham taught her first class about something besides, er, “dick-sucking.”
By CHRIS FARAONE | April 05, 2010

Wintour tackles weighty subject at Harvard

Ice Age over at Vogue?
Brazilian fashion model Ana Carolina Reston was not the first model to die from an eating disorder, and sadly, she won't be the last.
By ASHLEY RIGAZIO | March 24, 2010

Review: Prodigal Sons

An engrossing, unpredictable, often heartbreaking family-drama documentary
Adopted four weeks after he was born and brought up in Helena, Montana, Marc McKerrow suffered through the stress of being compared with his brother, Paul, his high school's valedictorian and star quarterback.
By GERALD PEARY | March 09, 2010

Maine tortures women, too

But Riverview presents an alternative
The Maine Department of Corrections is an equal-opportunity torturer.
By LANCE TAPLEY | March 10, 2010

The cost of torture

Solitary Confinement Bill Hearing
In the end, whether mass solitary confinement continues at the Maine State Prison supermax may come down to an issue of money rather than right or wrong. And resolving that issue may come down to whether the state wants to pay more now to pay less in the long term.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 25, 2010

Screams from solitary

‘By dehumanizing prisoners, we dehumanize ourselves.’
The 132-man supermax unit within the 925-man Maine State Prison is an expensive, taxpayer-funded torture chamber that for 18 years has sucked in mostly nonviolent, mostly mentally ill prisoners and ground them up by means of mind-destroying solitary confinement, officially sanctioned beatings, “restraint” devices resembling those in medieval dungeons, sexual humiliation, and psychiatric, medical, and legal neglect.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 17, 2010

Seeking humane treatment

State and national efforts well under way
Some Maine people are taking moral responsibility for the way supermax inmates are treated.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 17, 2010

The Big Hurt: Dispatches from Splitsville

FOB fall out; Scorpions subsist; Tyler frightens shoppers
Ladies and gentlemen, the unthinkable has happened: Fall Out Boy have split up.
By DAVID THORPE | February 09, 2010

A clean mind and dirty hands

Moral dilemmas for the Maine Clean Election Fund
Three people walk into a bank ...
By AL DIAMON | February 10, 2010

Anti-solitary campaign expands

Stopping Supermax Torture
As the February 17 State House public hearing approaches on the bill to restrict solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), which sparked national debate about Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, has announced its support.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 03, 2010

Cries and whispers

The Gamm finds the balance in 4:48 Psychosis
Mental illness is a touchy subject, one that needs to be handled sensitively on stage or not at all.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 13, 2010

Remembering Joey Ramone

Long Live Rock Dept.
On top of everything else that was a drag about the decade just past, there was this: in a three-and-a-half-year span, we lost three quarters of the Ramones. And then CBGB closed.
By MIKE MILIARD | January 08, 2010

The Stowaways

Music Seen
Empire Dine and Dance, January 4
By BRIDGET M. BURNS | January 06, 2010

Joey Ramone remembered

Corrections disobeys another federal court order

Solitary Confinement
For decades, as it has with other court orders, the Maine Department of Corrections has apparently been breaching a 1973 federal court’s decree that forbids disciplinary solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison beyond 10 days for minor offenses, or 30 days for major ones.
By LANCE TAPLEY | December 16, 2009

The Big Hurt: Season's beatings

The Big Hurt holiday shopper
Taking advantage of your seasonal obligation to buy stuff for people, the music industry unleashes its annual torrent of giftable crap: holiday albums, greatest-hits packages, high-profile releases, deluxe reissues.
By DAVID THORPE | December 04, 2009

GI blues

A former Army medic tells his story
"I think to an extent all soldiers come back with PTSD. If you do what we do and see what we see, if you're not affected in a deep way, then that's a problem."
By CLEA SIMON | December 01, 2009

Group effort

Don't call Mark Lind's Unloved a solo project
If you're inclined to play punk rock, chances are you've got a self-esteem problem. It's not an æsthetic that attracts the well-adjusted. Exhibit A: Mark Lind. As bassist and frontman of the Ducky Boys, he's opened for Rancid, U.S. Bombs, and Flogging Molly.
By BARRY THOMPSON | November 19, 2009