When Joseline Castanos’ daughter was hospitalized for a suicide attempt, she vowed to fight for her and find the right care. Two of the biggest barriers she faced were the stigma surrounding mental health in the Hispanic/Latinx community, and the scarcity of culturally competent care.
Through NAMI, she found a safe place, support for her daughter and a platform to continue advocating for mental health in her community.
Nao Gamo is a neuroscientist and entrepreneur who speaks about living with bipolar disorder. While experiencing an episode of mania, she ended up accumulating an expansive collection of hats. Her experience led to her wanting to educate about how mental illness can manifest uniquely in people and that there is nothing to be ashamed of, particularly within the AAPI community.
NAMI is working to change the way mental health and suicide crises are handled in the U.S. This short clip introduces 988, a new 3-digit number, available 24/7 in every community by Summer 2022. This crisis response system is geared to help anyone in crisis and reduce law enforcement involvement.
What questions we should be asking ourselves and loved ones about mental health?
The NAMI Medical Director outlines things to look out for and beneficial things we can do in this short clip.
This year for Black History Month, we will be highlighting different mental illnesses each week and two prominent members in the Black community who have spoken out about their experiences with them. We aim to highlight that even though someone has a mental illness, they can still be successful.
Sir Robert Bryson Hall II, aka “Logic,” is a streamer, writer, record label owner, and a recently retired rapper. He grew up in poverty with substance-addicted parents. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Black or African Americans living below the poverty level, compared to those over twice the poverty level, are twice as likely to report serious psychological distress.
In his late twenties, he was finally financially stable in his life. However, his hectic schedule and his own insecurities led to a severe anxiety attack and was hospitalized. He was diagnosed with derealization disorder – an anxiety-induced disorder with symptoms that include the sense of being out of one’s body, all of the time.
In 2017, the Grammy-Nominated rapper released “1-800-273-8255” in association with The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. With record highs in Billboard charts, this single also stuck another interesting cord — A high number of calls to the hotline. The director of The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline said, “Overall, we saw about 26-27% increase in calls that year,” “The overall water level, so to speak, had risen and largely due — we believe — to the song.”
As a biracial rapper, he struggles with how the world sees him, especially with the negativity that lives on social media. He told the Recording Academy about his experience with mental health and anxiety. “I was so scared for so long to say that because society has led me to believe that my anxiety is stupid and shouldn’t be talked about, or that suicide, ‘Who cares, who’s weak enough to kill themselves?,’ which is the most terrible, disgusting, ugly thing somebody can say,“ In retrospect, he finds positivity to it all and wants to focus on living freely and being surrounded by happiness.
Logic. Source: thedailyfandom.com
Black men are dying from suicide at increasing rates. A recent report released by the Congressional Black Caucus says that suicide is ranked as the 3rd leading cause of death in Black men from ages 15-24. “There’s a need for black male therapists because that is who they’re going to feel more comfortable talking to,” said Diamond Dale, a Black Mental Health Advocate.
Black women also face challenges with suicidal thoughts or actions, like Oscar- Winning actress Halle Berry.
In 1997, her first failed marriage with baseball star David Justice triggered an attempt to take her own life. The 40-year-old was so devastated by the split, that she attempted to gas herself. In the last minute, she thought of her mother and came to a quick realization that ending her life would be selfish. In an interview with Parade Magazine, Berry said “I was sitting in my car, and I knew the gas was coming when I had an image of my mother finding me. She sacrificed so much for her children, and to end my life would be an incredibly selfish thing to do.” Since then, counseling and therapy helped her take control of her life. She reprogramed herself into focusing on motherhood and family.
Halle Berry. Source: closerweekly.com
According to an article, ‘What’s Going on with Our Black Girls’, by Christina Caron, suicide rate of Black females ages 15 to 24 years old rose by 59 percent between 2013 and 2019. The same article states that about 9 percent of the older girls experienced a relationship crisis before the suicide – similar to Halle Berry’s experience.
A study by sociology doctoral student Heather Kugelmass, MA., showed that counseling offices are not always available for black women and therapists are less likely to offer appointments due to a possible internal bias of their own. Aside from this lack of resources, psychologists are now working to make the mental health field more welcoming to Black women and more responsive to their needs.
Suicide is death caused by injuring oneself with the intent to die. A suicide attempt is when someone harms themselves with any intent to end their life, but they do not die as a result of their actions.
A combination of situations could lead someone to consider suicide. Risk factors increase the possibility of suicide, but they might not be direct causes.
Risk Factors:
Individual: • Previous suicide attempt • Mental illness, such as depression • Social isolation • Criminal problems • Financial problems • Impulsive or aggressive tendencies • Job problems or loss • Legal problems • Serious illness • Substance use disorder
Relationship: • Adverse childhood experiences such as child abuse and neglect • Bullying • Family history of suicide • Relationship problems such as a break-up, violence, or loss • Sexual violence
Community: • Barriers to health care • Cultural and religious beliefs such as a belief that suicide is noble resolution of a personal problem • Suicide cluster in the community
Societal: • Stigma associated with mental illness or help-seeking • Easy access to lethal means among people at risk (e.g. firearms, medications) • Unsafe media portrayals of suicide
If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.
If you would like to speak to someone about better managing your stress and anxiety, or to make an appointment, please call (717) 782-6493 for more information.
During Black History Month, we are highlighting some of the top Black professionals in the mental health field that many have not heard of.
Today we are highlighting the first Black male and female to receive their PhD in psychology. Francis Cecil Sumner, PhD, and Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD.
America’s first black female psychologist, Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD, was born around 1897 to Samuel Andrew and Veola Hamilton Beverly in the small town of Yoakum, Texas. Not much is known about her early years besides the fact she was the oldest daughter of 11 children. A bright student, she graduated valedictorian from Yoakum Colored High School in 1912 and then went on to receive a degree in teacher training from Prairie View Normal College where she was also valedictorian. Though common today, in her time, education beyond high school was not common, especially for a woman. Even more unheard of was an African American woman with a college degree.
Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD. Source: uwgb.org
After receiving her degree, she went back to Yoakum and taught for a short time at their segregated schools, before accepting a teaching position in Austin, where she took up classes at Samuel Huston College. In around 1924, she graduated with distinction from Samuel Huston with a major in education. Shortly after her graduation she married Rufus A. Prosser. Unable to stay away from academia, Inez decided to continue her education obtained a Master of Arts degree in educational psychology from the University of Colorado. She then accepted a position at Tillotson College teaching education, where she was recognized as an excellent teacher and leader. Then from 1921 to 1930 Inez served as dean and registrar at Tillotson College. In 1931 Inez was awarded the Rockefeller Foundation General Education Board Fellowship because of her excellent and well-known work as a teacher.
In 1933 she received a PhD, one of the first African American women to accomplish this in the United States, in educational psychology from the University of Cincinnati. Her dissertation, which received a huge amount of recognition, was on The Non-Academic Development of Negro Children in Mixed and Segregated Schools. It was also one of the earliest treatises on the social domain of elementary school children.
During Inez’s lifetime she established a fund, while completing her own education, that enabled her sisters and brothers to obtain a college education. Of the eleven brothers and sisters, all completed high school and six further completed a college education. Then in 1934, tragedy struck as Inez Beverly Prosser was killed in an automobile accident near Shreveport, Louisiana.
Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD, was a strong-willed individual who beat the odds, and if not for a terrible accident, would have been able to make even more contributions to psychology as we know it.
This year for Women’s History Month, we are highlighting different women each week who, although you may have not heard of previously, have contributed greatly to society.
The final woman to be highlighted this month is Martha Bernal, the first Latina to receive a PhD in psychology in the US.
Martha Bernal. Credit: Salud America
Bernal grew up in El Paso, Texas and was raised by Mexican immigrants. Her successes in school started at a young age.
Her father did not initially support her educational aspirations. According to the obituary published in the American Psychologist, “He believed that women were to be married and a college education for a woman was a waste.” When he noticed her persistence and the support of her mother and sister, he eventually supported her through college and graduate school.
In Martha’s childhood, she experienced discrimination against Mexican Americans. In the American Psychologist obituary, “Spanish was not permitted in school, and both the community and the school were ethically segregated.”
In 1962, she earned her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Indiana University, Bloomington. At the University, she encountered many accounts of racism and sexism. According to author Linda Woolf, “At Indiana University, female students were not invited to participate with their professors on research projects. The ones that participated were mainly white students.” She almost dropped out of the program but succeeded with the help of peers and faculty.
After graduating with her PhD, Dr. Bernal narrowed her focus of psychology to two areas: learning theory and multicultural studies.
In the 1970s, she dedicated herself to the goal of ensuring students of color would have the opportunity to receive graduate training. She applied much of her research to increase the status of ethnic minority recruitment, retention, and training. According to Society for the Psychology of Women, “Her social action research focused attention on the dearth of ethnic minority psychologists and to recommend steps for addressing that problem.”
She continued to implement strategies to increase the presence of ethnic minority students. She received numerous National Research Awards from NIHM (National Institute of Mental Health) and other foundations.
At Arizona State University, Martha and a colleague worked to develop methodology for measuring ethnic identity and how it correlates in Mexican American children. Her work has been widely published and has had a significant impact within the field.
Bernal also was involved in creating the Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs (BEMA), where she would serve on the Education and Training Committee. This helped form the National Latino/a Psychological Association.
She was active in committees like the APA’s Commission on Ethnic Minority, Recruitment, Retention and Training (CEMRRAT) and the Committee of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Affairs.
Her numerous awards and life achievements provided guidance and inspiration to a wide range of psychologists of color, both men and women. Her commitment to advancing scholars of color, had a special impact on Latina women and other women of color.
In 2001, Martha died of cancer at age 70. To honor her contributions, a scholarship fund has been set up at Arizona State University.
This year for Women’s History Month, we are highlighting different women each week who, although you may have not heard of previously, have contributed greatly to society.
Third to be highlighted is Thai Lee, CEO of IT provider, SH International.
Thai Lee Credit: Wiki
Lee was Born in Bangkok, Thailand but spent most of her childhood in South Korea. Her father, a Korean economist, traveled the world promoting South Korea’s postwar development plan, so Thai and her family moved around a lot in the early phases of her life.
When she moved to America in her teens, a family friend took her in as she finished high school and then enrolled at Amherst College, Massachusetts where she earned a double major BA in biology and economics. Since her English was not fluent, she ruled out professions that involved writing and speaking. She knew she could be successful as a businesswoman. Lee said, “I knew then that the best chance of success for me was to start my own business, because after I x-ed out all the professions I could not be successful in, that’s what I was left with.”
After college, she returned to Korea. She worked at an auto parts maker so she could earn enough money to pay for her MBA. A few years later she was back in Massachusetts, and in 1985, she graduated Harvard Business School.
In 1989, Lee married Leo Koguan, a lawyer with a passion for entrepreneurship. Lautek, a small struggling software company, had a tiny division, Software House. It had only a few customers, but some of them were big (like AT&T, for example). Koguan and Lee paid less than one million for that business – funding through savings and small loans.
Lee and her now ex-husband renamed the company Software House International, reflecting Lee’s global ambitions. Melissa Graham, the company’s first hire, said, “We had no inventory, very little money, no market presence, no marketing, no promotion. What we did have was someone who wanted to make this thing work.”
There were no ground rules on how to manage their customers. Lee let it up to her staff to make company decisions. She said, “If you are responsible for a customer, you own that. Being empowered that way, it’s very important.” Because their service was so trustworthy, customers had no reason to switch.
After expanding and creating a new division, the company earned six billion dollars in revenue and doubled in size. SHI currently holds $11 billion in revenue and has 20,000 plus customers.
According to Forbes, Thai Lee founded the largest woman owned and minority owned business in America. A study by two economists, found that today’s Forbes 400 were able to access education while young, and apply their skills to the most scalable industries: technology, finance, and mass retail. The share of the Forbes 400 who are self‐made rose from 40% in 1982 to 69% in 2011.
This year for Women’s History Month, we are highlighting different women each week who, although you may have not heard of previously, have contributed greatly to society.
This week we are shining light on Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, three women who played a vital role in advancing NASA’s missions. These African American women computers played a vital role in 1962, when they helped send the first American astronaut into orbit, John Glenn. You may have heard about their story from the 2016 film Hidden Figures.
Katherine Johnson. Credit: NASA
Katherine Johnson was born on Aug. 26, 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, WV. Her brilliance with numbers shone early on and vaulted her ahead several grades in school, and by 13, she was attending high school. At 18, she enrolled in the historically black West Virginia State College, where she graduated with highest honors in 1937 and took a job teaching at a black public school in Virginia. She left her teaching job and enrolled in the graduate math program in 1939. Katherine was one of the three black students handpicked to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools. At the end of the first session, however, she decided to leave school to start a family with her first husband, James Goble.
It wasn’t until 1952 that she heard about open positions at the all-black West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) Langley laboratory, headed by fellow West Virginian Dorothy Vaughan. Katherine and her husband moved to Virginia to pursue the opportunity, where Katherine spent the next four years analyzing data from flight tests until her husband died of cancer in December 1956.
The 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik changed history—and her life. She worked on and published several papers with engineers that formed the core of the Space Task Group, the NACA’s (later becoming NASA in 1958) first official foray into space travel.
In 1962, as NASA prepared for the orbital mission of John Glenn, Katherine was called upon to do the work that she would become most known for. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl”—Katherine Johnson—to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand. “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” The flight was a success and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space.
Katherine retired in 1986, after 33 years at Langley. “I loved going to work every single day,” she said. In 2015, at age 97, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. She died on Feb. 24, 2020, at 101 years old – an American hero who’s pioneering legacy will never be forgotten.
Dorothy Vaughan. Courtesy Vaughan Family
Born Sept.20, 1910, in Kansas City, MO. those who speak of NASA’s pionefers rarely mention the name Dorothy Vaughan, but as the head of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) segregated West Area Computing Unit from 1949 until 1958, Vaughan was both a respected mathematician and NASA’s first African American manager.
Dorothy Vaughan came to the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in 1943, during the height of World War II, leaving her position as the math teacher at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, VA to take what she believed would be a temporary war job. Two years after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 into law, prohibiting racial, religious and ethnic discrimination in the country’s defense industry, the Laboratory began hiring black women to meet the skyrocketing demand for processing aeronautical research data.
Dorothy Vaughan was assigned to the segregated “West Area Computing” unit, an all-black group of female mathematicians. Over time, both individually and as a group, the West Computers distinguished themselves with contributions to virtually every area of research at Langley.
Dorothy Vaughan helmed West Computing for nearly a decade. In 1958, when the NACA made the transition to NASA, segregated facilities, including the West Computing office, were abolished. Dorothy Vaughan and many of the former West Computers joined the new Analysis and Computation Division, a racially and gender-integrated group on the frontier of electronic computing.
Retiring from NASA in 1971, her legacy lives on in the successful careers of notable West Computing alumni, including Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, Eunice Smith and Kathryn Peddrew, and the achievements of second-generation mathematicians and engineers such as Dr. Christine Darden.
Mary Jackson. Credit: NASA
Last, but certainly not least, is Mary Jackson. Born April 9, 1921, Mary grew up in Hampton, VA. After graduating with highest honors from high school, she then continued her education at Hampton Institute, earning her Bachelor of Science Degrees in Mathematics and Physical Science.
Mary’s path to an engineering career at NASA took several turns. After graduating she was a math teacher at a black school in Maryland. After a year of teaching, Mary returned home, finding a position as the receptionist at the USO Club, as a bookkeeper in Hampton Institute’s Health Department, a stint at home following the birth of her son, Levi, and a job as an Army secretary—before Mary landed at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory’s segregated West Area Computing section in 1951, reporting to the group’s supervisor Dorothy Vaughan.
After two years in the computing pool, Mary received an offer to work for engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki in the 4-foot by 4-foot Supersonic Pressure Tunnel. Czarnecki offered Mary hands-on experience with experiments in the facility, and eventually suggested that she enter a training program that would allow her to earn a promotion from mathematician to engineer. Mary completed the courses, earned the promotion, and in 1958 became NASA’s first black female engineer.
Mary began her engineering career in an era in which female engineers of any background were a rarity, and may have been the only black female aeronautical engineer in the field. In 1979, seeing that the glass ceiling was the rule rather than the exception for the center’s female professionals, she made a final, dramatic career change, leaving engineering and taking a demotion to fill the open position of Langley’s Federal Women’s Program Manager. There, she worked hard to impact the hiring and promotion of the next generation of all of NASA’s female mathematicians, engineers and scientists.
Mary retired from the NASA Langley Research Center in 1985 as an Aeronautical Engineer after 34 years. Among her many honors were an Apollo Group Achievement Award and being named Langley’s Volunteer of the Year in 1976. A 1976 Langley Researcher profile might have done the best job capturing Mary’s spirit and character, calling her a “gentlelady, wife and mother, humanitarian and scientist.” For Mary Jackson, science and service went hand in hand.
This year for Women’s History Month, we are highlighting different women each week who, although you may have not heard of previously, have contributed greatly to society.
Second to be highlighted is Lucy Stone, a leading suffragist, abolitionist, and vocal advocate promoting women’s rights. She studied school at Oberlin College and was the first Massachusetts woman to earn a bachelor’s degree in 1847.
Lucy Stone. Source: Thoughtco
At her wedding ceremony in 1855, she read a ‘marriage protest,’ signed by her and her husband, Harry Blackwell. The protest denounced the legal portions of a marriage in which a woman became subservient to and property of her husband. She was the first American women to keep her last name when she was married.
In the1869 anniversary celebration of the Equal Rights Association, Stone quoted, “I believe that the influence of women will save the country before every other power.”
When Equal Rights Association refused to give women voting rights, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was formed by two rival women’s suffrage organizations in1890. The NAWSA represented millions of women to protest at state level, believing that state-by-state support would force the federal government to pass the amendment.
While she stood for women’s rights, she was also an abolitionist in support of the 15th Amendment, earning African American men the right to vote.
In 1893, Stone passed away before the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. Her endless efforts paved the way for her daughter and future generations of women to earn the rights they willingly deserve. On her last day, she said, “I am glad I was born, and that at a time when the world needed the service I could give.”
Another noteworthy figure of the time, Mary Church Terrell, was a women’s suffragist and civil rights activist.
Terrell was one of the first African American women to earn a degree at Oberlin College in Ohio. She continued her education to earn a master’s degree in 1888. After college, she became a teacher in Washington D.C. and the first African American woman appointed to the school board of a major city.
In 1896, she became the president of the National Association of Colored Women. Her work focused on the notion of racial uplift, a belief that blacks would end racial discrimination by advancing themselves and other members of the race through education, work, and community activism. Her words, “Lifting as we climb” became the organization’s motto.
Terrell fought for civil rights and women’s suffrage because she belonged to “the only group in this country that has two such huge obstacles to surmount… sex and race.”
She was a charter member for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) – the largest American civil rights organization established in 1909.
After the 19th Amendment was passed and women were granted the right to vote, Terrell focused on a broader spectrum of civil rights. In 1940, she published her autobiography, A Colored Woman in a White World, highlighting her experiences with discrimination.
In 1948, she became the first black member of the African Association of University Women after winning an anti-discrimination lawsuit. In 1950, she challenged segregation in public places by protesting a restaurant in D.C. In 1953, The United States Supreme Court ruled segregated eating facilities as unconstitutional and she claimed her victory. This rule was groundbreaking in the civil rights movement.
Terrell fought tirelessly to bring racial justice and equality for all African Americans up until her death in 1954.
![Inez Beverly Prosser, PhD. Source: uwgb.org](https://ppimhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ibp01.jpg")
