You may also wish to visit the Timothy Hogan Memorial Web site . Dr. Joseph Goldberg says that men often hide the pain of emotional disturbances. He explains that the underlying cause of suicide is not usually a traumatic setback, but a psychiatric problem such as depression, alcoholism, or psychosis. Depression and suicide are not simply feelings and responses to life events. Everyone gets depressed, everyone gets lonely, everyone has periods of sadness.
Depression is a syndrome.
Dr. Goldberg's forthcoming book, Bipolar Disorders , will be published by the American Psychiatric Press. Even with good insurance, it's sometimes harder than one may expect to find help. Shelly Stewart is Deputy Director for Federal Relations at the American Psychiatric Association, and heads the Coalition for Fairness in Mental Illness Coverage. Mental health care and substance abuse providers are often not covered by health insurance plans, and are absent from the directories of HMO health care providers. Chris Koyanagi , Director of Legislative Policy with the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, tells us that access to mental health services has suffered from the influx of managed care programs.