My Blog

The Holidays are here.

12/23/2011 21:19:00

The Holidays are Here.

How to make meaning out of the Holidays, especially when family traditions past are literally dead (family members are deceased, family members are separated--such as in war time, divorce, geography, or family members are estranged....) We make meaning by remembering what gives us life, what gives us hope, what gives us joy, and what it means to serve. I wish all of my friends, Christian, Jewish and Muslim blessings now and into the new year.

Jeannie

Tom Wootton to Speak for NAMI Sacramento

09/05/2011 16:35:00

POPULAR NAMI SPEAKER TOM WOOTT0N TO SPEAK IN SACRAMENTO SEPTEMBER 12TH!

(Board/Meeting room of the OLD S.M.U.D. Building) Mark your calendars!

Tom Wootton is a nationally recognized and sought after speaker on positive approaches to mental health. He is passionate about bringing change to the way we view and treat mental conditions. Mr. Wootton’s books are

Bipolar In Order: Looking at Depression, Mania, Hallucination, and Delusion From the Other Side

(2010),

The Bipolar Advantage

(2005), and

The Depression Advantage

(2007). He is a very engaging speaker, and talks from his own experience.

Tom is a "must-see" speaker!

Travel to Spain and Turkey over the Summer

09/04/2011 14:59:00

I haven't seen the movie, "The Bucket List" that includes Jack Nicholson...but I've had a "list" of things to do that has included traveling with my daughter over the years to countries that my parents introduced me to.

Starting from when my daughter was in the 7th grade, I introduced her to Italy & Sicily, Greece, and most recently--she introduced me to Spain where she completed a semester as a foreign exchange university student in her senior year with the University of Cordoba. I met her in Barcelona, and we traveled from there to the Basque Country: San Sebastian, Bilbao and back to Madrid. From Madrid we headed to Istanbul, Turkey. We saw the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Prado Museum in Madrid, and of course, marveled at the works of Gaudi in Barcelona. The sights in Istanbul are beyond measure. An unplanned and offhand last minute but very powerful "must-see" is the Istanbul museum of modern art.

In all of my travels, I love to visit the local neighborhoods (in fact, when revisiting Italy a few years ago, I made a detour to specifically visit my own old neighborhood where I actually lived). Oh, that was so sweet.

In Istanbul, we stayed at the Hotel Antique which I unabashedly recommend because it is family owned, reasonably priced, very relaxed, clean, and in the heart of the old city. Many evenings we came home to "friends" like in a hostel, and were hosted to Turkish coffee or Turkish Tea (with a bite of Turkish Delight) and wide-ranging discussions of national, global and local economics, education, politics and even religion in a very safe and courteous atmosphere.

For my nursing students, you may wonder, what does travel have to do with nursing? Everything! It adds to our cultural competence! I have one nursing student who shared with me that she's traveled to India and that currently she volunteers at the Sacramento C.A.R.E.S. Agency and is eager to go back to India and serve women and children who have AIDS.

I was astonished to learn that Istanbul is the LARGEST CITY IN EUROPE with 20-25 MILLION people. Formerly known as Constanople, it has seen the rise and fall of many empires. It is an awesome place.

Despite double digit unemployment in both countries, I saw little evidence of homelessness, and the public transportation systems were far superior to what we have in most of our large cities--at least in California. It puts Los Angeles to shame.

Have you ever heard about Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor?

05/08/2011 21:44:00

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a Harvard-trained and published neuroanatomist who experienced a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain in 1996. On the afternoon of this rare form of stroke (AVM), she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. It took eight years for Dr. Jill to completely recover all of her functions and thinking ability. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey (published in 2008 by Viking Penguin). Please check out her web site found on my "Resource Page". Her lecture is one you'll not want to miss. Why? She found out the power of her right brain. She found out the plasticity and resilience of the brain first-hand!

NAMI Postpartum Depression Panal 5/9/11

05/08/2011 20:56:00

Don't forget to attend the free Sacramento NAMI panel presentation on postpartum depression on Monday, May 9, 2011 at 7:30 PM. Please open the NAMI link for location, and detailed information.

Dont Miss Upcoming NAMI, Sacramento General Meeting Speakers

04/17/2011 18:44:00

April 17, 2001

Mark your calendars: Monday evening, May 9, 2011: NAMI SACRAMENTO General Meeting at 7:15 PM:

Jeanne has been invited by NAMI, Sacramento to come with Dennis & Carol Luchay of Postpartum Support International who will talk about their personal experience and about their involvement with their organization, Postpartum Support International. Jeane Templeman, RN, LCSW, will discuss the forensic side of postpartum depression. More information about Postpartum Support International can be found at www.postpartum.net.

http://youtu.be/FjJuN9Qfr0I

Check out the above 2006 You-Tube video link of 60-Minutes' Ed Bradley discussing Andrea Yates' situation with her former husband prior to the final disposition of her 2nd trial on appeal that resulted in a jury verdict of "not guilty of murder by reason of insanity." (Fox News, 2006) For CSUS N 129 students who remember my March 2011 "Forensic Nursing" lecture, I disseminated a couple of handouts via e-mail prior to lecture--one, related to the Andrea Yates case, and the other related to the issue of coercive treatment. Consider the following :

In the You-Tube video, Mr. Yates mentions that he was amazed with Mrs. Yates' improvement when she was initially hospitalized. The three medications were venlafaxine (Effexor), buproprion (Wellbutrin) and haloperidol (Haldol). What is recommended to people who have had an acute episode regarding the length of time to stay on the medication to prevent relapse?
What specific neurotransmitters are targeted by these medications?
Looking back, knowing the target neurotransmitters, hearing the brief history provided in the video clip, what do you think happened?
The bio-ethical issue for helping professionals of "beneficence vs. autonomy" comes up much more frequently than you can imagine....we see this more and more as we see the "criminalization of mental illness" emerge with shrinking health care & mental health care dollars available in today's economy and political atmosphere.

July - To be determined.

September - Bipolar in Order--DON'T MISS popular author & speaker, Tom Wootton who speaks about bipolar "advantage" from his own personal perspective. Mr. Wootton is the president of Bipolar Advantage, an organization whose mission is to help people with mental conditions shift their thinking and behavior so that they can lead extraordinary lives. More information can be found at www.bipolaradvantage.com.

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Check out the Berkeley Cog-Sci Conference!

04/14/2011 21:26:00

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California Cognitive Science Conference (CCSC) 2011: Official

REGISTER NOW! http://cogscicon.berkeley.edu/UC Berkeley's Cognitive Science Student Association proudly presents a brief review of our previous conferences, and a PREview for this year's major ev...

Check our this You-tube of some other participants' experience of the "Feel Dead Brains

Exhibit"

Welcome to Jeanne's Blog

04/14/2011 01:59:00

Welcome to Jeanne's Blog

4/13/11 The photo you see to your left is a bisected human brain I had the privilege to hold in my hands about a year ago this time while attending the 2nd Annual Cognitive Science Convention at UC Berkeley by invitation of my daughter, a UC Berkeley student. Um, the perks of being a "Berkeley Mom". Holding a human brain (or even a half a brain) is so stupendous, awesome, and very humbling! I used to like to explore anatomical "parts" of fish & game that my father brought home as a child. Never, did I imagine that I would ever behold a human brain in my hands!

Hmmm....respectfully, who was the dweller of this brain? How do we separate sentience, cognitive awareness, spiritual awareness and memory? What is memory about--not just memory in this lifetime (the kind we interdisciplinary clinicians test for routinely, e.g. short-term & long term memory), but also archetypal memory, inter-generational memory, cellular memory, and even cultural memory? How are our personalities really developed? What makes "us" US? Philosophers, poets, theologins, spiritual masters, scientists & doctors have been asking these questions from the beginning of time. `T'is great to be alive! `T'is great to appreciate beauty, art, the senses, relationships and love!