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This week wasn’t a very busy one for mental health in the media and on the red carpet, but the things that did make it into my bookmarks are definitely worth checking out.

Related to movies, The Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Foundation, launched by Nathaniel Anthony Ayers (subject of The Soloist) and his sister, Jennifer Ayers-Moore, received a grant from the California Endowment this week to help support the Foundation’s mission of keeping up public awareness of mental illness and the benefits of creativity in treatments. The press release suggests the Foundation just launched, but the Foundation’s Web site claims it launched back during the spring of 2008. Either way, it’s a good cause.

In celebrity news, the special screening of “No Kidding, Me Too!,” Joe Pantoliano’s documentary about mental illness, took place in Boston last night, and one Celebrity Psychings reader who attended says it was “amazing and inspiring.” Pants talked with FOX25′s Gene Lavanchy yesterday about the documentary.

Television shows are raising some questions across the board. Musing on Showtime’s new United States of Tara, Newsweek‘s Dina Fine Maron asks whether or not Hollywood can get the portrayal of mental illness “right” (http://www.newsweek.com/id/181690). On the flip side, Jerilyn Dufresne over at the Chicago Mental Health Examiner kind of seems to like what television characters are doing with mental health awareness.

And finally, in theater news, it’s going to be a big week for the Elmira Theatre Company. ETC is launching its production of Caroline Russell-King’s From Here to Insanity on February 5, and director Ken Harkes describes the play as one that “doesn’t dwell on the psychiatry” but shows us “what it’s like to be those people.”

That’s all for this week’s Weekend Psychings. If you run across anything over the coming week you feel worthy for next Saturday’s edition, feel free to send it my way!

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    Last reviewed: 31 Jan 2009