In truth, the fight against the stigma attached to mental illness has been global for awhile, but in many places, serious stigma remains.

Are you creative and different from most others? Take these fun video tests. (We’re not claiming these tests are scientifically accurate or represent the opinions of anyone except the video makers). My score is next to the links—what’s yours?

Nikol Hasler makes politically incorrect videos. FUNNY politically incorrect videos. Including this one about mental illness in families. I nervously showed it to a friend whose son has a mental illness. She assured me that she hasn’t laughed this much since her son was diagnosed.

“After battling bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and drug addiction for over thirty years, forty-seven-year-old Boruch Hoffman, a Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn, is sober and eager to live the life he never had.

I think I figured it out. What was puzzling wasn’t the dog’s behavior-it was the videographer’s. How could the cameraman keep this worried animal in suspense and not go to the canine companions’ rescue?

In this brief, but interesting clip from Charlie Rose, Dr. Helen Mayberg, who is one of NARSAD’s Healthy Minds Across America researchers, tells us what neuroscientists and the rest of us need to ask about understanding depression.

What are the benefits of a keeping a therapy journal?

What can you do to get the most out of your therapy sessions? What basic communication and relationship skills (see videos, below), can you learn in order to improve all your relationships, not just your relationship with your therapist?

One day a few months ago, I was doing a weekly training for therapists and one of them said, “I wish my patients could sit in on this training—it would be really beneficial to them.”

Bingo! It occurred to me that if I could distill some of the information about communication skills that I impart to therapists and patients—keep the content simple and the explanations brief—it might help patients get more from therapy.