The American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the welfare of individuals with emotional problems and advancing mental-health research. AMHF is established to organize educational seminars and to disseminate its knowledge.
Contents
History
AMHF was chartered in 1924 and incorporated in New York State in 1954 as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, so recognized by the U.S. federal government. Former chairmen include Hon. Harvey J. Ross of the 143rd (1920) New York State Legislature, Austrian writer-in-exile Hermann Broch (whom James Joyce helped aid in the escape from the Nazis following the Anschluss of March 1938) and Richard Weil Jr., one-time head of Macy's Department Store. The chairman from February 18, 2010, to May 1, 2016, was John P. Fowler (publisher of National Review). At present, no new chairman has been nominated or selected.
As part of its educational mission, the organization has maintained a dedication to diversity and making mental-health services available to everyone, regardless of culture, race, or sexual orientation. Former director of research Stefan Sarkozy de Somogyi Schill (known professionally as Stefan de Schill) pioneered in group psychotherapy, as well an advocacy for gay individuals when he took a position favoring LBJ aide Walter Jenkins, whose alleged homosexuality (the term used then) became a political issue.
An early affiliate and clinical supervisor was Otto Kauders. In 1948, de Schill was appointed director of research, following a recommendation by AMHF chairman at the time—Broch (then with Princeton University) as well as Kauders—remaining so until his death on February 9, 2005. The position of executive director was filled by Evander Lomke shortly after.
In the 1960s, de Schill defended LBJ aide Walter Jenkins during a Washington scandal. As part of his work in group psychotherapy for AMHF, during the 1970s through the 1990s, de Schill co-edited (with Serge Lebovici), singly edited, as well as contributed to several books devoted to these modalities: The Challenge to Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (Jessica Kingsley, 1999) and The Challenge for Group Psychotherapy (International Universities Press, 1974). Crucial Choices—Crucial Changes: The Resurrection of Psychotherapy was issued in 2000 by Prometheus and republished by AMHF Books in 2012. De Schill's work, under AMHF, has appeared in French (A la recherche de l'avenir, Presses Universitaires de France, 1999) German (Psychoanalytische Therapie in Gruppen," Klett, 1973), and Italian "(Terapia psicoanalitica di gruppo, Feltrinelli Editore, 1980).
In 2016 (April 10), AMHF again appeared in the New York Times in a letter from executive director Evander Lomke rebutting the medical practice of "growth attenuation" among seriously disabled young people. Also in April 2016, AMHF issued a monograph describing two years of collaborative research with Astor Services for Children & Families regarding early signs of schizophrenia and other psychoses, and palliation/prevention. Beginning summer 2014, AMHF has embarked on a research project with Pearson Assessment to measure older individuals, in the serious-to-profound range of mental retardation, for behavioral changes. Such a test would be in the mode of the existing Wechsler and Bayley Scales and have wide-ranging applications.
American Mental Health Foundation Books
Working with the Erich Fromm Estate and its literary executor, four posthumous books by Fromm have been reissued as well as issued for the first time by the publishing division of AMHF (American Mental Health Foundation Books) in 2010: The Pathology of Normalcy, Beyond Freud, The Heart of Man, and Revolution of Hope. Fromm, an original member of the loose affiliation known as the Frankfurt School of social theorists, writes in the neo-Freudian tradition on topics such as free will, the vulnerability of populations to dictators and fascism, the disruptive role of emerging technology on human personality and human nature—as well as the virtue of hope, which he saw as an antidote to the preceding conditions and portal to enlightenment.
AMHF supports the written work of PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) researcher and authority Dr. Raymond B. Flannery Jr., clinical psychologist with Harvard Medical School and The University of Massachusetts Medical School, by publishing The Violent Person: Professional Risk Management Strategies for Safety and Care in 2009 and in April 2016 Violence: Why People Do Bad Things, with Strategies to Reduce that Risk. The Violent Person received notices in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Flannery's new book, "Coping with Anxiety in an Age of Terrorism" will be published June 15, 2017.
Working with Astor Services for Children & Families in 2012-14 AMHF responds to a need noted by Paul Gionfriddo in the screening of several-thousand youth in a county-wide catchment area, to identify approximately 15 at-risk individuals who will receive a palliative-prevention treatment. The AMHF-Astor study, as noted, was issued in April 2016.
AMHF Books is also the publisher of Dr. Henry Kellerman on personality formation (2012), delusion (2015), individuals in institutional settings (2016), and the psychodynamics of group therapy (1979, 2015); PTSD expert Dr. James Campbell Quick (along with Drs. Joanne H. Gavin and David J. Gavin) was published by AMHF in 2013 on The Psychology of Personal Fulfillment for Women.
In addition to its seminars, AMHF offered its first interactive Webinars, by Jungian therapist Dr. Eric J. Green, in September and November, 2014, respectively, on the subjects of adult-play therapy and children in crisis.
American Mental Health Foundation Books is distributed by Lantern. William Van Ornum, clinical psychologist and Fellow of the American Psychological Association (FAPA), is on the professional advisory board. The current President and executive director of AMHF is Evander Lomke.
Select publications by AMHF Books
Flannery, R. B. Jr. (1998, 2012). The Assaulted Staff Program (ASAP).
Flannery, R. B. Jr. (2016). Violence: Why People Do Bad Things, with Strategies to Reduce that Risk.
Flannery, R. B. Jr. (2017). "Coping with Anxiety in an Age of Terrorism"
Gavin, J. H., Quick, J. C., and Gavin, D. J. (2013). Live Your Dreams, Change the World: The Psychology of Personal Fulfillment for Women.
Kellerman, H. (2012). Personality: How It Forms.
Kellerman, H. (2016). There's No Handle on My Door: Stories of Mental Patients in Mental Hospitals.
Kellerman, H. (2017 or early 2018). "Psychotherapeutic Traction: Uncovering the Patient's Basic Wish and 'Power-Theme'"
Mary Nichols, Suzanne Button, Katherine Hoople, and Laura Lappan (2016). Early Identification, Palliative Care, and Prevention of Psychotic Disorders in Children and Youth (monograph of AMHF 2-year study).