Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media
The Erikson Institute Prize is awarded to three writers, reporters, or editors who have made major contributions to public understanding of mental health issues. The intent is to reward and encourage sophisticated, accessible work on mental illness and recovery, and to stimulate conversation about how to dispel stigma and promote well-being. The 2011 nominating committee included the essayist and author Joshua Wolf Shenk; television producer and Austen Riggs Center Board of Trustees Member Jeffrey Diamond; and Drs. Donald E. Rosen and M. Gerard Fromm.
Prize-winners will be honored at a forum on mental health media at the Austen Riggs Center, where they will present their work and talk together about mental health coverage by the media. The 2012 forum, which is open to the public, will take place from 1:30-4:30pm, Saturday, June 23, featuring this year’s winners: Vaughan Bell, Ph.D., Gary Greenberg, Ph.D. and Gregg Zoroya. The event is free and early registration is recommended.
This year, the committee looked specifically for three writers whose work demonstrates a major interest in mental health issues and the experience of mental health as opposed to a writer with a dominant interest in science or policy whose work happens to enter into the mental health arena. The winners are:
Vaughan Bell is a clinical and research psychologist based at King's College in London who has a long-standing belief in the power of communication to improve mental health. He recently returned from Colombia where he worked both as a clinical academic and as a mental health lead for Doctors Without Borders, variously focusing on mental health, neurological disorder, and the impact of armed conflict. He is a contributing editor for The Psychologist and Wired UK and writes for Slate and Discover Magazine on psychology, neuroscience and mental health. Dr. Bell is being recognized for his regular contribution to MindHacks.com, an award-winning blog that combines outstanding critical thinking with a broad survey of mental health news and features.
A practicing psychotherapist in Connecticut, Gary Greenberg writes about the intersection of science, politics, and ethics for many magazines, include Harper's, the New Yorker, Wired, Discover, Rolling Stone, andMother Jones, where he's a contributing writer. Partmemoir, part intellectual history, part exposé, his most recent book,Manufacturing Depression, reveals how the question, “Am I happy enough?” has come to dominate our understanding of our suffering.
A staff writer and reporter for USA TODAY, Gregg Zoroya covers the “Home Front” beat, which focuses on the psychological impact of war. He has traveled into the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones 14 times, either to cover specific events such as the first elections in both countries, or to write on topics such as the effect of multiple deployments on troops or advances in military medicine. Zoroya has doggedly pursued information on suicide rates among service members and veterans; the Department of Veterans Affairs’ claims backlog; mental health issues relating to service in combat; and compensation issues.His powerful stories on topics such as post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, joblessness, suicide and family struggles have earned him national awards and recognition.
