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Living a Healthy Life Without Alcohol

By 5pm, Kathy Stafford’s busy day with the kids was winding down and she would reach for a glass of wine. But as time went on, one glass in the early evening wasn’t enough. “I found myself wanting and having a glass of wine well before 5pm,” says the mother of two whose battle with alcohol lasted...

Dreams Really Can Come True

Share your greatest dream. Even if you are sure it won’t come true. Most of us would give pause to such a request, but for Thomas J. Swan III, it was especially daunting. The request was posed by his treatment team at McLean’s Fernside program , which provides intensive residential treatment for...

How One OCD Patient Is Finding Hope

Katie Wilson is a former patient at McLean’s OCD Institute. I am six months pregnant and I am sleeping on a small patch of the living room floor, because every bed, sofa, or other surface in my home feels contaminated to me. Not safe. I am a trained and registered nurse, with a fear of blood that...

A Case of Pulmonary Embolism

My name is Katherine Athens and I am a nurse in the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) clinic. It was a busy Friday in the clinic in March, a year ago. We were preparing to treat over 50 patients that day. Our practice had been expanding over the years, and it was hardly unusual to treat 50-plus...

Keep Dreaming: One Patient’s Journey with OCD

Adira Weixlmann is a former patient at McLean’s OCD Institute (OCDI) Life transitions can be an intense combination of positive and negative. Change creates great excitement and hope for the future, but can also be riddled with intense anxiety and worry about the unknown. As an OCD (obsessive...

Supporting McLean Today and Tomorrow: One Donor’s View

Betsy Wilgis is clear about why she has donated to McLean every year since 1999 and written a bequest to the hospital into her will. “They saved my life.” Mrs. Wilgis, a personal finance and health care manager from Baltimore, had been struggling with treatment-resistant depression when her medical...

A TMS Patient Loses Hope Midway Through Her Treatment

My name is Amy Widding, and I have been working as a nurse in the Psychiatric Neurotherapeutic Program (PNP) for almost three years. I work two days a week in the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) clinic and once a week in the transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) clinic. I began here as a new...

Elyn Saks: Making Peace with Mental Illness

When Elyn Saks spoke to a standing-room only crowd during a recent event at McLean Hospital, the crowd remained riveted for the full hour as she vividly recounted her unprecedented journey as a person living with schizophrenia. During her talk, Saks emphasized the need for more compassion and...

Through a Mother’s Eyes: The Struggles and Triumphs of OCD

Lynette Peck is mother of a former patient at McLean’s OCD Institute . Tomorrow morning I will move my son into his new dorm room. Already today he and I have packed the car, driven 550 miles, eaten at two restaurants, used a number of public restrooms, chatted, laughed, and listened to countless...

Actor Experiences Success Despite Years of Anguish

Hollywood loves a good medical drama, but for Ethan S. Smith, a successful actor, writer and director, the anguish he experienced due to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) was all too real. Although Smith now successfully manages his OCD, it was just a few years ago that he was in the depths of...

In a Patient’s Words: In My Own Head

“Okay, Lisa. Go.” That’s Carol Hevia, a behavioral therapist at the OCDI, talking to me in my head, as if I was sitting in her Intrusive Thoughts group. Once again, she’s telling me it’s time to spill my guts. When I was a resident at the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Institute (OCDI) one year ago...

Nursing Care Extends to Families in Crisis

My name is Amanda Casparriello, and I have been a nurse for six years. I work in the Geriatric Psychiatry Inpatient Services on South Belknap 2, which is a geriatric neuropsychiatry floor. Our patients present with some sort of cognitive decline mixed with changes in behavior. Dementia is our most...

How It All Started: The Nursing Global Caucus

Global “of or relating to the whole world, embracing the whole of something.” Nursing: “…autonomous and collaborative care of individuals of all ages, families, groups and communities, sick or well and in all settings.” My name is Barbara Waldorf. I have worked in nursing for 30 years, in education...

One Mother’s Thanks

Danny Denner’s legacy of love and laughter lives on—and so will his mother’s act of generosity. By making provisions for McLean Hospital in her will, Fran Denner has honored her son and the institution that improved his life. Danny suffered from a complex set of psychiatric issues, and like many...

Reflections from the First Nellie Blumenthal Fellow, Kate Cederbaum

When Katherine (Kate) Cederbaum, MA, MSN, PMHNP-BC, applied to become the first ever Nellie Blumenthal Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nursing Fellow at McLean, she felt highly motivated to win the fellowship, but she could not anticipate how emotionally charged the process would become. After earning...

Patchwork: One OCD Patient’s Story

Rachel is a former patient at the OCD Institute. I’m obsessed with “The Real Housewives” and “The Rachel Zoe Project.” And I love to sew. I’ll sit down on a Saturday morning, coffee in hand, and watch a few episodes in a row, sewing by hand or speeding fabric through my machine. Either of these...