Mental Health

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Hellboy, the new action film based on the Dark Horse comic books by Mike Mignola.

Her new book is Jung: A Biography. Bair chronicles the life and work of the influential Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung. Bair won the National Book Award for her biography of Samuel Beckett, and she's also written books about the lives of Anais Nin and Simone de Beauvoir.

He is an expert on the mental health issues of military personnel and their families. He was a senior social worker in the first Gulf war counseling soldiers before and after battle. Martin has written extensively on these matters and teaches in the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College outside of Philadelphia.

He is professor of psychiatry and psychology at the Graduate School University Center and director of The Center on Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at The City University of New York. He has written books on many topics, including a Japanese cult that released poison gas in the Tokyo subways, Nazi doctors, Hiroshima survivors and Vietnam vets. He will discuss the emotional impact of the Columbia shuttle disaster, as well as the impact of an impending war in Iraq, and the looming nuclear crisis in North Korea.

Bruce McEwen is a pioneering expert on the ways in which the brain influences the body. He is the author of ""The End of Stress As We Know It" (with Elizabeth Norton Lasley, published by Joseph Henry Press). The book examines the response of the body to stress, what happens when the body's stress response turns against us, and how to keep that from happening. Dr. McEwen is head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at Rockefeller University in New York City.

Reeve died Sunday of heart failure at the age of 52. He was best known for starring in the Superman film series. A 1995 horseback riding accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. After the accident, he became a worldwide advocate for spinal cord research. This interview was originally broadcast on Sept. 30, 2002.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Look at Me by Jennifer Egan (Doubleday), and talks about Jonathan Franzens bestseller The Corrections.

His new film Memento, is about a man who is unable to make new memories since the violent murder of his wife. Now without a short term memory, he seeks to avenge her death. The movie stars Guy Pearce, with Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano. The script for Memento was based on a short story written by Johnathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan's brother. Memento is Christopher Nolan's second feature film; his first was the critically acclaimed 1998 film Following.

His new book is called Altered Egos: How the Brain Creates the Self. What is the self? and what is the relationship between the brain and selfhood? Feinberg uses the stories and interesting cases of his patients to try and answer these questions from a neurological and psychological standpoint. Feinberg claims that the way patients with brain damage or disorders like alien hand syndrome talk about themselves can tell us a lot about how the brain creates itself.

Dr. Esther Sternberg from the National Institute of Mental Health and National Institutes of Health. In her new book “The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions” she looks at how researchers have uncovered the connection between mind and body.

Writer Jim Knipfel. His first book, the acclaimed memoir Slackjaw (Putnam), is his funny, irreverent account of loosing his sight and trying to take his life. In his new book, Quitting the Nairobi Trio (Tracher/Putnam), he writes about the time he spent in a psychiatric ward. The New York Times says Knipfel is “blessed with a natural, one might even say reflexive, knack for telling stories.” Knipfel is a columnist and staff writer for New York Press.

Actor, writer, director and producer Peter Berg. He is the creator and executive producer of the new controversial ABC series Wonderland. The show is set in a mental hospital. Some call it the most accurate portrayal of the mentally ill on network television, while some mental health organizations say that the series further stigmatizes mental patients. As an actor, Peter Berg has started on the TV show Chicago Hope, and has appeared in movies like The Last seduction, Copland, and the Great White Hype.

Dr. Dean Ornish discusses the link between emotional health and prevention and treatment of heart disease. His new book is "Love & Survival: 8 Pathways to Intimacy and Health." (HarperPerennial). Ornish is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and founder of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine.

Biologist Robert Sapolsky. He's one of the first researchers to chart the effects of chronic stress on the brain in the animal kingdom and in humans. He adds a touch of humor to his findings, as well. His new book is called "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: An Updated Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping." (W.H. Freeman and Co.) It's a revised version of his 1994 publication.

Stories of people changing their name, an excerpt from This American Life by Ira Glass, produced at WBEZ. Glass tells the story of his grandmother: when she was in her 30's, she was very ill and everyone thought she was going to die. So they changed her name. It was an old Jewish custom, to confuse the Angel of Death. And Margy Rochlin on the place you go to in Los Angeles if you want to change your name. It turns out to be surprisingly easy to change

Justin Kaplan and Anne Bernays are the authors of the new book, "The Language of Names: What We Call Ourselves and Why It Matters." Both have written previous books: Ms. Bernays is the author of eight novels, including the award-winning "Growing Up Rich" and "Professor Romeo," as well as numerous short stories. Mr. Kaplan won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography, "Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain." He's also the General Editor of Barlett's Familiar Quotations.

McInerney talks about his latest novel, "The Last of the Savages." He has also written "Brightness Falls," "Story of My Life," "Ransom," and "Bright Lights, Big City," which was made into a movie starring Michael J. Fox.

Dr. Stephan Rechtschaffen is author of the book "Time Shifting: Creating More Time to Enjoy Your Life." It's about how to change the way we think about time. Rechtschaffen is also a pioneer of the wellness movement and founder of the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in New York's Hudson River Valley.

Clinical Psychologist Judith S. Wallerstein. She is widely considered the world's foremost authority on the effects of divorce. Wallerstein is the co-author of Second Chances: Men, Women, and Children a Decade after Divorce. Her new book The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts (Houghton Mifflin), which she co-wrote with Sandra Blakeslee, takes a look at marriages that work. Wallerstein is the founder and executive director of the Center for the Family in Transition. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Psychiatrist and novelist Roderick Anscombe. He oversees a psychiatric ward at a hospital outside of Boston, and has written a new novel that retells the Dracula myth, called "The Secret Life of Laszlo: Count Dracula." Anscombe says he wanted to "humanize" Dracula by making him more a man than a monster. In writing the book, Anscombe drew on his previous experience working with the criminally insane.