Featuring keynote speaker Rebecca Bailey, Ph.D.

Dr. Rebecca Bailey was recently brought to national recognition due to her team's involvement in the reunification of a 29 year old who had been abducted and held captive for 18 years. She offers valuable insight and a refreshing perspective on the importance of healing families from within, as well as the challenges and rewards encountered when working with a variety of families post trauma.

HAPPY Memorial Day Everyone!

By HLNtv.com Staff
Watch Interview with Sharon Blair

There is a national prescription drug epidemic amongst youth. Dr. Drew talks to a mother whose daughter died due to prescription pill abuse. They’discuss the tragic storiy and what is being done to fight back ... demanding stricter laws.

I took the foundation of The Marchman Act and rebuilt it stronger, which resulted in my outline for The Jennifer Act. My revisions and critiques are based on what I have seen first hand with my daughter. These are changes that might give someone a chance – a chance at life – a chance to mend broken bonds with their family – a chance to finally beat their addiction. Addiction is so overwhelming, most of the time it cannot be beaten without serious intervention. Help me support this bill and together we can save lives. Contact your Senators and Representatives to bring this proposition in front of the legislature. An addict has 2 possible paths: jail or the cemetery. Lets pass a law that can give them another option. The option of life.

Read more about The Jennifer Act

Changes to a major psychiatric manual would include gambling as an addiction for the first time.

The revision to the manual, known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or D.S.M., would expand the list of recognized symptoms for drug and alcohol addiction, while also reducing the number of symptoms required for a diagnosis, according to proposed changes posted on the Web site of the American Psychiatric Association, which produces the book.

In addition, the manual for the first time would include gambling as an addiction, and it might introduce a catchall category — “behavioral addiction — not otherwise specified” — that some public health experts warn would be too readily used by doctors, despite a dearth of research, to diagnose addictions to shopping, sex, using the Internet or playing video games.

Part medical guidebook, part legal reference, the manual has long been embraced by government and industry. It dictates whether insurers, including Medicare and Medicaid, will pay for treatment, and whether schools will expand financing for certain special-education services. Courts use it to assess whether a criminal defendant is mentally impaired, and pharmaceutical companies rely on it to guide their research.