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Over the last few decades, medical and surgical advances have led to a growing population of individuals living with congenital heart disease. The challenges of this condition can reach beyond physical limitations to include anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. To date, these psychological outcomes have been neglected; yet, they need not be inevitable. The factors contributing to these difficulties are considered here, drawing on current evidence and neuropsychological theories including the novel application of polyvagal theory. Suggestions for developing psychologically informed medical and social care to improve mental health, wellbeing and recovery and influence policy and training are proposed (See supplemental material for video abstract). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess depression literacy, help-seeking and help-offering to others in members of the police force in the state of Victoria, Australia. Methods: All staff in police stations involved in a cluster randomised controlled trial of an integrated workplace mental health intervention were invited to participate. Survey questions covered sociodemographic and employment information, recognition of depression in a vignette, stigma, treatment beliefs, willingness to assist co-workers with mental health problems, help-giving and help-seeking behaviours, and intentions to seek help. Using the baseline dataset associated with the trial, the paper presents a descriptive analysis of mental health literacy and helping behaviours, comparing police station leaders and lower ranks. Results: Respondents were 806 staff, comprising 618 lower-ranked staff and 188 leaders. Almost 84% of respondents were able to correctly label the problem described in the vignette. Among those who had helped someone with a mental health problem, both lower ranks and leaders most commonly reported ‘talking to the person’ although leaders were more likely to facilitate professional help. Leaders’ willingness to assist the person and confidence in doing so was very high, and over 80% of leaders appropriately rated police psychologists, general practitioners, psychologists, talking to a peer and contacting welfare as helpful. However, among both leaders and lower ranks with mental health problems, the proportion of those unlikely to seek professional help was greater than those who were likely to seek it. Conclusion: Knowledge about evidence-based interventions for depression was lower in this police sample than surveys in the general population, pointing to the need for education and training to improve mental health literacy. Such education should also aim to overcome barriers to professional help-seeking. Interventions that aim to improve mental health literacy and help-seeking behaviour appear to be suitable targets for better protecting police member mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideas explored in this paper were initially brought to our notice whilst analysing data derived from interviews with 15 year olds on motherhood and mental health. The aim of the paper is to explore and describe the relationship between powerful social norms about motherhood and the ideas and knowledge which the 15 year olds in our study revealed to us, ideas which often contradict the normative view. Our own data will be used to show some of the ways in which 15 year olds appear to negotiate for themselves, and attempt to resolve, the contradictions between normative and self-experienced knowledge about motherhood. In doing this we will be especially concerned to describe some of the solutions the girls develop. We have data on the same themes for boys, collected in the same way. For reasons of space we were unable to look at this in detail but want to write it up more fully at a later date. Our analysis will stress the active role that children play in the construction of their own views and futures rather than a more straightforwardly deterministic model which would see children as products of a social culture. We intend to relate this data to recent research on motherhood and depression and to some reflections on how normative conceptions come to be reproduced and socially maintained, focusing on the. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]