Elizabeth Christine Tanner wrote a play, The Turned Leaf, about her troublesome relationship with her mentally ill mother.

“A young girl’s traumatic event may have triggered her inherited undiagnosed mental illness. The Turned Leaf follows one woman’s struggle with a mental illness, the effect it has on her and her loved ones. This drama is infused with modern dance , video elements, modern song and digs deep into the heart of the illness. ”

Below is a brief synopsis of how she came to write the play and what she hopes to accomplish with it.

When I was studying psychology in college, I remember having a particular distaste for the behavioral approaches of B.F. Skinner. Defining the sacred depths of being human by behavioral impulses akin to a mouse motivated by cheese was not for me. I was much more into psychoanalytic therapy and Jung.

How then later did I come to embrace cognitive behavioral and related therapies that spell out that we are, essentially, just a mess of behaviors (good and bad)?

If you dig into your family dynamic, and maybe establishing relationships with others from equally dysfunctional backgrounds, you are bound to have a change of heart about old Skinner. Maybe there is something to behaviorism after all, and it can jibe with the deeper therapies that ask you to reflect on early places of pain and identity-molding.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is particularly of interest not just to me, but folks trying to come to grasp with certain subsets of mental illness — borderline personality disorder, bipolar and other depressive disorders. But its principles can be significantly farther-reaching than mental illness circles alone.

After the tragic shooting in Newtown Connecticut last Friday, many have good reason to feel anguish, despair and misery.

These events touched many families personally. For those of us not directly affected, they can still leave us with feelings of horror and wanting to hold our loved ones near.

As a nation and as individuals, we could not possibly have anticipated or planned to have to deal with the emotional consequences of such an event. And yet here we are… many of us saddened, enraged and overwhelmed.

Who inspires you? Who do you admire as a role model? I’m sure a lot of those answers can be found within your close circle of friends and family, but of course, there are also those who can lift you up from afar.

It’s been hard in recent years to ignore young entertainers’ breakdowns, drug habits, and bad behavior. Demi Lovato, a 20-year-old singer/songwriter, actress, and newly appointed judge on the talent show “The X Factor,” has endured much internal struggle.

But she has courageously sought mental health assistance and boldly documented her journey to share with others for inspiration. Along with her “stay strong” motto, she’s demonstrated that obstacles can be overcome, which is what ultimately highlights her as a different type of role model.

There’s a very powerful form of psychotherapy called dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) that’s been around now for a couple of decades. While many people have heard about it, not everyone understands how its principles can be applied to a lot more than the specific disorder it was designed to treat originally (borderline personality disorder).

That’s why I’m pleased to introduce our newest blog, The Emotionally Sensitive Person with Dr. Karyn Hall. This blog will be focused on topics that would benefit anyone who’s “emotionally sensitive” — you know, people who react emotionally to things in life that are usually a little out of proportion to the actual event or problem. Some might say “over emotionally,” but it’s all a matter of subjectivity.

The blog will tackle topics of how to put DBT practices into every day use, providing many of the tips and techniques of this powerful form of psychotherapy.

Consider these alarming statistics:

* By 2020, behavioral health disorders will surpass all physical diseases as a major cause of disability worldwide.

* Of the more than 6 million people served by state mental health authorities across the nation, only 21 percent are employed.

* More than half of adolescents in the United States who fail to complete high school have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder.

* Between 2009 and 2011 states cumulatively cut more than $1.8 billion from their budgets for services for children and adults living with mental illness.

* In 2009, there were an estimated 45.1 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States with any mental illness in the past year. This represents 19.9 percent of all adults in the U.S.

*Serious mental illnesses cost society $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year.

* The annual total estimated societal cost of substance abuse in the U.S. is $510 billion.

* In 2008, an estimated 9.8 million adults aged 18 and older in the U.S. has a serious mental illness.

With our economy still in the toilet, states and federal government threaten to cut even more dollars in mental health funding, which would result in less or no access to mental health treatment and services for countless Americans. Ultimately the cuts steal the one thing that keeps those of us struggling with chronic mood disorders alive: hope.

6:05 am: You lie awake in your tiny bed, underneath the salmon covers, your neck sore from sleeping on one pillow (you asked for another but you’ll need a doctor’s order to have more than one.) Your sleep medicine has worn off and you are now once again a prisoner to your insomnia.

All there is to do now is listen to your roommate snore and mutter to herself in her sleep and the sounds of the nurses talking and phones ringing at the nurses station. You remember a Seroquel-induced nightmare you had previously in the night in which you were trapped in a house that was filling with water, drowning and gasping for air. You make a mental note to mention the dream to your doctor later on.

7:00 am: Morning checks. A tech bangs on your door just as you have started to drift off into a sweet sleep again and informs you that you must be up for breakfast in thirty minutes. You incoherently moan something that resembles an “OK,” roll over and close your eyes again.

Last week the New York Times ran a fascinating piece on Marsha Linehan, Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington and the original developer of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), a modification of standard cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), but including elements of acceptance and mindfulness. Her work has been designed specifically for people who harm themselves, for those diagnosed with borderline personality (BPT), and those who suffer from pervasive suicidal thoughts and/or attempts.

For the first time in her life, the mental health expert disclosed her own story (that we also discussed on the blog yesterday), which involved hospitalization at the age of 17 that lasted longer than two years.

Dr. Marsha Linehan, long best known for her ground-breaking work with a new form of psychotherapy called dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), has let out her own personal secret — she has suffered from borderline personality disorder. In order to help reduce the prejudice surrounding this particular disorder — people labeled as borderline often are seen as attention-getting and always in crisis — Dr. Linehan told her story in public for the first time last week before an audience of friends, family and doctors at the Institute of Living, the Hartford clinic where she was first treated for extreme social withdrawal at age 17, according to The New York Times.

At 17 in 1961, Linehan detailed how when she came to the clinic, she attacked herself habitually, cut her arms legs and stomach, and burner her wrists with cigarettes. She was kept in a seclusion room in the clinic because of never-ending urge to cut herself and to die.

Since borderline personality disorder was not discovered yet, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and medicated heavily with Thorazine and Librium, as well as strapped down for forced electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Nothing worked.

So how did she overcome this tragic beginning?