Ryan Jenkins was a famous reality TV star.  He had appeared on the VH-1 series Megan Wants a Millionaire, winning the $1 million prize.  He was selected for the third season of the VH-1 reality show “I Love Money,” and reportedly won the $250,000 prize on that show, too (which apparently will not air). 
 
What Ryan Jenkins really was in reality (as in, real life) was a violent man who had been sentenced to 15 months probation and ordered to complete domestic violence counseling after assaulting his girlfriend during 2007. He also was apparently capable of killing his ex-wife Jasmine Fiore and then removing the tips of her fingers and her teeth, in an attempt to prevent police from identifying her (which they ultimately did, ironically, by tracking the serial numbers on her breast implants).  He then fled and hung himself from a coat rack in a motel room in Canada.
 
The underlying character of a man asserts itself eventually, no matter how many scripts he is handed or how well-honed his acting skills.  
 
The truth is that most reality television shows have nothing to do with real life or with real emotions or with real people.  Most showcase situations that never occur in our genuine day-to-day existences and run the risk of attracting participants who are on the run from their feelings, not at one with them.  These “stars” are often quite different from actors like DeNiro or Pacino or Streep.  They aren’t practitioners of any particular art form and don’t know the first thing about getting into and out of character.  And they might not need to because they are always acting.  They may be particularly good at what they do because they lack a core self and can adapt to the unreal, real-life predicaments into which they are written. Their narcissistic needs for approval and applause and fame and their lack of a desire for privacy may, in fact, be intense enough to qualify as psychopathology.  They run to fake dramas because they have been running their whole lives—from core sadness and rage and shame.
 
Ryan Jenkins was gifted as a reality TV star because he was a tortured human being.
 
Just think about Jon and Kate Plus 8 “playing” parents to sextuplets by putting them before the lens of a camera that can’t help but distort their developing emotions and perspectives.  Great parenting there, huh?  They qualify as reality TV stars because they aren’t real parents, not because they are.
 
The real, real Ryan Jenkins was a person full of rage and self-hatred who terrorized more than one woman, killed his ex-wife, then hung himself.  If he had managed to live longer without taking any lives, he probably would have won some more prize money and gotten more famous.

David Carradine’s naked body was found hanging in a Bangkok, Thailand hotel room last Thursday morning, setting in motion a debate about whether the star of the feature film “Kill Bill” and the long-running television series “Kung Fu” (1972-1975) committed suicide, accidently died while attempting to stimulate himself through autoerotic asphyxia or was murdered.

While that debate rages on, a Thai newspaper called Thai Rath has published forensic photos of Carradine’s naked corpse.  His ex-wife Marina Anderson has also seen fit to tell the New York Post of Carradine’s “deviant sexual behavior.”

Here we are at the flipside of losing our inner selves to YouTube and Facebook and Twitter.  Too many of us suddenly all think we’re celebrities, but we also think that real celebrities are inhuman, celluloid creatures without the right to the privacy or decency befitting other human beings.  Some in society actually seem to think that the fact that actors make a living by … well … acting means that they have sold their souls to us and that we can devour them like movie popcorn.  That’s why the paparazzi thinks they have license to stalk stars as though they are alien creatures or zoo animals on the loose.  And it’s why we feel free to peek through windows into David Carradine’s most private acts and final moments. 

David Carradine was a person, before he was ever an actor.  What he signed up for was to share his gift and his craft with those who might enjoy it.  I’m one of those people.  Kung Fu was part of my childhood.  Something about Carradine’s quiet intensity, combined with the idea that he could not leave his training at the monastery until he could focus enough to snatch a pebble from his teacher’s open hand, got my attention and stayed with me all this time. 

But the fact that I was a young fan of Carradine doesn’t make me think I have the inherent right to look at naked photos of his dead body or get the inside scoop from his disgruntled ex-wife about what he liked to do in bed.  It would make me feel like a trespasser in his private life.  It would make me worry about doing harm to those who loved Carradine, in real life. 

That’s the trouble, though.  We don’t think of actors as real, anymore.  We don’t think of politicians as genuine, anymore.  We don’t think of sports stars as dedicated athletes, anymore.  We don’t think of the economy as a miraculous engine that runs only on the truth, anymore.  Because, in the end, too many of us don’t think enough of our real selves, anymore.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s Web site at livingthetruth.com.

According to William and Janis Mohat, their son Eric, a 17-year-old, was bullied to death at Mentor High School in Mentor, Ohio.  On March 29, 2007 Mohat shot himself after relentless harassment and intimidation that included being pushed, shoved and hit ― not to mention being humiliated by being called a fag, a queer and a homo.  Eric had never shown any interest in homosexuality at all.

Click here to read the full story on FOXNews.com
 
The Mohats are suing their school district, alleging that one of Eric’s teachers — Thomas M. Horvath — saw the bullying and did nothing to stop it.  Two other students committed suicide the same year Eric did.  His parents say bullying was a factor in their deaths, too.  And another parent, named Dan Hughes, reportedly withdrew his son Brandon from the school after he was picked on, non-stop.
 
The Mohats aren’t after cash.  They want to force the school system to put a comprehensive and effective anti-bullying program in place.  I think they should be after both.  I also think they should urge local authorities to press criminal harassment (and possibly wrongful death) charges against Eric’s bullies.
 
Bullying is an old problem that repeated and dogged litigation may be the only way to solve.  The litigation may have to be as relentless as the bullying itself. 
 
Schools have, for decades, either utterly ignored or done far too little to fix the bullying that takes place in their schoolyards and classrooms, cafeterias, restrooms and hallways.  Too little is done to prevent bullying, and bullies aren’t sufficiently disciplined.  Eric Mohat’s assailants, for instance, should have been identified, punished and, if they persisted, suspended from school.  Period.  The same goes for bullies in any other school district, in any other community.
 
As a psychiatrist who has treated bullies and their victims, I believe that early detection of aggressive kids and vulnerable kids, with preventive strategies targeted toward each can be effective.  But reaching deep into the souls of bullies to find out what shattered their empathy and turned them into child predators (yes, predators) can take a fair amount of time.  So when bullies are identified, the first order of business has to be to stop their emotional and physical abusiveness—through discipline, containment, suspension or expulsion.  The healing work of identifying and addressing the roots of their violence can then begin.
 
Eric Mohat allegedly lost his life to bullying.  Indeed, researchers have identified a connection between bullying and suicide.   What’s more, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that every day in this country160,000 children stay home from school because they fear bullies.
 
In my psychiatry practice, I have met adolescents, young adults and adults who bear the scars.  Bullying can cause lasting low self-esteem, persistent anxiety and major depression.  It can warp personality structure, either spawning a tendency toward irritability and violence in victims, or a tendency toward isolation and passivity. 
 
The word needs to go out loud and clear, not only from William and Janis Mohat, but from school administrators and the law enforcement community, that bullying will be seen as any other form of assault.  That means that child bullies get sent home from school and started in therapy, adolescent bullies get suspended from school or expelled (and started in therapy) and teenage bullies get their therapy, along with being suspended, expelled and/or referred to the juvenile justice system.  
 
It’s really that simple.  I hope that that any school system, school administrator or teacher who ignores bullying is sued and has to dig very deep into their pockets to pay a very significant judgment.  No amount will ever compensate victims and their families — certainly not those who lose sons or daughters to suicide.  But using litigation (or the threat of it) to shape social policy may be the fastest route to keeping our kids safe at school.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com or e-mail him at info@keithablow.com.

Of the nearly two thirds of U.S. adults surveyed, 64 percent agree that they are filled with greater joy soaking up the summer sun, then bundling up in winter coats. According to studies done at Cornell University, the winter blues and its more severe foil, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), affects about four times as many women as men.

Although the science is still relatively new, research has begun to reveal how mindful eaters can choose their fuel to help achieve or maintain a desired mental state.  Our moods are linked to the production or use of certain brain chemicals. Scientists have identified many of the natural chemicals in foods that change the way we feel. Food influences neurotransmitters by attaching to brain cells and changing the way they behave. This opens pathways to those cells so that other mood-altering chemicals can come through the gates and attach themselves to brain cells.

So the next time you want to change your mood, take a walk to the kitchen — it might just save you a trip to the therapist!

To ease feelings of depression:  Eat more fish!  Omega-3 fatty acids (found in fatty fish such as salmon, herring, sardines and tuna) may help ease depressive symptoms.  A recent study showed that eating fish twice a week was associated with lower risk of depression and suicide. Magnesium, can also ease symptoms of depression. Enjoying a bowl of whole-grain cereal and soy milk topped with walnuts will supply you with magnesium and increase your intake of omega-3 fatty acids, which will ease your frame of mind into the afternoon frenzy when your kids come home.

To get out of a bad mood: A lack of selenium can cause bad moods. Individuals suffering from too little selenium have been shown to be more anxious, irritable, hostile and depressed than people with normal levels of selenium. Pistachios, salmon, and shitake mushrooms can instantaneously get you out of this funk.

When you want to feel pleasant and alert: Eating foods that stimulate the release of dopamine may produce enjoyable feelings. Phenylnine is an essential amino acid found in the brain and blood that can convert in the body to tyrosine, which in turn is used to synthesize dopamine instantly increasing your energy and alertness. Start your morning off with a bowl of hot oatmeal to warm you up try adding skim milk and sliced bananas to add a boost of dopamine and to leave you feeling happy throughout the day. Breakfast is a must because it provides glucose to your brain, making you mentally efficient and vigilant.

When you want to feel happy:  When we don’t get enough exposure to sunlight our moods and physical health may suffer. More specifically, serotonin levels, a hormone associated with elevating your mood rises when you’re exposed to sunlight. So we often feel sad during the darker, winter months.  An amino acid, tryptophan helps raise serotonin levels in your body, causing you to feel upbeat once again. Eating foods that are high in tryptophan such as, simple carbs, low-fat cottage cheese, nuts, and chicken will help cure your winter blues.  A slice of whole-wheat toast with low-fat cottage cheese and jam is a sure way to boost your mood. 

Get Moving: Studies show that anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour of exercise every day can have a positive impact on your mood. When we exercise our body releases endorphins that help us to feel happy, but it also has been shown to reduce stress, which often intensifies feelings of depression brought on by the winter blues.  It can also increase your joy by making your skinny jeans and little black dress fit better, and is there any greater feeling then that?!

Tanya Zuckerbrot, MS, RD is a nutritionist and founder of Skinnyandthecity.com.  She is also the creator of The F-Factor Diet™, an innovative nutritional program she has used for more than ten years to provide hundreds of her clients with all the tools they need to achieve easy weight loss and maintenance, improved health and well-being.  For more information log onto www.FFactorDiet.com.

Monday evening, 500 or so residents of Covina, California gathered at the Royal Oak Intermediate School to discuss the horrific Christmas Eve slayings committed by Bruce Pardo.  Pardo, dressed as Santa Claus, walked into a family gathering at his ex-in-laws’ home, shooting a 9-year-old girl in the face and then killing nine other people.  Before escaping and committing suicide himself, he burned the house to the ground.

According to police, Pardo had hoped to kill other people, too, including his mother, his wife’s divorce attorney and the attorney’s family.  They believe he had been planning the carnage since June — perhaps even earlier.

Because of Pardo, 13 young people are orphans.  Still others are without one of their parents.

What makes a man, who appeared to others to be quirky, but friendly, commit such an atrocity?  How is it possible that the same person who had participated in a seemingly rational way in divorce proceedings could have done so with mayhem on his mind?  How could he have wished the owner of his favorite coffee shop—the Montrose Bakery and Café—a merry Christmas just several hours before the slayings?

We know some of the stresses Pardo was facing.  He had lost his job.  His marriage had dissolved in the wake of his wife having learned he had abandoned a son she knew nothing about, a son left brain-damaged by nearly drowning while Pardo was to be watching him.  Perhaps Pardo felt lingering guilt and grief over that tragedy.

Yet, in my 16 years as a psychiatrist, I have met hundreds of men and women who have shouldered equal or greater psychological burdens without their circumstances triggering violence of any kind.  I have been privileged to see many of them face the loss of children, homes, marriages or their own health by looking inside themselves for strength — and finding it.

Pardo apparently had no such reserves of character upon which to draw, no hope for the future, no empathy left for others.  He seems to fit into that category of men I have met in my work as a forensic psychiatrist who, faced with painful changes over which they lacked control, came to see their life stories — including the people in them — as ending, done with … over.  It is as if they were collecting scripts from actors in a play that was going badly and being shut down.  Then the curtain fell.

For Bruce Pardo, I can theorize (even without interviewing him), there had to be a deep-seeded belief — perhaps an unconscious one — that loss of control or perceived abandonment had always meant chaos and terror.  There may have been unavoidable suffering in his own life as a child, suffering he could do nothing to prevent, suffering that left him, long into his adult life, with a child’s intense brand of terror at being powerless.  There can be no consoling such a “man” when events — even those of his own making — seem to be rendering him isolated, subject to forces (like job loss and divorce decrees) he cannot bend to his infantile will, impotent.

Those feelings of impotence, I believe, may have been the ones turned upside-down and inside-out in the months leading to the Christmas Eve carnage in Covina.  They may have been the ones that became fuel for a pathological and sinister plot that, in his own twisted mind, turned Bruce Pardo, for one terrible night, into the strongest man on earth, wielding the power of life and death over others, as though the frailties in his own psyche could somehow be camouflaged, even beyond his own recognition, by a storm of bullets and shield of flame.

The last moments of Abraham Biggs’ nineteen years of life were broadcast live via the Internet on Justin.tv. 

 Biggs, a Broward College student who reportedly suffered from bipolar disorder, had posted a suicide note on BodyBuilding.com before overdosing on a combination of opiates and benzodiazepine tranquilizers in front of his webcam. 

Just as shocking as Biggs’ decision to end his life publicly was the fact that strangers encouraged him to do it.  Some in the virtual audience texted entries like “lol” (for “laughing out loud”) and “hahahaha.”

Other viewers did contact the Web site, and police were eventually notified.  They found Biggs dead 12 hours later.

The lesson in this tragedy is the same whether we think about the lead actor in this made-for-the-Web reality drama or his viewers.  All were lost in a hall of mirrors that deprived them of real human connectedness.  When Biggs shared his overwhelming desperation with strangers, and when those strangers treated him without humanity, they were laced together—each and every one of them—in the peculiarly potent kind of depersonalization that today’s technology breeds. 

When we broadcast our life stories over and over again—whether on Justin.tv or Facebook or YouTube—we run the risk of slipping the bindings of our real feelings and experiences and becoming, in some small or greater way, actors in our own lives.   And as actors, some number of us will feel free to do and say things that are not a reflection of our true, deep character, but of the characters we have created for public dissemination.

Abraham Biggs may have committed suicide alone, without an audience.  But broadcasting his overdose may have made it seem just a little less real to him, a little like acting out his own death without having to really die, like an actor reading a script who stands up after the death scene and walks off the stage.  And those who watched and did nothing, or who watched and laughed out loud, or watched and egged Biggs on, might never have behaved that way were a person standing in front of them ready to end his life. 

While some may have believed Biggs was faking his death, I believe others were rendered inhuman by the fact that a camera turned the last pages of his life story into entertainment.

We are past due for major research into the psychological effects of the Internet on human emotion, behavior and relationships.  With tens of millions of Americans participating in online social networks and dating sites and photo sharing sites and (perhaps most toxic of all) Second Life, some percentage of users may be gradually disconnecting from themselves and others and reality.

Maybe it isn’t too big a leap to wonder whether that’s one reason Americans seem increasingly drawn into “bubbles” of fiction that eventually burst, causing real suffering.  Think about the near-delusional thinking that fueled the Internet stock bubble and the real estate bubble.  Think about the fact that our government is now injecting staggering amounts of capital into failed businesses to make them look like real businesses, in hopes that they will eventually become real businesses.

Biggs’ story is shocking because it captures the last minutes of a good and decent young man’s life.  It is all about private suffering turned inside out into a scripted, public spectacle in which the pain was meaningless to many of those made privy to it.  The Internet wrung the truth out of it. 

We’d better find out—and soon—how “connecting” through today’s technology may be disconnecting us from ourselves and from others.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com or e-mail him at info@keithablow.com.

Tales of traders throwing themselves out of windows on Wall Street in the wake of 1929 were essentially myths, as John Kenneth Galbraith noted in his 1955 account of the crash.

Nevertheless, current economic woes are clearly impacting on our country’s mental and physical health. Stress is a well documented cause of depression, suicide, heart disease, stroke, predisposition to infection, and certain kinds of cancer.

Stress is often subliminal, it may overtake you before you realize it.  The last thing a person in financial trouble needs is to be simultaneously dealing with illness, yet stress-induced illness is common.
 
SOME WORRISOME EXAMPLES OF THE EFFECTS OF FINANCIAL TROUBLES:

* In New York, calls to the Hopeline network for people with depression or suicidal thoughts leaped 75 percent to 10,368 in the 11 months ending in July 2008.

* In Chicago, ComPsych Corp., the world’s largest provider of employee assistance programs, logged 21 percent more calls seeking help for stress from financial pressures in July than they received a year earlier.

* Hospital admissions for psychiatric services are up 10 percent this year over last year in claims submitted to UnitedHealth Group Inc., the largest U.S. health insurer.

* ValueOptions Inc., the fourth-largest U.S. provider of behavioral health and wellness services, reported that calls for assistance with home foreclosures, bankruptcy and other financial hardships have grown 89 percent this year over 2007.

* Research based on 17 years of Pennsylvania unemployment records concluded that employees affected by a mass layoff at a plant were 15 percent more likely to die of any cause over the next two decades.

* Harvey Brenner, professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, projects that rising unemployment could cause as many as 47,000 more deaths than would have otherwise occurred, including 1,200 more suicides, as well as nearly 26,000 more heart attacks.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT:

* Seek emotional support, from loved ones and if needed, professionals.

* Try to continue to focus on business as usual, and to avoid obsessive negative thoughts.

* Emphasize regular exercise, try relaxation techniques such as yoga or meditation, eat regular meals, and as much as possible, observe regular sleep habits.

* Consult with your physician if your fear over your financial future is spiraling out of control. Anti-anxiety medication may be necessary to break the cycle of worry.

Dr. Marc Siegel is an internist and associate professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. He is a FOX News Medical Contributor and writes a health column for LA Times, where he examines TV and movies for medical accuracy. Dr. Siegel is the author of “False Alarm: the Truth About the Epidemic of Fear” and “Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic”. Read more at www.doctorsiegel.com

This morning as I was leaving the house to come to work at FOX, my 12-year-old son asked me a question that stopped me dead in my tracks.

“Hey dad, is America in a depression?” he said.

And I said “No, why do you ask?”

“Because I hear everybody talking about the economy and all this trouble that I don’t understand,” he said.

“What do you know about the Great Depression of the 1920s,” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “I know there was no money and I think people were jumping out of buildings in New York.”

I tried to reassure him that things were okay and that nobody was jumping out of windows…yet.

But as I left, I started thinking about our conversation, and I asked myself: Why do innocent people suffer? How is all this anxiety and stress over the current economic crisis going to be remembered by the next generation in America?

Yes, every mental health professional will tell us that there are multiple studies that correlate severe financial debt and depression – even suicide.

I remember reading a recent report of two college student that killed themselves after being overwhelmed by credit card debt.

In India, an estimated 150,000 debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide since 1997.

Yes, we all know that suicide is not the solution, but again I asked myself, why do innocent people suffer?

And as I stopped to ponder the answer to my burning question, I began to evaluate some of the things that many of us have forgotten – the things that are truly important.

Love and respect for ourselves and others – that’s what’s important. You can’t buy happiness. The integrity of our lives and the way we love and respect the people we are so fortunate to have in them is far more important than any economic indicator on Wall Street.

So I thought long and hard, and I decided to tell my son the biblical story of Job – a story I think many people should read in these times of financial crisis.

Job was a happy man, a wealthy man who lived a prosperous life filled with family and good fortune. But one day, Job was tested by God. He was stripped of his fortune, his family and his health. Job began to complain of God’s indifference, he wondered why God did not punish the wicked instead of him. But after all of his analysis, he understood that what was important to God was the love that should never be questioned — the love that he has for his children. And, in the end, Job’s prosperity was restored.

Why do innocent people suffer? Because perhaps they forget that love, compassion and respect settles all debt.

The suicides of two stunningly successful individuals in two days should be enough to do away with the notion that great beauty or professional achievement or a treasured family and good friends can immunize anyone from the potential ravages of desperation and major depression. 

On June 28, supermodel Ruslana Korshunova plunged nine floors to her death from her apartment in Manhattan’s financial district.  She had just come back from a modeling gig in Paris.  A friend said she was “on top of the world.”

On June 30, Dr. Douglas Meyer, an esteemed physician at Manhattan’s Beth Israel Medical Center, described by a co-worker as “full of life,” leapt 17 stories to his death.

As a practicing psychiatrist for 15 years, I can tell you that these tragedies were a long time in the making.  The complete wearing away of self-esteem or shutting down of the ability to see any future other than darkness is more like a curtain slowly closing than a door swinging shut.  Indeed, the fragile sense of self that can give way to a free fall may be decades in the making.

Why did no one see it happening in these two cases?  Or why, if someone intuited that it could, was it not prevented?

One reason is that we don’t like to think of ourselves—whether as associates or friends or family members—as parts of personal dramas that could be so dark.  We deploy a kind of denial about the lives of others that suggests things will “turn out alright,” that terrible tragedies of the kind that have visited the families of Korshunova and Meyer happen to other families, that the light in the lives of our loved ones could never be extinguished.

Another reason is that we mistake the ability to do one’s work in this world, and do it well, for well-being.  I have treated executives and politicians and health care providers who went to work on time and performed admirably, even brilliantly, while battling major depression and even delusional (psychotic) thinking.

And yet another reason is that we may fear that opening up a discussion about whether someone is actually “on the edge,” or “unsure of whether he or she can go on” will put us in a kind of psychological no-man’s land where we will be lost, over our heads, not knowing what to say or do. 

Here are a few things you can do:

1.      Be alert for major depression in people you care about.  The symptoms include low moods and tearfulness, but they also include trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping, changes in appetite, low self-esteem and dwelling on personal losses, even ones that took place in the distant past.  And, remember, major depression affects people of both genders, every age and every socioeconomic group, without exception.

2.      Listen a little like a psychiatrist.  That means if someone says something about life being “too hard” or the future not being “worth it,” it’s okay to pause and ask a nonjudgmental follow-up question.  No one will hold it against you.  “Are you saying you don’t see any sense in living?”  “Are you telling me you’ve thought about hurting yourself?” 

3.      Listen even more for the person’s answer.  Your patience and openness can literally be a lifeline.

4.      If someone opens up about feeling desperate, you can offer to take a walk over to an ER, to make a call for an appointment with a psychiatrist who comes highly recommended or to schedule a “right now” appointment with the person’s internist or family physician.

5.      Remind the person that he or she cannot judge, while depressed or desperate, where he or she will be, or how that person will feel, just a few weeks or a few months from then.  Depression is, arguably, the most treatable condition in all of psychiatry.  The vast, vast majority of patients get completely well—which is why it is so important to keep them safe when they can’t keep themselves safe.

6.      Share your own frailties.  Depressed or desperate people often feel completely alone.  They won’t be dragged further down by you speaking to times you’ve felt like all was lost, or like hiding or like you really needed help; they’ll be sustained by your openness.

7.      Don’t feel like you have to keep quiet about what feels like an impending crisis.  Call the person’s family or physician or both.  You’ll be forgiven, because you’ll be acting in good faith, trying to do what’s right.

Being a supermodel doesn’t make you too beautiful to hate yourself, and being a great doctor doesn’t make you stronger or smarter than mental illness.  No one is immune.  These couple of days reminds us of that, as they cost us two great talents and two good, vulnerable people.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com.

Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday.

A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Click here to read the full report