Stephen Hinshaw, UAHS Class of 1970
Notable achievements at Upper Arlington High School
I was a multi-sport athlete, playing on the state champion football teams of 1968 and 1969, as well as on the basketball and track teams, and I was valedictorian of the Class of 1970.
College / career experiences
I departed for Harvard in the fall of 1970, majoring in psychology and social relations. This choice for this field of study was prompted by a talk I had with my father during my first spring break back in Columbus in the spring of 1971, when he revealed the reason for his sudden and mysterious disappearances from our home when I was a boy: namely, his lifelong mental illness and periodic, brutal hospitalizations. My sister Sally and I knew nothing of the reason, as Dad's lead doctor had forbidden any mention of the topic. Mom and Dad were therefore part of a professionally ordered pact of silence. This is a real example of how much shame and stigma were attached to mental illness (and still are, though things are changing).
After graduating from college, while I directed school and camp programs for kids with special needs, I helped Dad to get an accurate diagnosis of bipolar disorder and the treatments he'd been missing since the time of his first episode, back in California, when he was 16. I went on to get my Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA, so that I could learn as much as possible about (a) causes of, (b) long term outcomes related to, and (c) treatments for a variety of behavioral and emotional and developmental disorders.
I ended up becoming a professor at UC Berkeley and now have a second position at UC San Francisco. In short, I teach undergrad and grad courses; I do research on ADHD, neuropsychology, the special risks for girls related to depression and self-harm, treatment outcomes, and mental illness stigma; I write research articles and books; and I lecture wherever I can on the need to deal with the mental health crisis all around us, including the need for narrative accounts to promote humanization. My most recent book, "Another Kind of Madness: A Journey Through the Stigma and Hope of Mental Illness" (St. Martin's), provides a deep look at our family's story and what we can all do to shatter the stigma.
How did UA Schools prepare you for success?
I was prepared for the toughest of academic experiences at Harvard and UCLA (and my program of research at Berkeley) by the coursework in science, math and the humanities at UAHS — and for the need to be tough and strong during difficult life experiences, mainly through the athletics program. It was also through my sports participation that I learned the value of being part of strong teams, experiences that I have tried to recapture with colleagues and scientists here and around the world during my research career.