By Anna Sanders 11/07/11 2:30pm

Mental Health Protest

(Screenshot: AP)

UPDATED: Former Employee of Rockland Co. Dept. of Mental Health Takes Off Pants, Lets Go of Rope, After Dangling Off Tappan Zee Bridge [VIDEO]

Update: The man let go of the rope on purpose or accidentally fell into the water around 2 p.m., according to The Nation’s Greg Mitchell. He landed in water or on the deck of barge and was taken to police barracks, Mr. Mitchell reports. The man’s condition is unknown, but NBC New York reports the man fell in the water, not on the barge. Right now he’s on an emergency worker’s boat, according to Gothamist. Before jumping he also took off his pants, apparently, and tried to swim away but emergency workers gave him a life preserver, which he took.

Occupy Wall Street might have to step up their protesting efforts. A man is currently dangling off the Tappan Zee Bridge, protesting his termination at a mental health facility Rockland County. Michael Davitt is clinging to a banner that’s tied to a van blocking traffic on the bridge over the Hudson River, occasionally taking sips from a thermos. The banner reads “ROCKLAND EXECUTIVE LEGISLATURE COVER UP RETALIATION,” and Patch reports his car has closed one lane. Read More

By Paula Froelich 11:20am

Mental Health Week

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The Neuroses of New York

Recently, a woman entered taxi driver Marc Preven’s cab just outside of FAO Schwartz on Madison and East 60th with her “son,” a Jack Russell terrier. “She tells me, ‘It’s his birthday,’” Mr. Preven recalled. “Then she says that every year on his birthday she takes him to FAO Schwarz to pick out a toy. This year the dog picked out a Paul Frank plush monkey. But you know, that’s not even weird to me anymore—it’s like, don’t all dogs get to go to FAO Schwarz on their birthday and pick out a birthday toy?”

In 1936, Karen Horney, a Neo-Freudian psychoanalyst who once had an ill-fated affair with pioneering social psychologist Erich Fromm, published what was then the definitive work on neurosis, The Neurotic Personality of Our Time. Naturally, she was a New York City resident at the time. (Brooklyn, actually.) Read More