Mental Health Roundup
This contains some of the latest news in social work, healthcare, private practice and more!
This week’s wrap-up has 6 main themes:
- Advocacy
- Healthcare
- Technology
- Therapy/Relationships
- Self-Care
- Career/Private Practice
Advocacy
- 5 Actions White Educators Can Take to Help Make Schools Anti-Racist – Jamie Utt – “gap between knowledge and action is one of the greater challenges in realizing racial justice pedagogies among the 80% of our teachers who are white…”
- @Deray & @BreneBrown on Race, Privilege, & Shame – Sean Erreger storified a wonderful conversation that Brene’ Brown and Deray McKeeson started on Race, Privilege, and Shame; others shared thoughts & resources.
- How the Government Can Help People With Mental Health Issues – Becky Oberg – “A mental health disability… varies in severity… government… program which allows disability to be reinstated quickly if we regress… system prevents you from coming off it…”
- Impact of Recent Court Decisions on Abortion Access – Gretchen Ely – “decisions… expose the intent of the policies, which was to make abortion inaccessible by victimizing vulnerable patients with unnecessary regulation…”
- The most educated women are the most likely to be married – Allegra Pocinki – “Women with the most education have the most economic independence… using this power to renegotiate the terms of marriage in a more egalitarian direction…”
- New WHO diagnostic labels perpetuate transgender stigma – SJS/Fordham Univ Center for Ethics Education – “declassify transgender identity as a mental disorder is simultaneously a step forward in affirming the personhood of gender minority individuals, and a step backward in diagnoses that adequately reflect their health needs…”
- On Social Media, As In Life, White People Are Way Less Likely To Talk About Race – Gene Demby – “chief obstacle to having an intelligent, or even intelligible, conversation across the racial divide is that on average white Americans live in communities that face far fewer problems and talk mostly to other white people…”
- “Why Are They Angry with Us?”: A Discussion on Race and Racism in America – inSocialWork podcast: Nancy Smyth interview w/Dr. Larry Davis – “if we were slaves, why were white people angry with us?… cognitive dissonance theory… our attitudes and behaviors have to be in agreement…“
Healthcare
- Abuse In Childhood Raises The Risk Of Early Death For Women – NPR – “the physical and psychiatric problems associated with abuse can lead to reduced longevity… Or people who experience abuse may use drugs or engage in other unhealthy behaviors…”
- How Social Spending Affects Health Outcomes – Elizabeth H. Bradley – “states with higher ratios of social service spending to health care spending had better outcomes on average… particularly meaningful: supportive housing; nutritional support…”
- NASW updates Standards of Social Work Practice in Health Care Settings – it highlights “Social work responsibilities in the context of new health care delivery models… social determinants of health and health disparities… Working in interprofessional teams and integrated care settings…”
- Psychotherapy for depression: enhancing positive and reducing negative affect? – Carla McEnery – “PA and NA levels might be significant factors… and should be assessed in clinical settings as secondary variables besides depressive symptoms…”
- A Suicidologist’s New Challenge: The George Washington Bridge – Gabrielle Glaser- “Dr. Gould… adamant… most powerful deterrent of all: depriving people at particular risk of killing themselves of access to the means for doing so… Contagion influences at least 5 percent of suicide deaths of young people…”
- Worcester: Sharing Stories, Healing Community – Larke N. Huang, Rebecca Flatow & Mary Blake – “Ally training is about understanding personal and cultural identities and forming trusting, safe relationships… personal narratives have become valued as an essential part of treatment…”
Technology
- Pokemon Go: Should You Let Your Kids Play? – Stephen Borgman – “users hunt Pokémon characters nearly anywhere in the world. However, not all characters are in safe places for kids… build boundaries… Set up Pokémon hunting grounds in reality, allowing your kids to be safe while in their virtual world…”
- Pokémon GO and Social Work: Empowering With Pocket Monsters – Yi Zhang, Jesus Limon, Esteban Plata, Lizeth Sebastian, and Carolina Ramirez – “Many people struggling with depression and social anxiety have claimed that Pokémon Go has improved their mood and social skills…”
- Wait, let me google it. On the fall (and rise?) of human memory – “Rather than refusing to use the wealth of the internet… teach ourselves how to use it most efficiently to retrieve information and assess the trustworthiness of said intel…”
- Will the Internet of Things make us superhuman? – Scott Amyx – “Transhumanism will very likely be the next stage of human development. Every element of human physiology… will be enhanced…”
- What you need to know about Musical.ly – Sameer Hinduja – “there is nothing inherently bad about the Musical.ly… take the time to become familiar with its features… understand the privacy controls… convey the importance of exercising sound judgment and discretion…”
Therapy/Relationships
- 3 Tips for Successful Couples Counseling – [own] Pat Love and Eva Berlander – “The Power of the Therapeutic Contract”… Make a therapeutic contract… Focus on what works… Create a receiving place…”
- 5 Tips to Raise a Leader Who Doesn’t Follow the Crowd – Mercedes Samudio -“Discuss and Explore Values At Home… Encourage Role Playing… Entertain Their Crazy Ideas…”
- Building Safe School Communities: Our Circle of Care – Jeff Ream – “need for a consultation platform drove me to seek out the help of my colleagues… team meets every other Tuesday morning for about an hour… Each… brings unique perspective and ideas to the table…”
- The Change – Martha Crawford – “I have to listen to my body, and not battle with it, and do this with dignity and humor and face reality and find meaning and pleasure in it… stories of my elders in my life and my practice as guideposts…”
- Community-Based MHPSS in Areas of Mass Violence (MSF) – Jodi Nelan – “guidance on treating psychiatric emergencies, providing health education in the context of a traumatized or fragmented community… treating patients who have been exposed to chemical and biological warfare”
- Creativity and mental illness – All in the Mind interview w/Simon Kyaga & Dr. Nancy Andreasen – “foundation is… ability to see… things that other people can’t, which then leads to being rejected… which then leads to depression or whatever… it’s not ‘mood disorder causes creativity, creativity causes mood disorder’…”
- Helping parents role model being imperfect to teens – Launching Your Daughter interview w/Sharon Martin – “Parents can role model self-acceptance… being imperfect is enough… Self-compassion can help us accept our mistakes and imperfections…”
- How To Be Assertive – Therapy Chat podcast interview w/Dr. Julie Hanks – “How does attachment relate to our ability to ask for what we need?… What is assertiveness?… Why is assertiveness difficult for some women?…”
- The Inner Peanut Gallery – Dima Dupéré – “cartoon… trauma has no one true face, but rather, differs for each individual. Physical symptoms, sleep disturbances, feelings of isolation, and lack of confidence can all be part in this experience…”
- Recognizing and Changing an Abusive Relationship – Sharie Stines – “abuse, like addiction, is a chronic “disease” that progresses with time, meaning it only gets worse… signs that an abuser is changing: (a) he is willing to be accountable to his spouse and others…”
- What to Do When Your Therapy Clients Cry – Jay Efran – “When the tearful episode winds down, we typically ask, “What’s the thought that helped you cry?”… ease the shift from upset to recovery…”
Self-Care
- Painting the Blues – Amy Johnson Maricle – “we’re going to be painting the blues, and hopefully, transforming them… Any watercolor set and watercolor brush will do…”
- What the Balinese do for anxiety – Lisa Mitchell – “unique mix of Hinduism and Buddhism… daily offerings practice… hand sized sculptures made from coconut palm leaves and flowers… Children learn to make these intricate weavings as early as age 6… “
NonProfit Career/Private Practice
- 40 Online Counseling Directories To Help You Get Found Online – Tamara Suttle – “Before you take the time to fill out the profiles or send them your hard earned money, do your research…”
- Finding the Right Location for Your Practice – Selling the Couch podcast inteview w/Jim Jonas – “Start small… Have an anchor therapist… Find a realtor to help… Does the space “feel” good?… Affordability… Other tenants’ opinions…”
- S-Corps, LLCs, and Tax Structure for Private Practice– Practice of the Practice interview w/CPA Ron Harris – “you’re running a business… have your own checking account for the business, credit card for the business… much easier to put a tax return together… if you use personal account… you’re going to miss some expenses… pay more taxes than you should…”
- Serving as an expert witness – “Doc Warren” Corson III – “As an expert witness, you should not have a side… outcome of the case is not your concern; providing an impartial opinion is… no clinician ever advises a client… we… help clients explore all the options… so they can make their own decisions…”
- Sleep-Wake Disorders and the Social Work Exam – SWTP – “free practice question… from the Sleep-Wake Disorders chapter of the DSM…”
- What do I need to do besides blog to rank higher in Google? – Ask Juliet & Clinton Show – “take care of your website… make sure it’s loading quickly… not to fixate on getting on the first page of Google… think… more about how… have a bigger presence online…”
- Write Your Dreams Down, And Don’t Crumple The Paper – Relando Thompkins-Jones – “a visioning activity where we wrote about things we were passionate about, and work that we’d like to be doing in the… future on a piece of paper…”
