Best in Mental Health (12/19/16 – 1/8/17)

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
• Therapy and Relationships
• Social Work, Tech & Education
• Self-Care
• NonProfit Career & Private Practice

Advocacy

• Three Questions for a Social Innovation Leader – Innovate@BCSocialWork/Yolanda Coentro – “Being a social innovator means taking some risks, having courage to go against the grain and getting started even before it is all perfectly planned out…”

• The Continuing Relevance of Immigration History – InSocialWork podcast interview w/Dr. David Gerber – “a lens of immigration history in the United States… the popular narrative we have about immigrants and refugees stands in sharp contrast to what is really happening in our society…”
• ‘Exposing the Silence’ On Traumatic Birthing Experiences – Robert T. Muller – “abusive birthing practices are more common than we might think… interviewed over thirty women… medicated without consent, spoken to disrespectfully, and coerced into unwanted procedures…”
• Join NASW at the Women’s March on Washington – NASW/Greg Wright – “January 21, 2017… March is an opportunity to show that women’s rights are human rights… sign up through Eventbrite…”
• Needed: A New Vision of Foster Care – SJS/Chronicle Of Social Change – “foster parents should be paid as professionals, with one parent in each household parenting full-time. Second, foster parents should be part of a community…”
• Liberal Tears, #FakeNews, and Finding Meaning on Post-Election Social Media – Stuck on Social Work – “Technology is shaping how we consume information… My “liberal tears” are not just about his [Trump’s] policies, they are about his way of communicating his ideas…”
• Social Movements Rise From Need – SWH/Jerry Mooney – “People are banding together, creating movements and symbols to show that those who are marginalized will not be victimized, at least not without backlash…”
• Study Shows Sexual Harassment Is Common in Middle School – Good Therapy/Zawn Villines – “few bullying programs address this highly prevalent form of bullying… Boys were significantly more likely to be sexual harassers, whether their targets were male or female…”
  • Millions of Students Skip School Each Year Because of Bullying – Justin W. Patchin – “many students skip school every day because of bullying… but the precise number remains elusive…”
• What could really help the working class? Paid leave – Eleanor Krause – “Workers need some time away from work for various reasons: a sick family member, personal illness, a new child…”
• Writing about Social Work — How, why and where – Ermintrude – “Find a platform… best to start by writing for yourself and think about what you would want to read… Find a voice… Think about what you want to achieve…”

Healthcare

• App capable of lowering depression, anxiety symptoms by 50 percent – Cara Livernois – “14 IntelliCare apps offered exercises to reduce self-criticism, stress and worrying all while providing positive feedback and advice on self-care…”
• Driving and dementia: when’s the best time to hang up those driving gloves? – Akshay Nair – “the loss of driving… one of the most significant losses experienced… combination approach… best way of best assessing driving ability: Opinions from clinical experts, Neuropsychological tests…”
• How can health and social care work together effectively? – Mark Raeburn – “cement lasting relationships between health and social care… make it easier for authorised people in each service to share data… “
• Stop saying these 7 shaming words in medicine. Right now – Pamela Wible – “Words matter. Choose them wisely. Here are 7 words that shame, blame, and injure people who need our help… Don’t say COMMITTED suicide. Committed implies a crime…”

Therapy and Relationships

• Do Relationships Make Us Healthier and Happier? – Melanie Greenberg – “relationships not only make us happy, they also influence our long-term health as much as getting enough sleep, eating healthy, and not smoking…”
  • E.P.I.C Love … What you need to know! – Robyn D’Angelo – “YOU are the one who gets to define EPIC love. You get to decide what’s included, what isn’t allowed and what you’ll tolerate…”
  • Social lives, genes, and our health – All in the Mind interview w/Steve Cole – “what matters is your lifestyle… that seems to matter most for the production of disease… two things that stand out as relatively protective… having a sense of overarching purpose or meaning in your life…”
  • Women Who Stay In Unhappy Marriages –  Lourdes Viado interview w/Anne Strauss – “How non-emotional fear such as finances can make women feel stuck… Regret about not leaving the marriage when knowing it was time…”
• Mindfully Befriending Fear – Mindfulness Muse – “direct patience and compassion toward yourself if you are struggling with fear or anxiety… What information is fear trying to convey to you?… What is the cost of avoiding people, places, or situations associated with fear?…”
• Social Work as Moral Compass – New Social Worker/Danna Bodenheimer – “to talk is to heal… We allow our clients’ cues to pace our inquiry… broaden their emotional literacy, to feel what feels un-feelable, we send change agents out into the world…”
• Therapist Integrity: How to Hold Space and Hope for Therapy Clients – Ili Walter – “It is hope–your hope and your clients’ hope–that makes therapy a special place…”
  • Time in the Dark: Winter Solstice – Dr. Ann Becker Schutte – “Darkness, whether it’s from emotional pain, physical pain, or spiritual pain–is a part of the human experience… We can’t avoid them [pain and darkness], but we can move through them, make progress in our healing…”
• VALIDATION: The Relational Skill that Softens Defenses – Lara Fielding – “Done correctly, it is an action of acknowledgment of the presence of difficult internal experiences (in yourself or someone else), without trying to change how they feel…”
  • ‘I’m not broken, just stuck’ – Timothy A. Sisemore – “ACT argues that some pain, including emotional pain, is natural and inevitable in life… focuses on six core processes that yield the goal of psychological flexibility…”
  • Supervision Issues in Cognitive Therapy – Beck Institute – “keep two questions in mind… “How can I help this patient feel better by the end of the session?”…“How can I help this patient have a better week?””
• What is attachment and attachment disorder? – JKP/Colby Pearce – “way adults treat any generation of children shapes the way those children will, in turn, treat the next generation when they are adults… ‘attachment’ is a term used to describe the dependency relationship children develop towards their primary caregivers… ”
  • The Battle Over Inappropriate Teenage Clothing – Your Teen Mag/Rebecca Meiser – “often what these arguments are really about are control… adopt a “mutual veto” rule while shopping together…”
  • Instead: Tell Me What You Actually Want Me To Do – Teenage Whisperer – “‘Don’t do this, don’t do that…But what do you want me to do instead?… show me alternates, take me, persist…”
  • Restorative Justice with 4th Graders – Ruth Orme-Johnson – “Too often, we provide the students who make bad choices (our “frequent fliers”) with more attention than the students their behavior harms…”

Social Work, Tech and Education

• A Lesson About Using Technology for Good – Amanda Scott – “take inventory of how much our online presence in positive and uplifting versus negative and unkind… Find a game on one of your devices that encourages you to interact with the other people in the room…”
• Communities of Practice Could Be Your Pathway to Clinical Mastery – Psychotherapy Networker – “As therapists, we often lead isolated professional lives, seeing client after client without meeting regularly with our colleagues… In a community of practice, it’s the members themselves who are in charge of the learning…”
• Is the High Tech Social Worker a Myth or Reality? – “While many social workers are early technology adopters, traditionalists have been resistant to change… Join… #MacroSW chat… Jan. 12 at 9 pm EST…”
• Review of Teaching & Learning in Social Work Blog Posts for 2016 – Laurel Hitchcock – “the end of a year is a natural time for reflection, and this year I offer a review of all the posts…”
• Students: help us review these resources! – Students 4 Best Evidence – “Confusing claims about the effects of treatments – from drugs to diets – are everywhere… work your way through the related resources. You need not have ever blogged before…”
• When Memes Are Therapy – Cher Tan – “women, people of color, and queers are finding refuge in online spaces, seeking solace with each other in a show of solidarity across the globe… memes act as a useful conduit between “internet” and “IRL.”…”

Self-Care

• How to Create a Routine that Supports Good Mental Health – Sharon Martin – “When you set and keep a routine, it’s easier to make healthy choices… set bedtime and wake-up time… healthy breakfast…”
  • Get Organized to Get Inspired – Amy Johnson Maricle – “Creating a space for your art making is one of the single most important creative self-care habits… Display your own art… Keep an open, inviting table space…”
  • How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed and Take Control of Your Life – HealthyPlace/Emily Roberts – “What small action can you do today to feel more productive?… Slow down… Lower your expectations (of yourself and others)…”
  • Identify Self Care Activities to Start, Continue, & Stop – Nicole Clark – “exercise… some examples… Start Doing/Continue Doing- Reading 2 books a month for pleasure… Start Doing/Continue Doing- Physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day… Stop Doing- Negative self talk…”
  • Lasting change is a process, not a resolution – Michelle May – “a simple one-page guide that will help you set your intentions for the new year so download it now…”
  • Self-Care, A-Z: 5 Steps for Successful Self-Care Resolutions, Not Regrets – Erlene Grise-Owens – “Sequester time to reflect on what YOU want in life… partialize these big goals into small steps…”
• Loving Kindness Meditation and Anxiety – Launching Your Daughter – “Loving Kindness or Metta Bhavana… method of developing compassion. It comes from the Buddhist tradition, but it can be adapted and practiced by anyone…”
• The Mood-Food Link: 7 Tips to Greater Mental Health – own – “As per… Dr. Leslie Korn at the 2016 Psychotherapy Networker Symposium… poor nutrition tends to be involved in mental illness and poor health…”
  • How Can Nutrition Affect Mental Health? – TherapyChat interview w/Dr. Leslie Korn – “gut as the second brain… blood sugar can play a very significant role in mental health…”
• The One Thing That’s Keeping You From Being Happy – Dr. Julie Hanks – “identify what you’re insecure about… identify the source of your belief… try to be as objective as possible and determine the facts of the situation…”

NonProfit Career and Private Practice

• Three Reasons You Never Want a Waitlist In Your Practice – Jeremy Sharp – “A Waitlist Provides False Security… Creates More Work…”
• Insurance Contracts 101 – Miranda Palmer – “How MUCH Are You Getting Paid?… HOW are you getting paid?… What services are reimbursed?… Are you allowed to bill for no-shows and late cancellations?…”
• The Only Guide to Graduate Schools by Students for Students – “get the student perspective on nearly 100 graduate programs around the world by providing student ratings of their graduate programs’ integration of social and environmental themes into curricula, career services, and student activities…”
• [Rebroadcast] So you want to work abroad? – SocialWorkPodcast interview w/David Dininio – “Kai Searle with Amicus Recruit has a fantastic opportunity for licensed social workers from the USA, Canada, South Africa, and Australia to do child protection work in the UK…”
• Shifting Philanthropy from Charity to Justice – Dorian O. Burton & Brian C.B. Barnes – “grantmakers and advisors must analyze both the inputs and outputs of their philanthropic efforts, with the goal of justice in mind…”
• Using SEO to Grow Your Private Practice – Selling the Couch interview w/Cathy Hanville – “SEO: What it is and how to use it to help clients find YOU…”
• What Does Resiliency Really Mean for Nonprofit Leaders and Their Organizations? – Beth Kanter – “In the nonprofit sector, resiliency is framed as both a leadership skill for nonprofit professionals as well as organizational capacity…”
• What is HIPAA Breach Notification? – Roy Huggins – “HIPAA includes prepping for when an info breach does happen…”
• You May Be Working Too Hard – Allison Puryear – “Workaholism is real… Write down everything you do all workday… Get really clear about where you’re spending your time whether you feel harried…”

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