Best in Mental Health (5/8/17 – 5/21/17)

Mental Health Roundup

This contains some of the latest news in social work, healthcare, private practice and more!

This wrap-up has 6 main themes:

• Therapy and Relationships
• Healthcare
• Advocacy
• Self Care
• Social Work, Technology & Education
• NonProfit Career & Private Practice

Therapy and Relationships

• 10 Top Tips and Techniques for Expanding Empathy – Lou Agosta/SJS – “listen to the other person… secret… remove the obstacles to empathy. Denial, resignation, cynicism, shame, judging, and so on, get in the way…Do you wonder if your baby likes you?…”
  • Flying words: listening to hear – Sam Ross – “you don’t notice the words… Unsaid and spoken… My body, the message… Signposts of what’s broken… I get shut down… Before I’m even open…”
• Denial in Substance Use – Cory Newman – “under-reporting, minimizing, and denial…  When a patient denies that he or she is an “alcoholic” or “addict,” it is not necessary to get into an “all or none” battle… examine cause and effect… to see if alcohol and other drugs are harming…”
• Focusing on Parent-Child Relationships Can Prevent Child Maltreatment – Social Work Helper – “More than 90 percent of maltreated children are victimized by one or both parents… tiered approach wherein families are provided with brief interventions first…”
  • Building Family Engagement with “Cultural Brokering” – Michele Patak-Pietrafesa – “study… Create welcoming school climates… Create opportunities for them to engage with each other and work toward shared goals, and link families of the same culture or language for culturally specific support…”
  • EMDR vs. CBT for Child Trauma Treatment – Trauma Institute – “EMDR and TF-CBT are both effective treatments for trauma-exposed children and teens… EMDR is probably more efficient than TF-CBT…”
  • Exploring and Understanding Maternal Mental Health – Family Couch interview w/Katayune Kaeni – “potential emotional and mental struggles that a mother or family may go through from conception to postpartum…”
  • Glow in the dark calming crafts  – Kristina Sargent – “Nighttime fears… especially affects those who have experienced trauma… Little ones: have the child or caregiver paint a picture of the child’s safe place or safe person (real person or superhero)…”
  • How Expressing Difference Brings Connection – Julie Hanks – “Women with low levels of differentiation tend to either completely conform to someone else in order to avoid conflict, or… essentially abandon the relationship…”
  • Navigating Your Child’s Transition to Adulthood – Therapy Chat podcast – “It’s possible to feel happy and sad at the same time, and knowing I feel this way I can be more compassionate toward myself…”
  • New Documentary Makes it Easy to Talk with Kids about Porn – Dina Alexander – “NO explicit imagery of any kind… clear, animated depictions of how addiction works… addresses shame…”
  • Overcoming Mom Guilt – Christina Hibbert – “2 Types of Guilt… Depressive guilt… drags us down and makes us feel low and useless… Motivational Guilt… good… if we use it for something good…”
  • Thriving After Divorce – Women in Depth interview w/Mia Quaglia- “hurdles and challenges… Dealing with the grieving process… How you can grow yourself… roadblocks and red flags to look out for…”
• I believed in the lie… but the truth is – Dima Dupéré – “Often when we tell ourselves things like: “I’m not good enough, I am alone, no one cares, I’ll never reach my goals” it can become our main narrative.  But if we stop and challenge those, at some level, we know they are lies… overlap the lies with the truth…”
• Natasha’s Story – from ‘The Voice Book for Trans and Non-Binary People’ – JKP Blog – “when I… was working in my office as a woman, I was acutely aware of the maleness in my voice… It was important to me to feel congruent with myself… there was incongruence with my voice and my appearance…”
• New Kind of Safety Plan – Social Work Tech – “Plans are better than contracts… giving clients identifiable tools to make healthy choices…”
  • Tree of Strength Art Directive – Creativity in Therapy – “reinforce strengths and positive coping… Lay your hand on the paper, fingers spread, with part of your arm on the paper as well… On each leaf write one thing that helps you get through a difficult time…”
• Therapy is Political– Practice of Being Seen interview w/Nam Rindani – “therapists are human beings first and they play the part of therapists in certain settings… Therapy must focus on the personal, but also includes vaster experiences of oppression and marginalization…”

Healthcare

• Ethics of digital technology for mental health – Mental Elf – “There must be a clear distinction between the algorithmic findings from the practice of psychiatry, and commercial findings for profit… certifying organisation independent of all vendors of apps and services should exist to certify apps…”
• How much evidence is in evidence-based practice? –  Ludwig Ruf – “you can’t trust per se any scientific findings stating that they found a statistical significant result…”
• Neuroscience and Society: The Opioid Epidemic – “latest epidemic came about in large part out of doctors’ good intentions… Opioids are very effective for acute pain…”
• Preparing for the mental health impact of climate change – Debbie C. Sturm and Lennis G. Echterling – “researchers predicted a sharp rise in… depression and anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, suicide and outbreaks of violence…”
• Two Studies Uncover Long-Lasting Effects of Childhood Bullying – Zawn Villines/GoodTherapy.org – “students who experienced bullying were more likely to use drugs and alcohol in 10th grade… more symptoms of depression…”

Advocacy

• Breaking Free from Gender Expectations – Lindsay – “Gender is who you go to bed as and sexuality is who you go to bed with… freedom for self-expression…”
• Economics of Urban Segregation (part 2) – InSocialWork podcast interview w/Henry Louis Taylor Jr. – “role that social work must play in the development of just communities… how a society with very limited resources has been able to create highly developed communities to meet the needs of its inhabitants…”
• #IAmAPreExistingCondition: Medicaid is the Lifeline that Saved Me – Vilissa Thompson – “Medicaid… social program… under attack if the Senate accumulates enough votes for the American Health Care Act (AHCA)… replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare…”
• Innovation Symposium – Novel Solutions in Changemaking – BCSSW – ““the how” being just as important as “the what” when building new initiatives… technology, when properly implemented, can effect compassionate change… generate stronger relationships across sectors…”
• Models Face Routine Exploitation, Mental Health Problems – Ty LeBlanc – “Former model Nikki Dubose… sexual assault survivor… eating disorders and mental-health issues… common… for many in the modelling industry…”
• SIDS – Jeri Wilson/SDSU School of Social Work – ” learning about SIDS… relieved me of guilt and helped me to survive her [my daughter’s] loss… Grieving SIDS parents need to know that they have done nothing wrong…”
• Social Work Day at the UN 2017 – New Social Worker – “joint program of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW)… focus was on Environmental and Community Sustainability… video…”
• Trump’s Impact on Americans of Color – Rogelio Saenz – “president does not care for people of color…  travel ban… expanded the categories of people who could be deported… people of color at greater risk of… having their civil rights violated…”

Self-Care

• Stress: Is it Your Friend or Foe? – PsychCentral –  “George Faller, LMFT’s “Befriending Stress” workshop… sweet spot of eustress stress is what is needed to enable you to achieve your goals…”
  • Aid to Zen: W – Wounded Healer – Alessandra Pigni/Mindful Next – “we are always being asked to encounter ourselves when encountering the suffering and brokenness of another… neglecting our own wounds will not stop injustice…”
  • Art Journal Starter Kit – Amy Johnson Maricle – “On a day I’m feeling stressed, even 10 minutes of art and creative self-care makes my day more special and meaningful…”
  • Help your teen manage soul crushing stress – Dr. Susan – “Take demands off of your teen’s plate… De-emphasize grades, performance and preparing for “the real world.”…”
  • Improving Your Everyday Life Through Art Therapy – Caileigh Flannigan/Love & Life Toolbox – “Using art as a medium for healing promotes self-exploration, understanding, self-esteem, and awareness…”
  • Parents and Teens Challenge Anxiety – Launching Your Daughter interview w/Lynn Lyons – “subtle changes parents can look out for… embrace the uncertainty and discomfort… How parents inadvertently increase anxiety…”
  • Surprising Benefits of Yoga – Stephen Borgman – “excellent way to help both Aspergians and non-Aspergians face their daily challenges and gain success… cope with anxiety…”
  • Use Mandalas as Tools to Reduce Anxiety – Tanya J. Peterson/HealthyPlace – “coloring mandalas is a calming experience… mandalas symbolize the universe… choose mandalas that appeal to you…”

Social Work, Technology & Education

• Facebook and Twitter ‘harm young people’s mental health’ – “Four of the five most popular forms of social media harm young people’s mental health, with Instagram the most damaging…”
• Harmful supervision – socialworknz  – “harmful and inadequate supervision remains a persistent problem in the helping professions… largely unacknowledged, unrecognized, and not understood… theme of feeling afraid that seeking help and speaking up about a harmful supervisor would have negative ramifications for their personal and professional lives…”
• Harnessing Social Media for Social Good at #CG4SW – Laurel Hitchcock & Melanie Sage – “we proposed that social media can be a tool to help social work academics and practitioners to discover and share knowledge as well as build relationships for collaborative work… copy of the slides…”
• Learning to learn – All in the Mind – “ability to Google makes learning more important than ever. We have to be able to do and learn in the ways that computers can’t learn… learning process is more important than learning facts…”
  • Teens Benefit From a Growth Mindset (That Hard Work Matters) – Susan Borison/Your Teen Mag – “While handling setbacks is critical when it comes to grit, so is sustained effort… kids who get praised for their effort… see failure as… temporary…”
• Teen Social Media Use: How to Engage Parents – Ili Walter interview w/Leslie Baker – “develop an understanding first before you offer any solutions… (clients) range from absolute privacy for the youth to no privacy for the youth… I always shoot for the middle…”
  • Blue Whale Challenge – Justin W. Patchin – “not a single suicide (nor any harm whatsoever) has been confirmed to be linked to the challenge… sensationalist fake started by Russian media back in May 2016…“

NonProfit Career & Private Practice

• Documentation Consultations: Policies, Forms and HIPAA – Maelisa Hall – “level of detail to include in your policies/forms… What to review with clients who may be court-ordered… payment issues… social media policies…”
  • Social Media & HIPAA – Katie Malinski – “your social media policy does not have to attempt to control whether or not a client “follows” you or leaves a review, but instead provides information, and highlights what your actions will be in each of these scenarios…”
• Double Duty Business Card – Perfected Practice – “three ideas on how you can maximize the mileage…  showcase your tagline if it is particularly useful for helping clients as they work with you…”
• #Hired: Digital Reputation Advice for the Class of 2017 – Josie Ahlquist – “Google yourself… know your search results on all platforms… craft your brand… search for more than jobs…”
• How Guest Blogging Can Help or Hurt Your Business – Sharon Martin – “be strategic about who you write for and who you ask to write on your blog…”
• Pushing Toward Greatness – Joe Sanok – “Even highly successful people ask themselves, “Am I good enough?”… Feeling like an imposter is a good thing. It makes you learn faster…”
• Starting a Counseling Practice Part 3: Your Business Plan – Miranda Palmer – “A busines plan… clear purpose and mission… specific outcome in mind… daily, weekly, and ongoing goals to make the outcome achievable…”
  • How to Set Fees for Your Private Practice – Melvin Varghese interview w/Opher Ganel – “Charging too little… is a recipe for BURNOUT… fee should be about your clients… profit has to be enough to support your family…”
• Transferable Skills of Social Work – archive of 5/18 #MacroSW twitter chat – “skills social workers develop in one setting that can be applied and built upon in another…  Kristin Battista-Frazee, Linda Grobman,‏ Valerie Arendt… Empathy, Self-Awareness, Acceptance, Relationship building, Listening skills, Advocacy…”

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