Best in Mental Health: What You Need to Know

Mental Health Roundup 5/22/17 – 6/11/17

This contains some of the latest news in social work, healthcare, private practice and more! It may assist you in preventing suicide, addressing your clients’ social needs (and improving their overall health), parenting, using digital tools, and building referrals.

This wrap-up’s main themes are:

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

Therapy and Relationships

• Seven Steps for Anger – Norman Cotterell – “Anger is built on expectations… we can choose whether to focus on the things we don’t control, or the things we do control… technique in recognizing… choice… cost-benefit analysis…”
• Am I Normal? – Hilary Jacobs Hendel – “When someone brings up normalcy what they are usually wondering is, “Do I fit in?” or “Am I lovable?”… If only someone had said… “Anxiety is part of being human…”
• Anorexia and Obesity: Two of a Kind? – Dr Nicola Davies – “similarities… including dieting behaviour, low self-esteem, childhood abuse, body image dissatisfaction, and bullying related to weight…”
• Helping clients build their life rafts – Angela Frank – “Making a timeline… For someone who has had a chaotic childhood…  Collecting documents can help these clients piece memories together…”
• How Positive Factors Change Child Trauma – SJS/Chronicle Of Social Change -“buffer some of the negative effects of experiencing adverse behaviors… Advance a positive construct of health and HOPE [ Health Outcomes of Positive Experience]…”
• In Defense of Pollyanna – What a Shrink Thinks – “Pollyanna… book… guided me through waves of chaos, loss, and disruption… She arrives with nothing… except… The Glad Game, which her father taught her in order to summon her resilience…”
• Letting Go of Your Rocks – Rebecca Johnson – ” exercise designed to help us take a symbolic but powerful step toward letting… burdens [keeping you stuck] go… When I gain weight, I have been “bad.”…”
• A Man’s Secret: Performance Anxiety – Lindsay – “For many men, identity and self-esteem are bound up with sexuality… sex in a long-relationship is something you have to plan for…”
• Money Mirror: Our Inner Feelings About Money –  Women-in-Depth interview w/Tiffany McClain -“our feelings toward it [ money]… importance for us to have boundaries and a sense of safety…”
• Neuroscience Alumni Build Networks Between the Brain and Social Work – BCSocialWork – “things have happened in our clients’ lives… direct biopsychosocial impact… develop interventions… develop the executive functioning skills needed to navigate societal systems…”
• Psychology of pedophilia – All in the Mind podcast – “first link of… chain… before birth… practically all pedophiles are male but the majority of the victims are female… willingness to break the law seems to be something that’s learned…”
• Recognizing and Healing from Manipulative Relationships – Julie Hanks and Baya Voce – “anyone can find themselves in a manipulative relationship…”
• Safeguarding – Thoughts On The Social World interview w/Christina Gabbitas – “Share Some Secrets… book that encourages children to think about the secrets they should and shouldn’t keep, encouraging them to speak out without fear by giving praise…”
• Parenting
  • How to Talk to Kids About Anger & Big Feelings – Dr Robyn Silverman’s interview w/Wendy Young – “Kids are born with different temperaments… We have to co-regulate… specific hands-on strategies, scripts… “
  • Mine, Yours, Ours: Thriving In The First Year After Baby – The Family Couch interview w/Catherine O’Brien – “incredibly high stress months can be overwhelming for a new mother and the entire family… “
  • Stop the Parent-Teen Chore Battle – Neil Brown/Healthy Family Connections – “Start early… build independence… start by doing it together, and over time invite them to take over… Make it Routine… Fun…”
  • Sleep Routines, Teens and Vampires – Launching Your Daughter podcast – “How lack of sleep impacts your daughter’s physical, emotional and cognitive abilities… Remove TV and electronics out of bedroom…”
  • Why Is It So Hard To Let Go When Our Kids Transition to Adulthood? – Therapy Chat podcast – “feelings about our children growing up are normal… they are not about the child… grieving the loss of childhood… daily in person connection…”
• Therapeutic Patient Navigation: Clients with Neurodegenerative Disorders – InSocialWork podcast interview w/Kimberly Washington – “evidence-based intervention… fill the gaps in services that support patients with Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases…”
• Visual Listening: Can you hear your client’s art? – Lisa Mitchell – “listen very closely… clients’ visual descriptions of their art… Therapist: “How was that for you to paint?”… Client: “It felt really free, I love the cool colors I used.”…”
• What is a Dry Drunk in Addiction Recovery? – Jami DeLoe/HealthyPlace – “For someone to truly be in recovery, they not only abstain from drinking, but they actively work a program of recovery that is meant to address the causes and reasons that they drank in the first place…”

Healthcare

• America’s Health-Inequality Problem – Olga Khazan – “U.S. has one of the largest income-based health disparities in the world…”
• Be sceptical: The reasons why most healthcare research may be wrong – Saul Crandon – “vast contradiction of findings that exist… Illusion of high impact factors… Reproducibility crisis…”
• Finding the Clinical Treatment That’s Right for You or a Loved One – SAMHSA – “Each fact sheet explains, in plain language, the benefits and risks of treatment to promote informed decision making…”
• The future of mental health care: time for a social perspective? – “Four scenarios [Patient-controlled services, Modifying social contexts, Virtual mental health care & Partners to the poor] were highlighted… aspects from each could be crucial for the sustained development of our future mental health care service…”
• Quality of general hospital care through the liaison psychiatry lens? – Kirsten Lawson/Mental Elf – “quality of care received by patients with co-morbid mental illness is lacking, the consequences of which could be contributing to physical health disparities…”
• Rock climbing envisioned as new treatment for depression – Science Daily – “Bouldering not only has strong mental components, but it is accessible at different levels so that people of all levels of physical health are able to participate…”
• Standardized Screening for Health-Related Social Needs in Clinical Settings – NAM – “CMS developed a 10-item screening tool to identify patient needs in 5 different domains…”

Advocacy

• Disability, Slavery, & The Call to #PickUpUnderground – Vilissa Thompson – “compelling depiction of slavery… season two… disability representation was at the forefront with… Harriet Tubman…”
• MerckManuals.com Focusing on Elder Abuse – New Social Worker –  “June 15 as World Elder Abuse Awareness Day… Preventing elder abuse… Responding to elder abuse…Self neglect in elders…”
• Make Macro Matter: 20 by 2020 proposal to the CSWE – Rachel L. West – “support… steps to increase MSW student enrollment in macro practice concentrations nationally to 20 percent of MSW students…  sample [endorsement] letter…”
• Microaggressions in The Classroom – Relando Thompkins-Jones – “documentary… “Recognizing and Responding to Microaggressions”… resource… paraphrase and ask for clarification… separate intent from impact and express your feelings…”
• Proposed Trump Cuts Imperil Mental Health, Health Care, Education and More – Social Work Helper – “cuts would disproportionately affect people living in poverty, people with serious mental illness and other disabilities, women, children…”
  • Why I Joined The #SWKresistance – Stuck on Social Work – “President Trump spoke to a lot of under-served people… I don’t think it’s fair to have a conversation without first acknowledging this.  However, the policies put forth seem to not benefit these individuals…”
• Talking and Writing About Suicide: Why It Matters, What to Say – Zawn Villines/GoodTherapy.org – “Suicide is a preventable tragedy. Knowing what to say and what to do when someone is having thoughts of suicide can save lives…”
  • 8 Things You Need To Know About Suicide Prevention – Steve Borgman – “every person has inherent worth and dignity, and deserves to be alive… Addressing depression is one of the best ways to prevent suicide…”
  • More on the Link between Bullying and Suicide  – Justin W. Patchin – “About 18% of all students in the U.S… students who reported being bullied are significantly more likely to report suicidal ideation…”

Self Care/Inspiration

• How to Use Mindfulness to Stop being a Perfectionist – Sharon Martin – “Perfectionism is an unhealthy and unforgiving striving for achievement… Mindfulness is a natural antidote to perfectionism…”
• Rebellion = Growth – Practice of Being Seen interview w/Kelly Higdon – ” finding the connection between what you dream of and what you are doing today is the key to unleashing your ultimate creativity…”
• Tips for Tuning In – Ili Walter – “a simple therapist life. What does that look like?… welcoming the day… How do I feel right now? What worries am I carrying? What do I want to feel/create/let go right now?…”
• Yay-Boo How Lifes Gives Us Different Perspective – Cathy Hanville – “show Ann Randolph’s Inappropriate in All the Right Ways… life is a series of Yays followed by Boos…”

Social Work, Technology & Education

• Digital Tools for Engaging Writing Assignments #swtech – Karen Zgoda – “participatory nature of social media… new media literacies can complement social work practice… amplify an individual social worker’s voice and aid in client empowerment in the face of social injustices…”
• FERPA & Social Media: Thoughts for Social Work Education – Laurel Hitchcock – “some examples and best practices for FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] assignments… embrace… social media assignments while being mindful of the risks”
  • End of School? Say goodbye with these creative tech tools – The Social Work Pad – “end of the school year brings out many emotions for the students clinicians work with… AutoDraw… can be used on a I pad or tablet…”
  • Practice What You Teach: UDL & (aiming for) Communities of Practice in Adult Education – Bonnie Stewart – “Adults learn from need to know… experience… orientation to learning…”
• Promises and pitfalls of online education – Brookings Institution – “study… evidence on the effects of online courses… taking a course online reduces student grades by 0.44 points on the traditional four-point grading scale… negative effects… concentrated in the lowest performing students…”
• Text-Based Crisis Intervention Counseling – InSocialWork podcast interview w/Dr. Ande Nesmith – “Promising Venue to Reach Underserved Young Clients… differences between in-person and text-based counseling formats…”
  • Ethical Considerations in Social Workers’ Use of Technology with Older Adults – Dawn Hobdy/NASW – “live stream… June 14, and… June 15… technologies… developed to assist… with everything from communication and engagement to health and wellness…”
• What is FINSTA – And Why Is It So Popular With Teenagers? –  Christina Grande/Your Teen Magazine – “fake social media accounts on Instagram and other popular sites… comfortable… sounding boards… discuss their bad days…”
• Where Do We Go From Here? Tips to Preserve “Truth” in the Age of Trump – Rachel Kitson, Craig Pohlman, and Dave Verhaagen/Shrink Tank – “no easy solution… Don’t insulate… Have “curious conversations”… Practice dialectical thinking…”

NonProfit Career & Private Practice

• Creating a Culture of Philanthropy for Nonprofits – Beth Kanter – “free e-book… culture of philanthropy… how to nurture a nonprofit organizational culture that has shared responsibility for fundraising among all of its people…”
• How to build a successful career in social care – “Social care is changing… toolkit… opportunities in the sector and how you can build a successful career in it…”
  • New York’s New Tuition Free Program and What it Means for Social Impact Jobs – “Excelsior Scholarship makes it possible to graduate college without being saddled with student debt…”
• Practice Checklist: Practice Tech Choices – Roy Huggins – “email service that does HIPAA Business Associate Agreements, and/or a secure messaging service… adopt a secure way to do texting…”
  • Social Media, Insurance and Notes – Maelisa Hall w/Julee Cox – “What are “HIPAA notes” and do you need to prepare for them?… most important thing to include in your notes if they may be seen by insurance companies…”
• Private Practice – Lindsay Melka/Abundance Practice-Building – “I wanted my own practice so badly that I dedicated every spare minute to finding out how to do it…”
  • Five Things I’ve Learned In My Fourth Month Of Private Practice – Julia Smith/Private Practice Consultants – “you cannot control if people will actually come… switched… goal to something that I could achieve… creating… social media marketing plan…”
  • Creative Ways to Scale Your Business Into Multiple Streams of Income – Melvin Varghese w/Nicole Liloia – “Why you should scale to serve more people… outsource those tasks that really drain you…”
  • Creating a GOOD Referral Base – Private Practice Kickstart – “When starting out in private practice, the fastest way to grow a practice is to have a strong referral base…”
    • Cultivating Referral Sources – Marie Hartwell-Walker/PsychCentral – “Reserve three to five hours a week to meet… Join community organizations… professional organizations…”
  • Therapist’s Ultimate Guide to Packaging Services (Part 1 of 3) – Part 2 and Part 3 – Tamara Suttle – “giving your clients more choices about the different ways in which they engage with and use your clinical services…”

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