Best in Mental Health (February 2019)

Mental Health Roundup 1/28/19 – 2/25/19

This roundup contains some of the latest news in social work, healthcare, private practice and more! Latest guidelines on how to visualize anxiety away, address client resistance and non-suicidal self harm, employ evidence based practice, take on an activist role, repair declining social trust, break up with stress and much more!

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

• Accessing Clinical Intuition – TherapyChat w/Terry Marks-Tarlow – “unconscious to unconscious communication… part of intuition… analytic side just cannot capture … complexity the way that intuition can…”
• Addressing Client Resistance – Sharie Stines/PsychCentral – Perhaps something in the relationship is not working for the client and what is being perceived as resistance is just evidence that that client does not feel safe with you yet…”
• Applying the Cass Identity Model to Social Work – Dustin MacDonald/SWH – “coming out process for LGB+ individuals… 6 stages… identity confusion… identity comparison… identity tolerance…”
• Childhood and Mid-Life Antecedents of Adult Self-Neglect – InSocialWork interview w/Jodie Bargeron – “treat SN [adult self neglect] from a life course perspective… consider the use attachment-based therapy…”
• Counselor self-disclosure: Encouragement or impediment to client growth? – Bethany Bray/Counseling Today –  “When used sparingly, professionally and appropriately, counselor self-disclosure can build trust, foster empathy and strengthen the therapeutic alliance between counselor and client…”
• The Complexities of Confession, Forgiveness and Whiteness – Martha Crawford – “it is important for white people to find spaces where we can name our past racist failures… restoration of those who have been harmed is more important than the relief of those who have perpetrated harm…”
• Getting sexy with robots – All in the Mind – “sex robot market… tiny market… Sex dolls have been around for quite a while… people can form a bond with the technology but it’s not a replacement for human–human relationships…”
• Hi-Tech Bullying: What Can Parents Do – Marina Spears/Educate Empower Kids – “Parents should not downplay or minimize the effects… few will actually admit to being cyberbullied… pick up on signs that it could be occurring…”
• How core emotions come to be buried deep inside us – Hilary Jacobs Hendel – “From birth on, we learn to adapt to form attachments to others. Sometimes our caregivers require us to hide what we feel because our emotions upset them…”
• How (Not) To Use a Privilege List – Sam Killermann – “Please don’t use privilege lists to shame people for the identities they possess… in a way that requires folks without privilege to become educators of those with privilege…”
• How to Visualize Anxiety Away – George Abitante/HealthyPlace – “Imagine a small stressor… Identify challenges during it… Identify solutions…”
• Non-Suicidal Self-Harm: Conceptualization and a Clinical Intervention – Beck Institute – “validate the individual’s emotional experience… without validating their behavior… Understanding the function of the NSSI is critical… create a pros and cons list of NSSI with the client… road map of potential treatment goals…”
• Protective Containers – Using Art To Strengthen The Metaphor – Carolyn Mehlomakulu – “Although we may need to explore distressing things in therapy sessions, clients also need a means to put these things away when they leave…”
• Teenagers and Secrecy: What are Reasonable Limits on Privacy? – Ethan D. Schafer/Your Teen Mag – “need for privacy is normal, and within reasonable limits, should be encouraged…”
• Translation and Implementation of Evidence-Based Practice – InSocialWork interview w/Dr. Lawrence Palinkas – “emphasis on promoting evidence-based practices and social responses to extreme environments in the context of child welfare services…”
• What is Brainspotting And How To Use It? – Selling the Couch w/Beth Medina – “modified EMDR became brainspotting… body and brain-based therapy…”
• Why Think of Gender on Scales Instead of a Spectrum? – Sam Killermann – “Visualizing gender on scales, or individual continua, instead of on a spectrum or as checkboxes… more inclusive…”

HealthCare

• 10 Guiding Principles for Ethics in Digital Health – HIT – “products of digital health companies should always work in patients’ interests… Patients should never be forced to use digital health products against their wishes…”
• Alternatives to medication for children and young people with ADHD – Mental Elf – “strongest evidence for diet, child/parent training and behavioral interventions…”
• Fact sheet: U.S. teens and adults at the intersection of health and technology – Susannah Fox – “only half (49%) of older adults w/less than a high school… use the internet… 92% of older adults with a college degree… 39% of U.S. teens and young adults… online to try to find people with health conditions similar to their own…”
• From conference abstract to full publication: what are the facts, figures and implications of failure to publish in full? – “less than half of all studies (46.4%) make it to full publication within 10 years of being presented at a conference… estimates of effects for certain interventions may be inaccurate or biased…”
• Patient-Centered, Integrated Health Care Quality Measures Could Improve Health Literacy, Language Access, and Cultural Competence – NAM – “implementing more health literacy, language access, and cultural competence initiatives… could contribute to improved health care…”
• Mental illness not to blame for gun violence, study finds– Science Daily – “a better indicator of gun violence was access to firearms…”

Advocacy

• Child welfare, foster care, family preservation – Doin’ The Work interview w/Ronnita Waters – “example of what happens when child abuse is reported… the challenges of this work…”
• Crisis social work – Helpful Social Work podcast – “crisis intervention theory… implications of working alongside people during these moments of change…”
• The Future of “Support our Troops” by a Civilian Workforce – Ellen Belluomini – “only 2% qualified [in NY] as able to provide quality care to veterans… Military Informed Practice through certification is one method…”
• Homelessness – Martin Webber – “Rough sleeping is the most visible sign of homelessness… as rents go up people are forced out of their accommodation…”
• How Macro Social Work Can Help Inform Feminist Philanthropy – Philanthropy Women w/Rachel L. West – “many social workers commit their life’s work to addressing systemic and structural problems in society, providing leadership for policy, legislation, and community organizations…”
• Public Transit and Macro Social Work: A Case Study – #MacroSW w/Pat Shelly – “Public transit is a civil right… We need a healthy, robust public transit system to ensure that everyone can get around, regardless of race, class, disability status, or income…”
• Reducing recidivism – Deloitte Insights – “ecosystem perspective… Technology… allows for the rethinking of roles entirely… Predictive analytics, behavioral economics, the gamification of incentives… potential to transform reentry compliance and interactions… “
• The Role of Activism in Social Work – SJS – “Dr. Lewis… the unique experiences of social workers can help to inform public policy conversations… We can sit and wonder what will happen, or we can look for opportunities to make things happen…”
• Sexual Violence & Transgender/Non-Binary Communities – NSVRC – “infographic… some of the ways sexual violence specifically impacts transgender and non-binary people…”
• White Savior Films: The Psychology Behind the Problematic Film Trope – Jonathan Hetterly/Shrink Tank – “white protagonists who grow and feel better by helping the less fortunate… minority characters… racism through a safer lens…”

Self-Care/Inspiration

• Dear Stress, Let’s Break Up… – Melissa Etherton/Christina Hibbert – “I’ve come up with a few “rules” for our breakup… I will take care of my body, by sleeping, moving, and eating energizing foods each day…”
• Finding Your Power & Purpose – free webinar Feb 28 w/Tami Simon and Marianne Williamson… accessing our true power to change our lives and our world…”
• How to Develop Your Artistic Style – Amy Johnson Maricle – “experiment freely, and give yourself permission to make a bunch of mistakes… produce a lot of art in order to find your own way…”
• Meditation Podcast – Robert T. Muller – “Untangle… research revealing how regular meditation can change our brains…”
• Professional Self-Care for Social Workers, Part 2—Boundaries & Balance – Erlene Grise-Owens/New Social Worker – “Tara… Prioritize, Organize, and Partialize (POP)! – Don’t overschedule!… Leave work at work. Take breaks. Seek colleagues’ advice…”
• Under Pressure (and Pt 2) – Social Work podcast interview w/Lisa Damour – “difference between stress, anxiety and trauma; what “good” and “bad” pressure look like… rape culture; the problem with the word “consent”… society’s criticisms of the way girls speak… another way of criticizing girls…”

Social Work, Technology & Education

• The Dilley Project: UB Students at the US-Mexico Border  – Teresa Watson/SocialWorkSynergy – “while I heard about the horrible things people can do to one another I directly witnessed amazing examples of strength, of the capacity to thrive in harsh conditions… this gave me hope…”
• How can staff in higher education support trans & non-binary people during transition? – JKP – “challenging to educate his tutors and field their questions about his transition… Support with housing issues and finding alternative accommodation…”
• If You Are Talking Value-Based Payments – StuckonSW – “Rather than getting reimbursed per face to face visit you get reimbursed for the overall outcome… method of payment is headed right for us… key is collaboration – partnership, information sharing…”
• Immersive virtual reality therapy shows lasting effect in tx of phobias in children w/autism– Science News – “nearly 45% remaining free from their fears and phobias six months after treatment…”
• Join A (Free) Online SSW PLC This Month! – Michael Kelly – “Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)…(Restorative Practices in Schools)… (Race & Equity in K-12 Education)… (Trauma & Self-Care PLC)… all PLCs will be capped at 10…”
• New Words in Futuring – Emerging Vocabulary for Social Workers #4 – Laura Burney Nissen – “Ramp education… the need to reskill massive numbers of workers who are most likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence…”
• Teens and Social Media – NASW interview w/Sean Erreger – “understanding the social media that… clients are using could be part of cultural competency… teach kids to be mindful about what they post… and empowering for them… “
• Using Rubrics to provide Strength-based Feedback for SW Assignments – Kristen Samuels/Teaching & Learning in Social Work – “students are vulnerable… present feedback with care… leading/ending feedback with what the student has done well…”
• What Higher Ed Can Learn From the Newspaper Industry – Chronicle of Higher Ed – “both enjoyed for a long time the benefit of an audience that didn’t have other choices… Academics think of themselves as discovering and distributing knowledge, when people really just want the credential and a job…”

NonProfit Career and Private Practice

• 3 Private Practice Fundamentals – Abundance Practice – “Create systems from day one… Do your money work… Do your research on what to use for EHR and digital records, calendar, and upkeep…”
• 6 Important Things About Texting, HIPAA Privacy, and Choosing Online Services – Roy Huggins – “Conventional texting (SMS) is becoming even less private… We like Signal for solo providers as a simple and secure medium for texting…”
• Six Ways to Repair Declining Social Trust – SSIR – “Plummeting public trust is sweeping the globe… Make sure institutions are effective and deliver real benefits for people…Develop future leaders who work for the greater good…”
• Building Your Billing Systems: Part 2 – Practice of the Practice – “number one principle of success for claim follow up is document EVERYTHING…”
• Bullet Journaling for Nonprofit Professionals – Ma’ayan Alexander/Beth Kanter – “analog system [writing in your hand writing] to track the past, organize the present and plan for the future… Reduce over-planning…”
• Making Change Happen | 5 Marketing Lessons for Your Social-Impact Career – Idealist -“Make a promise with your story… take to interact with and acknowledge others… Seek advice from your critics…”
• What You Must Consider Before You Offer Online Therapy– Ili Rivera Walter – “Familiarize yourself with your state’s laws, rules, and regulations, including state tele-health laws… Complete tele-mental health training and/or certification…”
• Writing Court Letters in Private Practice – Maelisa Hall – “potential for blurring lines of competence… Keep your opinions about anyone or anything that is not your client out of the letter…”

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