Best in Mental Health (Sept 1 – Oct 27, 2019)

September 1 – October 27, 2019 Mental Health Roundup

This roundup contains some of the latest news in social work, therapy, private practice and more! Support the deaf or hard of hearing community, things to consider when you’re wondering what to say next with a client, understand infertility grief and the emotional struggle behind procrastination and much more!

This wrap-up’s main themes are:

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

Therapy and Relationships

• 3 Ways You Can Support the Deaf or Hard of Hearing Community – Marissa Miller/Shrink Tank – “lack of understanding of culture, language and Deaf issues impedes effective treatment, as does the often awkward and uncomfortable presence of a third-party interpreter in sessions or appointments…”
• 7 Things To Remember When You’re Parenting a Teenager – Elizabeth Spencer/Your Teen Magazine – “A teenage brain is not just a younger version of a an adult brain—it’s a brain that’s still being built… Our teens still need to be parented because being a teenager is hard…”
• But What Should I Say Next? 5 Tips for Social Workers – Danna Bodenheimer/New Social Worker – “we try to figure out how to build a sense of competence in our clients…. we next must move our clients into a deeper understanding of their patterns and behaviors…”
• Clinical Intersections: Disavowal and the Politics of Naming Whiteness – Adam Gaubinger/New Social Worker – “many of the patients I work with have been harmed by exactly the histories that contribute to my privileges… we are always in a process between awareness and disavowal…”
• Creative Arts Therapies: Examples and Interventions – Krista Verrastro – “therapist invites a client to draw/create a container that will hold unwanted feelings or stressors…”
• Doubling Down on Love – Brené Brown – “In All About Love… hooks explains that we can only awaken to love if we let go of our obsession with power and domination… people who are willing to speak out against injustice are not smarter or kinder than their neighbors, but are “willing to live the truth of their values…”
• To End Bullying, End The Bullying Culture – Neil D. Brown – “To have a school that doesn’t support bullying, you need a culture that says to each and every kid:We’re glad you’re here. We are invested in your success… Where are the places in our lives where we see abuse of power… What action can we take?…“
• How to Identify A Child Predator Online – Trishia Van Orden/Educate Empower Kids – “MAP is an acronym for “Minor Attracted Person/People”. It’s also the name of a pedophilic community who have risen on tumblr… A pedophile who purposely interacts with children in ANY way is offending…”
• Inherited Family Trauma – Therapy Chat interview w/Mark Wolynn – “book IT DIDN’T START WITH YOU: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle…”
• The invisibility of infertility grief – Tristan D. McBain/Counseling Today – “One of the major losses is that of the imagined or expected family… Many women who experience infertility feel a sense of failure or self-blame… be present and listen… assist clients in articulating what they need…”
• Procrastination: An emotional struggle – Lindsey Phillips/Counseling Today – “Procrastination can also show up in conjunction with various mental health issues… an avoidance strategy… downward arrow technique… uncovers the client’s underlying emotion…”
• A roller-coaster of emotion — Borderline Personality Disorder – All In The Mind – “an incredibly intense fear of perceived or imagined rejection or abandonment… the core feature, is one of emotional dysregulation… impulsive behaviours, things like overspending, gambling problems, binge eating…”
• Sticks and Stones Sixty Years Later – Cyberbullying Research Center – “A Disabled Woman’s Advice for Adults and Teens… Those who bully look for differences and weaknesses when choosing a target… Listening and giving verbal first aid…“
• Teen rudeness and righting wrongs (Part 1) – Teenage Whisperer – “If they perceive that they have been treated unfairly… their emotions are running the show and not the rational part of their heads… your role-modelling of good assertive communication can be a game-changer…”
• Understanding and Resolving The Cycle Of Abuse – Gary Direnfeld/SWHELPER – “The person who has unmet needs to be reasonably valued from before childhood and on may have impaired judgment when it comes to their own mate selection and sources of validation…”
• Understanding Brain Circuits of Fear, Stress, and Anxiety – Melanie Greenberg – “In people with anxiety or stress disorders (PTSD) the amygdala is hyper-responsive to threat while the prefrontal cortex is under-active or lacks sufficient neural connections with the amygdala to calm things down…”
• What is queer identity?– Eris Young/JKP Blog – “celebrating being ‘other’… empathy is what lets me feel comfortable, not claiming all queer people’s experiences for my own, but standing alongside them, building on the shared experiences that unite us and celebrating what makes us each unique…”

Advocacy

• Act Now to Increase Social Work Reimbursement! – socialworkblog.org – “Currently, CSWs are reimbursed at 75 percent of the physician fee schedule, lower than any other mental health provider in Medicare… contact your congressional lawmakers to cosponsor legislation…”
• Disasters, Climate Change, & Social Work – Oct 3rd #MacroSW chat – “Alyssa Lotmore… Loretta Pyles… @llpyles… Facilitating environmental justice is a core value and mandate for social workers. The impact that climate change is having on disaster vulnerability is an ethical environmental justice mandate…”
• Hugs & Kisses – CSWE #APM19 – JimmySW – “poster presentation… Dr. Angie Mann-Williams… a school-based child sexual abuse prevention play… evaluation demonstrates that children in kindergarten through fifth grades are able to increase their knowledge of good, bad, and secret touching…”
• Migration – Helpful Social Work podcast – “how migration is viewed, experienced and understood… how social workers can uphold rights and promote inclusion…”
• New (Free) E-Book: Leading Systems Change Will Supercharge Your Facilitation Skills – Beth Kanter – “playbook of how to design and implement a program, including facilitation recipes for designing meetings…”
• Only liberal views welcome? Experiences of conservative students in BSW education – InSocialWork interview w/Ashley Davis and Rebecca Mirick – “dynamics of power and privilege… conservative students have experienced marginalization. Strategies for creating a more inclusive… environment…”
• Rage and sadness at knowing LGBT rights are once again under serious attack – Cathy Hanville – “if you are straight and cis reach out to your trans and gay friends and check-in. Let them know you see what is going on and you care…”
• Social Workers Against Solitary Confinement  – Doin’ The Work podcast w/Rachel Frome – “negative impacts of solitary confinement… alternatives to solitary confinement… challenges of organizing for an end to solitary…”
• Striking is a Tier 3 Intervention – Mary Difino/School Social Work – “I’m striking because I believe in the work that we do as social workers, and I know that the current staffing levels are not conducive to the frequency and quality of services that our students deserve…”
• Study: Self-Reported Suicide Attempts Rising In Black Teens As Other Groups Decline – McSilver Institute – “A surprising dynamic in the relationship between self-reported suicide thoughts (ideation), plans and attempts was revealed: ideation and plans decreased while actual attempts increased…”
• Website accessibility for people with disabilities is still an issue – Siobhan Neela-Stock – “”There’s no direct mandate in the ADA or its regulations that says, ‘you must make your website accessible and here is what an accessible website is…”

Self-Care/Inspiration

• 6 Ways to Release Anxiety and Stress from Your Body – Tanya J. Peterson/HealthyPlace – “Conduct a body scan… Tense and release muscle groups…”
• Coping With Divorce – Richard Nicastro/Love and Life Toolbox – “Allow yourself the emotional space to grieve… Do not fall into self-loathing…”
• Finding Beauty in the Everyday – Greater Good – “There are upwards of 20 reasons why just getting outdoors is good for your nervous system, your brain, your attention, your relationships…”
• Seasonal Shifts: 10 Things to Help Seasonal Affective Disorder– “Notice what seasonal symptoms that you experience, label them, and lean into them… Consider a Light Box…”
• A Way to Manage Chronic Pain – Sui Oakland/ Dr. Rick Hanson – “How we can frame our pain psychologically in order to limit its influence in our lives…”

Social Work, Technology & Education

• #APM19 – Using the SAMR Model for Technology Integration – Nancy Smyth, Melanie Sage & Laurel Hitchcock – “Teaching with technology is a key skill for future social work educators… guide to adapting assignments and learning activities for technology-mediated use…”
• Can Telemedicine Fix Mental Health? – Sean Erreger – “New York State expanded it’s definition of telemental health services to include social workers… grow programs “across”, “within”, and “around”… When we think about adding technology, it’s not just benefiting the organization but the community and systems as a whole…”
• Examples of Universities Doing Futures Work – Laura Nissen/Social Work Futures – “Stanford 2025: An exploration of undergraduate experiences of the future… Future Foresight: Dubai…”
• Flipboard – HAPPE/UBSSW – “news curation app… stay up to date on recent articles, videos, and podcasts… Users can create their own magazines of items, organize them around topics, and share them with oth
• The joy of social work – Ermintrude – “I have grown to love social work because I’ve… seen the damage that bad or disinterested social work can make. We can do it differently…”
• Master Your Privacy Settings in 2019 – Jimmy A. Young/Social Work Today – “As social workers, we should care about how our information is being used… Privacy is not about hiding information, but about maintaining boundaries…”
• New Resource for Serious Mental Illness – David Susman – ““serious mental illness” or “SMI”… schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder… SMI Adviser… webinars… fact sheets, treatment guides, research articles…”

Private Practice

• Contacting old clients – yes or no? – Priscilla Rodriguez/Practice of the Practice – “I normally wait about two weeks to call a client who I have seen consistently and who needed to cancel…”
• Creating a video introduction for your counseling website – Cathy Hanville – “Create a connection… Be authentic…More and more people want to feel safe and connected with a therapist before their first session…”
• Heart-Centered Practice – Allison Puryear – “How good of a therapist do you need to be in PP (and how to get there)… How to Market in a Way that Serves Your Clients… role of boundaries…”
• Immigration Hardship Evaluations And How To Conduct, Market, And Charge For Them – Selling the Couch w/Juan Santos – “Top ways Juan markets these evaluations: Builds sustainable relationships with immigration attorneys… Reaches out to specific orgs and clinics that serve minorities and undocumented individuals…”
• Writing Progress Notes During Sessions – Maelisa Hall – “If we use the concept of collaborative documentation, then the note is truly a part of the therapeutic process and it can be a helpful clinical tool to incorporate in each counseling session…”

Like this post? Please share it!