Best in Mental Health (Jan 20 – Feb 2, 2020)

Jan 20  – Feb 2, 2020 Mental Health Roundup

This roundup contains some of the latest news in social work, therapy, private practice and more! Learn about cultivating social class awareness, working with teens and digital dating abuse, how to use Twitter for your personal collaboration/learning network, making self-care a habit, 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

• Cultivating social class awareness in the counseling profession – Shepard & Gibson/Counseling Today – “reflect.. How do you define your social class status?… Has your social class status changed over the years?… William Ming Liu developed the social class worldview model (SCWM)… Classism is the marginalization of an individual on the basis of his or her perceived social class identity…”
• For Parents: How to Navigate Your Child’s Separation Anxiety – Zawn Villines/GoodTherapy – “Separation anxiety usually begins when a child is 6 or 7 months old, then peaks in the toddler and preschool years… distress children feel is very real…”
  • Digital Dating Abuse: A Brief Guide for Educators and Parents – Justin W. Patchin – “brief provides educators, parents, and other youth serving adults information about the nature and extent of digital dating abuse among adolescents and how to best address it…”
  • Family TV For Teens and Parents: What’s a Show That You Both Enjoy? – Your Teen Mag – “Blue Bloods… White Collar… When Calls the Heart… heartfelt but also comedic…”
  • Family Therapy Basics Research RoundUp: Winter 2020 – Ili Rivera Walter – “delve into… clients’ sexual lives… trust… have appropriate training… study further affirms EFT as a theory of choice for couples parenting children with a chronic condition…”
  • How I Want People To Talk With (And About) My Autistic Son – @shannonrosa/TPGA – “autistic people, like anyone, want things the way they want them… Don’t be patronizing… talk to autistic people like you talk to non-autistic people…”
  • “I Don’t Want a New Worker. Where’s My Old Worker?”: Disruptions Between Youth & Child Welfare  – InSocialWork interview w/Dr. Ashley Curry – “turnover within the child welfare system and the lived experiences of individuals impacted by relationship disruptions… Key implications and recommendations…”
  • Lions and Tigers and Cellphones – Neil D. Brown – “parents and a young teen together can come up with a plan for healthy limited phone use…Time limited use when home from school, maybe an hour or so… Not in room during sleep hours…”
  • You are enough – Teenage Whisperer – “When a mantra of lack dominates, young people (and the rest of us too), become like rabbits caught in headlights- they freeze… We need to be that voice, that mantra, the background soundtrack to what they are trying to achieve…”
• Free Mental Health Webinars for February 2020 – SW Career – “monthly series… featuring over 40 free webcasts… military social work… LGBTQ Cultural Competency… Wounded Healer: Helping the Helping Professional…”
• Look up and connect – All in the Mind – “we start this lovely chemical cocktail when we interact… even if you just have a couple of minutes of conversation with a stranger… we need to always understand when is the human better, when is the technology better, and when is a partnership better…”
• My Dementia at the Beginning of the Journey – George Huba – “the most difficult time in dealing with my dementia was the first few (about three or four) years… I did build up skills that have permitted me to learn how to “control” my new medical reality…”
• Negative Body Image, Eating Disorders and Complex Trauma –Roland Bal – “Externally, the addiction and preoccupation are on food. Internally, the addiction is your constant thoughts about your body image… The more you digest your core emotional wounding, the less need you will have to dissociate into addiction…”
• Online Mental Health Sharing Brings Benefits and Risks – Robert T. Muller  – “While some consider the internet as isolating and therefore damaging to mental health, online communities may have a uniquely empowering effect for those living with mental illness…”
• The Roots of Boredom – Hilary Jacobs Hendel – “chronic states of boredom… protective defense against emotional pain… against knowing our wants, needs, and longings for love, connection, and positive regard from others…”
  
• BDSM: What Is Healthy and What Is Pathological? – Judy Scheel/Psychology Today – “Fantasies are different from practices, and practices do not necessarily constitute a lifestyle… power is at the core of BDSM interactions… many individuals and couples struggle with both sexual and emotional intimacy…”
• When The Therapist Gets Cancer: Using Mindfulness + IFS To Adapt – TherapyChat w/Dr Dan Pollets – “trying to hear what these parts are trying to do for me… caretaker protect… superperforming part… role of chronic stress and disease… trying to survive… from early trauma… 6 year old child connected to mom… her sister died in tragic accident… never the same after that… always sick… unavailable…”
• You Can’t Resist Anxiety to Reduce Anxiety – Tanya J Peterson/HealthyPlace – “recognizing your anxiety–the negative thoughts you’re having… things you are doing or not doing because of worry and fear… Now… separate yourself from it… You are so much more than worries and fears…”

Advocacy

• A Code Switch Playlist For Black History Month – NPR – “episodes… stories on everything from sports activism, to the Black Panther Party, to one woman’s fight for respect that went all the way to the Supreme Court…”
• Discussing White Supremacy: Having Difficult Conversations Are Required – SWcares/SWHelper – “Oftentimes, social work organizations will avoid the difficult work of self-reflection as it relates to its complicity with white supremacy. We do so out of fear of making mistakes…”
• The Enemy of Your Enemy – Sam Killermann  – “we’re giving our “enemies” control of the GPS… If we all pile in to support something that our enemies hate, we’re giving them power over what we choose to support…”
• Populism – Helpful SW podcast – “what it is and what makes it popular… how social workers can overcome simplistic and fearful views of the world to build a more inclusive and equitable society…”
• Psychology of 1917: Do Anti-War Films STILL Glorify War? – Jonathan Hetterly/Shrink Tank – “Cognitive dissonance is the brain’s inability to synthesize or reconcile two opposing ideas. This element… explored… the dilemma of a mission, the dilemma of characters, and the dilemma of motive…”
• Resources for “Social Work’s Response to Immigration” – SocialWorkSynergy – “#MacroSW Chat on January 30, 2020 .. Emotions and Politics: A Social Work Response to the Mental Health of Immigrants… Child Migrant Protection Toolkit…”
• We Are the Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest Official Trailer Release – Karen Zgoda – “Every year… hundreds of pre-K through 12th grade students… performing a mix of published and original poetry and speeches… passionate young people raising their voices about issues they care about… #WeAreTheDreamHBO…”

Self-Care/Inspiration

• 5 New Year’s Rituals for Nonprofit Professionals to Build Personal Resilience – Beth Kanter – “reflection questions that help you look back and ahead… annual professional journal… self-care template… write down what I will do… “
• Burnout – The Thing We’re Not Supposed to Talk About – Laura Long – “talk to someone about it (and not just anyone)… Take an honest look at your expectations… make a list of what… you enjoyed…”
• Layered Art Journal Pages – Amy Maricle – “Work in stages – it’s okay to just do one layer at a time. Give yourself permission to play… Use a high quality watercolor journal… Notice the sounds, colors, and textures that appear as you create…”
• Self-Care A-Z: Making Self-Care a Habit – Erlene Grise-Owens/New Social Worker – “Habits make change possible by freeing us from decision-making and from using self-control… track… SMART self-care commitments…”
  
• What To Eat: How To Stop Eating Poorly – Brain Warrior’s Way w/Dr. David Perlmutter – “our food choices affect our mood and affect our decision making… most of the food that we consume should really be plant-based..

Social Work, Technology & Education

• Art of Adaptability – Social Worker’s Superpower – Karen M. Carlucci/New Social Worker – “When we bump into a roadblock, we can see the alternate pathways waiting to be discovered… Adaptability is about survival… Embrace and view change as a fresh opportunity to grow...”
• Call for Papers: Applying a Social Justice Lens to Trauma-Informed Approaches in Education – SSWN – “abstracts are due by March 15th… Education practitioners are increasingly required to deal with the effects of childhood trauma and stress… urgent need to clarify how… respond to these complex problems…”
• Digital Technology for SW Practice w/Laurel Hitchcock – : #MacroSW Chat 1-23-20 #swtech – “Why do #SocialWorker need to incorporate social & digital technology into their practice with clients and communities?… @profetmitchell A1: because tech is everywhere. It’s part of our lives. Clients, students,communities, etc are already using it and we’re missing something if we don’tutilize it to reach out, educate, connect, etc…”
• Future of the Social Determinants of Health – SW Futures – “Eclectic and Transdisciplinary Scan of the Academic Literature… Social work has made many contributions to health equity in the United States… challenge is to prepare for what comes next… resource list… spark some ideas…”
• How to Manage a High Caseload?!– SW Scrapbook – “video… 6 methods… to manage a high caseload as a school social worker… delegate what you can… set boundaries… prioritize…”
• Twitter for your Professional Collaboration Network (PCN) – Teaching & Learning in SW – “a PCN is created by social workers who connect with other professionals online for the purpose of learning and exchanging information… Twitter… particularly effective tool to meet and learn from others…”

Private Practice

• 3 Lessons from Revamping My Private Practice Website – Melvin Varghese – “your website needs to speak to your ideal client… created three specialty pages… it takes so much courage and bravery for our clients to reach out…”
• How to Set Up a Monthly Marketing Plan – Joe Sanok – “run an A/B test… what’s one thing that if you achieved this week, would make you feel like a rockstar… cut time in half… evaluate how things are going…”
• Holding CE Events To Boost Your Practice – Practice of Therapy w/David Hall – “you do not need to be an expert… simply… be an enthusiast… Figure out… CE requirements… for your state… price… based on how many CE hours… Between $15 and $20 an hour… good starting point…”
• Need More Non-Sliding Scale Clients– Abundance Practice w/Annie Strout – “set the stage… the work that I do with my clients is hard and it’s deep… meet every single week.. set a number of slots for sliding scale… Is 225 something you can commit to… I don’t want us to get started and then, you not be able to continue for financial reasons…”
• Rank On Google And Level Up Private Practice Jessica Tappana/ Practice of the Practice – “Add sub-headings to your pages. You’ll naturally use keywords… Specify meta-descriptions for every page… Every page should link to your homepage and contact page…”

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