Below is a round-up of some of the latest news in mental health (and more)!
This week’s wrap-up has the following main themes:
- Therapy/Relationships
- Technology and Mental Health
- Social Work Practice
- Advocacy/Biases
- NonProfit/Career
- Self Care/Self Improvement
Therapy/Relationships
- Book Review: “The Marshmallow Test” – book is part memoir and part scientific analysis of Mischel’s work on self-control; to exert more control over an area, Mischel suggests, starts with asking yourself: Would you like to?
- Co-constructing supervision with a thinking-aloud process – Rankine and Thompson open the doors on their supervision session and critically reflect on the content and process.
- The Costs of Misunderstanding Modesty – Dr. Hanks talks about the unintentional consequences of narrowly defining modesty and hyperfocusing only on “what girls wear.”
- A Guide for Female Clinicians Treating Men in Therapy – Holly Sweet finds introducing therapy to men as an educational experience, with verbal and written descriptions of “what to expect in therapy” to be the most effective rapport building approach.
- I’m Working On It in Therapy: How to Get the Most Out of Psychotherapy – Gary Trosclair’s new book weaves together compelling case studies, research and sound advice including helpful tools for self-growth.
- Little Known Tips To Empower Aspergers Children, Students, and Partners – [podcast] Philip Wylie challenges non-autistic individuals to think about Apergers autism as a different culture and focus on gifts, strengths and passions.
- Michele Rosenthal’s “Your Life After Trauma” – Your Life After Trauma integrates current knowledge about the neurobiological effects of trauma with life coaching and includes many exercises that may be helpful to assign to clients, as adjunct to treatment.
- Social Workers aka Dream Advocates – a social worker’s most important job is to actively sustain and support the client and Bonnie Lee Camp explains how the miracle question may be used to restore clients’ ability to achieve their goals.
- Taking a creative approach to client change – Laurie Meyers shares how creative work is expanded beyond art, music or drama therapy to entering the clients’ world via case examples (such as getting interested in what the client is watching/reading and creating a story via technology).
- Teaching trust to children – Jane Evans provides guidance on how to build children’s internal “trust roadmap” by really tuning in to the messages your youngest children send you and being curious.
Social Work Practice
- The effects of emotional labour in social work practice – social workers typically either shut off or defer emotions and/or experience a blurring of boundaries ‘when a case gets under your skin;’ to help, provide social workers with supportive working environments and peer supervision opportunities.
- I Need Help Making Decisions. So Do You. – Dr Russel discusses the importance of using decision support tools to minimize biases such as confirmation bias and more.
- Teaching international social work: a comparative study – findings suggest that international social work education needs to be more experiential and practice-based.
Technology and Mental Health
- Bullying Prevention and Suicide Prevention for Schools – SAMHSA webinar recording about the impact of bullying and suicide on school-aged children and youth & how their apps may help ensure children’s safety.
- Eventbrite For Your Social Work Event – Ignacio Pacheco demonstrates how and why you may want to consider using this platform for handing the ticketing/attendance for your next event.
- FCC is planning to roll out an open source video accessibility platform for individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind, or who have speech disabilities so that users can communicate directly with federal agencies and other businesses in American Sign Language (ASL).
- The Proposed Medicare Telehealth Parity Act of 2015 Would Expand Medicare Reimbursement for Telehealth Services – bill’s expansion would be implemented in three phases over a four year period.
- Responding to a Cry for Help: Best Practices for Online Technologies – site provides three levels of response to suicidal ideation or intent to help you decide how you/your site will respond to an online visitor who may be suicidal.
- Your Family on Tech – Mercedes Samudio has put together a series to guide families; she suggests they share, identify patterns, develop curiosity and plan no-tech time with the goal of strategizing to enhance connection both virtually and physically.
- Web-Based Tools Can Facilitate Patient Engagement, Study Finds – patients and caregivers used tool to look up info and report health concerns or needs without overwhelming providers with messages.
A Few Storified Archives that May Be of Interest:
- Dear St. Josephs Children’s Hospital – Martha Crawford is trying to address barriers to services and discriminatory practices for children of families headed by “non-biological” legal guardians and legal parents.
- Stamp Out Stigma: #MHDignityMarch Chat – about Aug 24th march for Dignity and Change in Mental Health
- Texas Suicide Prevention Symposium – 8-19-2015 – #txsp15
Advocacy/Biases
- Dear NFL: You Missed On A Beautiful Opportunity – Sean Erreger shares the speech Syndney Seau wanted to give following her father’s tragic death by suicide, in which she was honoring her father and offering others hope.
- How to Assess Progress in the War on Poverty – [podcast] Dr. Wimer shares how poverty rate would be much worse today had it not been for the government programs that were ushered in by President Johnson’s War on Poverty.
- Humanitarians, not bureaucrats – Alessandra Pigni World pauses to reflect for World Humanitarian Day and observes that it is human connection that is what heals for both the aid worker and those in need of humanitarian assistance.
- The Image of Domestic Violence – Daniel Myrick calls for more time/attention to be devoted to domestic violence; only one in four cases are ever reported and perpetrators receive jail time only two percent of the time.
- A Panel Discussion on Systemic Racism – [podcast] four members of the UB School of Social Work faculty share their experience and thoughts about leading classroom discussions on addressing discrimination.
- Stella Young: “I’m Not Your Inspiration, Thank You Very Much” – Relando Thompkins shares a video depicting late Stella Young tackling the social construction of disability and the way people with disabilities are often viewed as objects of inspiration.
- Study shows African Americans discriminated against in access to US local public services – Requests for information across the United States are less likely to receive a reply if signed by individuals with ‘black-sounding’ names.
- Voices against bigotry -[podcast] Susie Latham talks about what we might do to combat Islamophobia; she co-founded Voices against Bigotry, a network to organize against this problem.
Self Care/Self Improvement
- Build Emotional Intelligence Skills: There’s An App for That! – Beth Kanter gives an intro to emotional intelligence and suggests the use of Mood Trackers (particularly, MoodNotes) to help improve self-management skills.
- How I Find Artistic Inspiration and Beat the Inner Critic – Amy Maricle suggests kind ways to nurture your inner artist including spending time w/other artists, taking classes and reading select books.
- How Nature Can Help With Depression – Christine Reber recommends that you spend a minimum of 20 minutes outside each day to boost your energy levels and improve your mood.
- The Intersection of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Contemplative Practice – [podcast] Dr. Hanson teaches you how to use your brain to experience lasting happiness.
- Mindfulness, Healing and Transformation – in this free 1 hour video (includes 1 free CE credit), Jon Kabat-Zinn provides guidance on how to begin a practice that balances self-caring with all aspects of your work.
- Try This Activity: Discover Your True Color – Nicole Clark provides a personality test for you to use to better understand yourself, improve communication, and limit potential conflict with others.
Nonprofit/Career
- The 5 Key Roles of a Therapy Business Owner – [podcast] Casey Truffo stresses the importance of community networking (vs. social media) to bring in clients.
- How Live Streaming Will Change the Face of Philanthropy – Periscope and other apps now allow you to live stream doing whatever you want (thereby increasing organizational transparency) and viewers can tune in and engage via comments.
- Landing a Macro Social Work Job – in an interview with Social Work Career, Rachel West shares career tips and resources for macro social workers.
- Transitioning From Clinician To Trainer – [podcast] Rebecca Jorgensen recommends you find a love you have that you can share with others, practice, and start out with small, first with workshops, groups and presentations.
