Best in Mental Health (wk of 4/23/2012)

I'm watching twitter, google+ and the web so you don't have to...

This post is part of a weekly series, Best in Mental Health, featuring the best posts of the week, in social work, psychology, evidence-based practice/healthcare, non-profit employment and private practice concerns on Social Work Career Development.

To get a quick idea of the topics covered in this week's round-up, please see the above word cloud :)

Evidence Based Practice/Healthcare:

NICE publish draft public heath guidance for social and emotional wellbeing in young children
The Mental Elf (Andre Tomlin)

"for ensuring the... wellbeing of children aged under 5 years... draft recommendations... have the potential to make a real difference to ensure all children get the best possible start in life..." < pdf attached

SIGN publish new patient booklet for women who have depression or psychosis during pregnancy or after the birth of their baby
The Mental Elf (Andre Tomlin)

"The booklet covers risk factors, diagnosis, treatment and self-management..." < pdf attached

The cost depends on the value
Occupy Healthcare (RichmondDoc)

"Primary care physicians–the physicians who provide comprehensive care... preventive care...are paid less than all other medical specialists... Unless we value primary care, and redesign our healthcare delivery and payment systems to reflect this, then we will continue to have a healthcare system that under-performs even as healthcare costs continue to increase..."

Social Work:

An Important Reminder
N.A.H. (Relando Thompkins, MSW)

"...I’m currently in a period of great transition. As I navigate through this time in my life, I find myself craving a complicated mix of change and consistency... After we’ve climbed one mountain, we might just find ourselves positioned in front of another..."

Can we stop diagnosing fictional characters with Asperger’s?
SocialJerk

"Mental illness is everywhere. But when we act like it’s actually everywhere, in everybody and in every action, we take away what it means, and we take away the legitimate struggle..."

Drama Therapy in Action

Would you like to learn a little about drama therapy?

As you may recall,  Noel McDermott was very kind in providing us with an introduction to Drama Therapy – Healing Through Role Playing/Storytelling last year.

This post will provide you with a taste of drama therapy from a different perspective, that of an MSW social worker participating in a graduate class with a drama therapist as a guest lecturer.

According to the National Association of Drama Therapy (NADT) drama therapy is the "intentional use of drama and/or theater processes to achieve therapeutic goals."

Best in Mental Health (wk of 4/16/2012)

I'm watching twitter, google+ and the web so you don't have to...

This post is part of a weekly series, Best in Mental Health, featuring the best posts of the week, in social work, psychology, evidence-based practice/healthcare, non-profit employment and private practice concerns on Social Work Career Development.

To get a quick idea of the topics covered in this week's round-up, please see the above word cloud :)

Evidence Based Practice/Healthcare:

Young people with psychotic symptoms should be offered CBT before antipsychotics
The Mental Elf (Andre Tomlin)

"Antipsychotic drugs are currently prescribed to... young people who are diagnosed with psychosis. Past research has estimated that up to half of people at risk of developing psychosis at a young age will progress to a full blown psychotic illness... Our findings... only one in 10 will actually develop psychosis..."

What’s in a name?
Occupy Healthcare (Dr. Ben Miller)

"When we started Occupy Healthcare, we did so because we wanted to bring attention to so many of the issues plaguing us all in healthcare... Occupying healthcare” is what we want to do in order to accomplish change... we want to change healthcare..."

Social Work:

Celebrating Social Work
@SWSCMedia  (Prof. Harry Ferguson)

"Social workers routinely meet the extraordinarily difficult challenge of having to balance empathy and compassion with exercising power and authority to protect the hurt and the vulnerable..." Join Prof. Harry Ferguson at the #SWSCMedia chat on April 24th at 3PM EST

Change Agent: Erine Gray- Aunt Bertha
Kristine Brown

"For social workers, Aunt Bertha is a efficient tool to help their clients find services which saves them much-needed time. For service providers, it is an accountability tool... an online community will de-stigmatize receiving help..."

Music Therapy: Healing Through Music

 

Have you wondered what is music therapy all about?

As you may recall, Linda Grobman provided us with a lovely introduction to Social Work and Music Therapy last year.

This post will provide you with a few introductory notes of musical therapy from the perspective of a student. Last week, we happened to have a music therapist as a guest lecturer :)

According to the American Music Therapy Association, music therapy is an established health profession that uses music to "address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. After assessing the strengths and needs of each client, the qualified music therapist provides the indicated treatment including creating, singing, moving to, and/or listening to music. Through musical involvement in the therapeutic context, clients' abilities are strengthened and transferred to other areas of their lives."

Best in Mental Health (wk of 4/9/2012)

I'm watching twitter, google+ and the web so you don't have to...

This post is part of a weekly series, Best in Mental Health, featuring the best posts of the week, in social work, psychology, evidence-based practice/healthcare, non-profit employment and private practice concerns on Social Work Career Development.

To get a quick idea of the topics covered in this week's round-up, please see the above word cloud :)

Evidence Based Practice/Healthcare:

Running on Empty
Understanding Society (Daniel Little)

"another way of slicing American society -- right down the middle... Poverty is concentrated in this half of America, both adult and child; the percentage of uninsured people is high; and the median income has dropped significantly since 2000..."

What Food Stamps Can Teach Us about Health Care
HealthWorks Collective (John Goodman)

"There are about 50 million people on Medicaid in the United States and the biggest problem they have, by far, is finding a doctor who will see them... The quickest, surest way to create access to care for poverty-level families is to allow them to pay market prices..."

Social Work:

20 Commandments for Mental Health Workers
This Week in Mentalists (Zarathustra)

"Thou shalt respect your client and not judge; Thou shalt be in time for appointments and ‘phone calls. It will show your client that he matters; Thou shalt not let your bad mood or personal issues influence your professional attitude..."

Ally Alert: Interview with Daniel José Older
Infusing Passion & Creativity... Women & Girls of Color (Nicole Clark)

"Daniel has facilitated workshops on music and anti-oppression organizing... violence against women gets complicated and magnified by a tangled web of intersecting forms of violence; police brutality, gentrification, economic oppression and medical discrimination..."

The Power of Meditation

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend Dr. Dan Siegel's seminar "How Psychotherapy Works."

It was a fascinating day in which I learned about the intersection of psychology, neuroscience and mindfulness meditation in mental health.

Below are my key take-aways from Dan Siegel's talk:

Mindsight = the special kind of attention that allows you to see the inner workings of your own mind. It helps you to become aware of your thought processes without being swept away by them. It enables you to turn off the autopilot of (previously) ingrained behaviors/responses. In other words, it helps you "name and tame" your emotions vs. being overwhelmed by them.

For those of you who are familiar with mindfulness meditation, Mindsight is essentially the state of awareness that one obtains from the practice of mindfulness meditation.

However, as Dan explained, he had developed Mindsight without any knowledge of mindfulness meditation at the time. It just so happened that the Mindsight and mindfulness meditation overlapped and the subsequent research in support of all the benefits of mindfulness meditation, is in support of his research as well.

Best in Mental Health (wk of 4/2/2012)

I'm watching twitter, google+ and the web so you don't have to...

This post is part of a weekly series, Best in Mental Health, featuring the best posts of the week, in social work, psychology, evidence-based practice/healthcare, non-profit employment and private practice concerns on Social Work Career Development.

To get a quick idea of the topics covered in this week's round-up, please see the above word cloud :)

Evidence Based Practice/Healthcare:

Rethinking physical activity for depression: what’s cost effective?
The Mental Elf (Andre Tomlin)

"Researchers... have been working on a major new study for the last 5 years, which investigates the cost-effectiveness of a physical activity intervention as a treatment for depression. The headline... is that the physical activity promoting intervention in primary care did not lead to any clinical benefit in terms of depressive symptoms..."

Self-Service Healthcare?
e-patients.net (Dan Hoch)

"I think there are parallels between the failure of the self check-out lanes in grocery stores, and the failure of many patients to embrace engagement... The majority of patients are not e-patients... customers will only embrace self-service when it provides something they want and when the technology is intuitive..."

Social Work:

The People Who Inspire Series: Nick Berbiers
N.A.H. (Relando Thompkins, MSW)

"Today’s Post features Nick Berbiers, Social Care Interim Manager and Consultant at Neist Point Limited in the United Kingdom... it’s ALL about social justice and equity. I hope it is visible as a motivator, a driver, and an aspiration in my management..."

Anxiety and ego strength
This Is Me (spldbch)

"How do I know when to "push" (i.e., encourage) a patient to stick with the treatment and when to back off?  Is it my job to say to a patient, "Look, I don't think you can handle this?"  And what if I'm wrong?... There doesn't seem to be a clear cut answer to this..."

Best in Mental Health (wk of 3/26/2012)

I'm watching twitter, google+ and the web so you don't have to...

This post is part of a weekly series, Best in Mental Health, featuring the best posts of the week, in social work, psychology, evidence-based practice/healthcare, non-profit and private practice concerns on Social Work Career Development.

To get a quick idea of the topics covered in this week's round-up, please see the above word cloud :)

Evidence Based Practice/Healthcare:

Can pregnant women with depression take SSRI antidepressants without harming their unborn baby?
The Mental Elf (Andre Tomlin)

"Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants are commonly offered to pregnant women suffering from depression... Untreated maternal depression was associated with slower rates of fetal body and head growth. Pregnant mothers treated with SSRIs had fewer depressive symptoms..."

Health Care Reform, the Supreme Court and Implications for People Living with Mental Illness
NAMI (Ron Honberg)

"This week, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)... there are two main issues before the Court... First, is the provision in the law requiring Americans to purchase health insurance (the “mandate”) an impermissible tax?..."

ObamaCare and the End of Nothing
The Health Care Blog (JD Kleinke)

"ObamaCare is expected to cram 30 million uninsured people into the current non-system. Complementary elements of the law make it illegal for health insurers to kick any of us out if we get too sick or stop paying our bills if we get too expensive. And if an insurer makes too much money in the process, it needs to refund a portion. Aside from these four economically intertwined health insurance market reforms, most everything else about ObamaCare is business as usual..."

Social Work:

Breakdown
This Is Me (spldbch)

"we all vary in our ability to cope with stress... Still... we all have limits to what we can endure... We significantly decrease the likelihood that we will ever reach our "breaking point" by coping with individual stressors as they arise and by making self care a priority..."

CHE: A Graduate Student With $88,000 in Student Loans Speaks Out About College Debt
Michigan Girl's Cafe

"Young people like Ms. Johnson, who are starting adult life deeper in debt than students a decade ago, see themselves as part of a new generation of serfdom. Even as their debt grows, she and others say that student activism around the issue is weaker in the United States than in other countries..."