Healthcanc

We'll get to co-pilot Andreas Lubitz , who crashed Deutsch Lufthansa AG Germanwings Flight 9525 during a depressive episode. But first, when therapists become aware of dangerous situations, our responsibilities right here in the USA . (1) Firearm Owner's Identification (FOID) and the Mental Health Reporting System  I'm not sure when it happened, whether it was after a shooting at a school or maybe the Batman massacre in the movie theater in Colorado, but soon after I opened my office slowmail to find a pamphlet from the State of Illinois that disclosed a mandate for mental health professionals. We are to report individuals who have firearms if they have suicidal or homicidal ideation. The exact statutes vary, but states regulate the sale and possession of firearms to the mentally ill and developmentally disabled, along with federal regulations , too. The Law Center for Prevention of Gun Violence  provides us a map of the United States. We can click on a state before decidin...

Couples therapists try not to take sides. To be effective (and keep a couple in therapy) we have to be on everybody's team.  We say, with total confidence: There are three patients in the room, You, You,  and Your Relationship. We have to treat all three to beat this problem—no matter the problem. And inevitably, when we get to the gory details, each partner remembers things differently. Only the relationship gets it right. When perception is so different, it behooves each partner to elaborate on his narrative. In the process of really fleshing out a argument, as if you’re on a debate team, you get closer.  The goal is to find a mutual narrative that you don’t mind going down in family history, something you can tell your grandchildren, or to your family, not a one-sided drunken rant on a holiday.  We tend to remember things from our own perspectives, forgetting, or never understanding, that of our partners. WSJ psychology reporter Elizabeth Bernstein adds ...

(1) Ducks in a Row Families fall into three camps, usually. We're either: (a) anxious, (b) depressed, or (c) both. Not a scientific fact, just my humble opinion. My fam, depending upon the weather, runs on high anxiety. Discussing it at a recent wedding, obsessed with shooting photos and getting them right before stuffing our mouths, even the younger cousins agreed that yep, most of us run scared. For those who worry and over-think situations, not dinged with technical OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) or GAD (generalized anxiety disorder), but symptomatic enough to get sick with worry, the thought of leaving on a jet-plane is exactly as Peter, Paul and Mary sing in that l969 song about leaving on a jet plane; don't know if I'll be back again. Leaving on a jet plane is loaded with meaning. Rationally you know you have a round trip ticket. But emotionally, you're not sure. It is that return trip in the back of the brain, talking trash. Will you make it home? So you m...

I used to tell young parents that until their kids learned to read, there was no sedating them. We've since learned that television does a more than admirable job Not that I'm condoning it. FD and I literally cut the power cord. He transformed the piece still attacked to the TV to a female, and added a male connector to the other (both ends male) and either took it with him to work, or hid it where we thought they would never think to find it. They would, of course, we heard years later, and dangerously fiddled with the double-ended male electrical cord, eventually turning on the tube to watch He-Man and the like.  It is a miracle no one electrocuted themselves. But anything electronic will lull most of us into a state of uncomfortable consciousness, sleep without the glitter. There seems to be research to the effect that our electronics keep us awake. It isn't that way for everyone, and with very small children the effect might be paradoxical. It probably depends u...

Fifty Shades of Grey-the ebook Prior to reading the book, I thought 50 Shades of Grey had to be a middle-aged woman's lament about her hair. Okay, that's the last joke. Men Can Stop Rape I bought the book months ago, needing an ebook to read while the nails dry. It could take me a year to finish just one ebook. But I lost my place, which happens when you use Kindle on multiple devices, and never found it again. Not being patient with such things, I switched to a print book,  Understanding Mass Violence: A Social Work Perspective which is pretty good, actually. The poster above is from the Men Can Stop Rape organization. I bought a bunch of them.  Not that Fifty Shades of Grey is about rape, but it is about hurting. And therapists deal with hurting pretty often, tend to wince when people intentionally hurt themselves. Doctors as a rule are down on self-harm, risky behavior. My father-in-law, a family doctor, called people who ride motorcycles organ donors . Knowing it is dange...

It has been some time since we linked over to other people's blogs and websites. We are totally overdue. Here are some goodies. (1) EMDR   Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing. Still one of my favorite techniques, although it requires a little upper-arm muscle, focus, and yes, intensive training. That can be tough, that trip to San Diego in the winter. (There's a post on this blog about it somewhere, all about me, naturally.) For many years we used EMDR primarily to treat PTSD, but now it is popping up in all kinds of other ways. Check out this link to Anastasia Pollak 's Not just for trauma: EMDR and Performance Enhancement . She even explains how it works, the theoretical why, that is. And of course, so does the founder, Francine Shapiro. (2) TopCounselingSchools infographic is tops in my book. How we love a good visual, check it out. (Blessings, Brietta, thanks for your patience.) (3) How to Give a Time Out: Give a Time In Instead  We used to use The Green C...

I have to admit, lists rankle me, especially when they are lists of  shoulds .* But Amy Morin  wrote a list of should nots . The book,  13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do,  pulled me in, just like  Where Have I Been All My Life , life coach Cheryl Rice's biography, last week. Love those book tours.** The good news is that the list of don't  isn't as focused on avoidance as it  leads on. That's good, because avoidance isn't generally therapeutic. In fact, it can be anti-therapeutic. Just don't  ___ (fill in the blank),   never works, not for very long. Humans are far too willful, prone to habit and addiction. Therapy is a process, an examination of the whys and the wherefores of pain--the opposite of avoiding problems. We even suggest that patients lean into problems. Don't avoid. " Bring it up in a safe place " (before leaning in  in vivo ). Enough focus and we get sick of feeling sick, leave it for awhile. Remember what th...