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Tag: mental health

  • Patrick Kennedy On The State Of Addiction, Suicide Rates

    Patrick Kennedy On The State Of Addiction, Suicide Rates

    “If this were some other illness that evoked the same type of compassion that other illnesses receive, we would be spending dramatically more money to combat these rising suicide and overdose rates,” Patrick Kennedy said.

    Patrick Kennedy recently spoke to US News about the latest statistics on addiction and suicide and what he believes could be at the root of the problem.

    Kennedy says recent news about the drop in US life expectancy due to suicide and drug overdose deaths was “extremely shocking, but frankly, not surprising.”

    He added, “As a nation, we’re absolutely in denial about how bad this crisis is. If this were some other illness that evoked the same type of compassion that other illnesses receive, we would be spending dramatically more money to combat these rising suicide and overdose rates.”

    Kennedy has been very vocal about the stigma surrounding addiction and mental health. In his book, A Common Struggle, he detailed his own experience of living with addiction and bipolar disorder. Kennedy believes stigma plays a massive role in preventing people with addiction and/or mental health issues from getting the treatment they need.

    “The real tragedy is what it says about the people who suffer from these illnesses – they’re still shamed by their illness, they’re overwhelmingly stigmatized,” he tells US News. “They’re relegated to a system of care that is substandard at best.”

    Addressing the increased rates of addiction and suicide, Kennedy said, “There is obviously great complexity to all of the causes and how they converge together to create the crisis that we’re in right now,” and he also felt “there’s a well-established narrative here that pharma had a huge responsibility for this, and there should be a huge national settlement in helping to create this crisis…”

    Kennedy added, “I think that both insurance companies and Big Pharma made a lot of money in this process, and a lot of people died. And I think if we’re going to go after the pharmaceutical industry, then it would be absolutely inexplicable why we would not also go after the insurance industry with the same fervor for their part in letting this crisis unfold without doing what we needed to do to address it.”

    Kennedy also took time to reflect on the 10-year anniversary of the Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which he called “a medical civil rights bill” where people are treated for mental health and addiction on the same “primary care level, secondary care level and tertiary care level as you would find when treating any other medical surgical illness.”

    Yet Kennedy recently acknowledged that the act still has a long way to go, and he started a website in October called Don’t Deny Me, where people can report insurance companies that won’t cover their addiction and mental health issues.

    He told The Washington Post, “There are plenty of solutions to bring people the care they need, but what is missing is the political will and the economic and legal pressure to make it happen and that’s why we’re marking the anniversary.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Psychiatric Directives May Be A Game Changer For Mental Health Patients

    Psychiatric Directives May Be A Game Changer For Mental Health Patients

    Psychiatric advance directives give mental health patients a way to express ahead of time, when they are in a sound state of mind, how they would like to be treated during hospitalization or treatment.

    Steve Singer, who has bipolar and borderline personality disorders, knows that he sometimes needs to go to the hospital. However, he also knows that certain treatments from staff — like getting the police involved or keeping Singer in a locked room — can make his condition much worse, not better. 

    Because of this, Singer drafted a psychiatric advance directive, a document that is entered in his medical chart and dictates his wishes, even when he is unable to express them. 

    “That psychiatric advance directive, I think is so important,” he told The New York Times. “It allows me to turn things around.”

    For mentally ill patients and their families, hospitalization and treatment can be terrifying. While people are experiencing psychosis or other symptoms of mental illness they are often desperate for support, but certain treatments or medications can exacerbate the situation rather than calm it. 

    Psychiatric advance directives allow people with mental illness agency over how they are treated by giving them a means to express ahead of time, when they are in a sound state of mind, how they would like to be treated. The documents can cover issues such as which medications should be avoided, what words can help cut through psychosis or which family member can make decisions during crisis. The directives are added to a patient’s chart and should be followed as long as the conditions within meet the patient’s best interests. 

    This type of advance directive is authorized in 27 states and can be incorporated into different types of medical directives in other states. Now, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is considering ways to encourage directives, and Medicare and Medicaid are requiring hospitals to ask if patients have a directive. As awareness grows, clinics are being held around the country to help patients draft psychiatric advance directives.

    Effective directives “would enhance people receiving appropriate treatment,” said Dr. Mark Rapaport, chairman of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University. “But this is going to be really hard to do.”

    The directives need to be notarized and given to medical professionals or be logged in the state’s system. They also need to be realistic, requesting treatment that medical professionals can provide in a crisis. 

    Dr. Marvin Swartz, a Duke psychiatry professor, said that just the act of drafting a directive can be empowering for patients and improve their interactions with their health care team. He offered 239 patients the opportunity to write a directive and found that those who did had fewer crises and involuntary hospitalizations. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can Pet Ownership Alleviate Depression Symptoms?

    Can Pet Ownership Alleviate Depression Symptoms?

    A new study examined the impact of pet ownership on people with treatment-resistant depression.

    It’s no secret that animals can bring people joy, but a new study indicates that adopting a pet could prove particularly beneficial for those with severe depression. 

    The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, found that for those with severe depression that was not easily treatable, adopting a pet could help lessen symptoms. 

    Jorge Mota Pereira and Daniela Fonte, two Portuguese researchers, recruited 80 study participants who had “treatment-resistant major depressive disorder.” They encouraged each one to adopt a pet. Of the 80 participants, 33 agreed to adopt, with 20 individuals choosing a dog and seven choosing a cat.  

    According to The Independent, over the following 12 weeks, the participant’s depression symptoms were studied during checkups at four and eight weeks.  

    The results at the end of the study implied that adopting the pet had been beneficial for some. More than 33% of the group, according to the Independent, had higher scores on depression rating systems like the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale, and the scores were considered mild rather than severe.

    According to the study’s authors, one reason for this may be that the level of care a pet requires could impact depression symptoms positively. 

    “By having the responsibility of taking care of an animal, people have to get up in the morning to take care of the animal, namely pet them and feeding them,” the researchers wrote, according to Bustle. “In the specific case of dogs, the need of taking a dog for a walk, hike and run promotes the increase of physical activity and could help its owner to meet new people that also have pets, sharing experiences and improving their social skills.”

    The researchers concluded that owning a pet could be an “effective adjuvant” to more traditional depression treatments.  

    However, writer Christian Jarrett pointed out in a blog for the British Psychological Society Research Digest that the improvement in patient’s scores and symptoms could have to do with more than adopting a pet.

    “So, although pet-adopters and the controls were matched for baseline depression symptoms, there may have been other ways that they differed,” he writes. “For instance, perhaps there was something different about the personalities or social circumstances of the pet adopters that contributed to their willingness to adopt a pet and to their higher remission rates (raising the possibility that the pet adoption itself was not the main ‘active ingredient’ in their recovery).”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • The Challenges Of Dating With Depression

    The Challenges Of Dating With Depression

    Experts explain the challenges people with depression face in the dating world.

    Depression can often be a full-time fight, and it can make practically every aspect of life difficult, including dating. While dating is still possible when battling depression, it can often require extra effort and care.

    In a new look at depression and dating, Ask Men spoke to several experts about the specific difficulties and challenges people who are struggling with depression can face when they’re looking for the right soul mate.

    As Lindsey Pratt, a relationship therapist, explains, “Depression may impact your relationship as it reduces general feelings of wellbeing, as well as overall energy. If you struggle with depression, you may notice that it prevents you from feeling excitement over special moments with your partner, that you have trouble finding energy to spend time with that person, or that your ability to imagine a happy future with your partner feels limited.”

    If you suffer from depression and want to try online dating, Pratt recommends that you “practice patience and compassion with yourself that your speed in replying or interacting with potential dates may be limited. Battling depression can be physically and emotionally taxing, so make sure you’re going at your own pace and being kind with yourself in the process.”

    Yet Dr. Paulette Sherman, a psychologist who has written several books on dating, also recommends pushing yourself a bit to get out there, even if you feel down in the dumps. “It is healthy to take action to forge new connections, to have fun and to remain hopeful that something good could come from your efforts,” she explains.

    Pratt also recommends being aware of what triggers your depression and to work around those triggers when dating, like scheduling a date around the hours of the day you feel best. Once the date is happening, it’s important to be in the moment and to not bring your depressive thoughts and feelings with you. “Try to focus on what there is to enjoy and what you appreciate about your experience,” Sherman says.

    Another difficult aspect of dating when you’re depressed is when to disclose to someone that you suffer from depression. “You’ll need to determine the best time to discuss your depression with a date,” Sherman explains. “Often this conversation happens a month or two into dating.”

    Psychology professor Amanda Rose recommended to US News that when it’s time to disclose that you’re dealing with depression, “Be brief and to the point. I don’t know if it’s always relevant to go into too many details.”

    As Dr. Gary Brown, a marriage and family therapist, also explained to Elite Daily, “I really like to encourage people to say, ‘You know what? I suffer from a condition that’s pretty common in the population. I have this sadness sometimes about me.’ You don’t even have to use the word depression.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ben Foster’s “Leave No Trace” Tackles PTSD, Mental Health

    Ben Foster’s “Leave No Trace” Tackles PTSD, Mental Health

    In the critically-acclaimed movie, Foster plays a veteran coping with post-traumatic stress disorder.

    Ben Foster, star of X-Men: The Last Stand and 3:10 to Yuma, has received rave reviews and early Oscar buzz this year for his role Leave No Trace where he plays a veteran dealing with PTSD.

    Foster hopes the film will help reduce the public stigma around mental health, and as the actor told People, “Some wounds and illnesses are invisible to the naked eye. By sharing stories about our own unique experiences, we can allow a safe identification and hopefully a conversation. Any time we look past a bias or perceived stigma, for ourselves or others, we strengthen our own humanity. Practicing empathy is the first mighty step towards healing.”

    When Leave No Trace was coming together, Foster told Indie Wire that “the unseen scars of war” and how veterans cope with them “are things that have touched my life by having friends in the military, and I felt like I could ask these questions in an emotional way that I haven’t before, so that was exciting … Further than that, trauma is trauma, and war doesn’t get to own PTSD. Understanding that if you live long enough on this planet and you make it to a certain age we’re gonna experience things that go unresolved, leave a mark. We need to find ways to cope.”

    To prepare for the role, Foster consulted with Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen, a renowned psychologist who helps veterans. (In 2012, Van Dahlen made Time’s Most Influential People List.) Foster previously worked with Dr. Van Dahlen when he starred in the Chris Stapleton video for “Fire Away,” which also raised awareness for mental health awareness.

    Foster called Van Dahlen “one of [the] most beautiful compassionate humans I’ve had the good fortune of meeting. She helped guide us towards a more authentic expression of how depression manifests itself and affects loved ones, while at the same time suggesting hope and ways to connect.”

    Van Dahlen created a foundation for vets called Give an Hour, where therapists donate an hour of their time for free to help veterans cope after serving. (Since forming in 2005, the organization, through the work of 7,000 therapists, has reportedly given 250,000 hours of free help to vets.)

    With Leave No Trace, Van Dahlen feels it’s important “to tell authentic, accurate stories. We’ve had way too many in our history of sensationalized stories so, sadly, people think all veterans are broken, they all have post-traumatic stress. And that’s not true. ‘Leave No Trace’ is such a beautiful and compelling film … Ben really is such a student and was meticulous about getting it right and being authentic.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Mental Health Clinic Finds A New Home In Walmart

    Mental Health Clinic Finds A New Home In Walmart

    The mental health clinic inside the Texas Walmart offers a variety of treatments and access to a licensed clinical social worker.

    Mental health services are being offered in Texas at an unexpected location: Walmart.

    According to the Boston Globe, Boston-based company Beacon Health Options opened the small clinic in the Carrollton, Texas Walmart last week. 

    Eventually, Beacon plans to open additional clinics in similar spaces in hopes of increasing mental health care options for those who may not have access to it otherwise.

    Currently, the Texas clinic has one licensed clinical social worker and provides treatment for anxiety, depression, grief, relationship issues and other common stressors. Patients can go online or call to schedule appointments. Walk-ins are also welcome. If the clinic is too busy, patients will have the option to use Skype to speak with a professional.

    The clinic is not meant for individuals with severe forms of mental illness, and operates on a sliding scale for patients without insurance.

    “People don’t know how to find a behavioral health or mental health professional,” said Beacon president and CEO Russell Petrella. “People don’t know where to go and what to do… We’re trying to mainstream behavioral health services.”

    According to Bonnie Cook, executive director of Mental Health America of Greater Dallas, the clinics are needed, as Mental Health America recently rated Texas as the state with the least access to mental health care. 

    “As a mental health community, we have to start thinking outside the box,” Cook told the Globe. 

    On the other hand, some professionals were critical of Beacon’s new venture because of the company itself.  

    “Offering mental health care in a retail setting is innovative and imaginative, and it could work,” Gary A. Chinman, Brookline psychiatrist and president of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, told the Globe.

    However, he added that Beacon “would have to change a lot more about their business model for it to be successful.”

    Vic DiGravio, president and CEO of the Association for Behavioral Healthcare, expressed the same concerns, stating that Beacon is restrictive when it comes to providing care because of “procedural hurdles and inadequate pay.”

    “If Beacon were serious about expanding access to mental health services, it would focus on doing a better job in its current lines of business,” DiGravio told the Globe. “What Beacon is really good at is limiting access to treatment. They’re not so good at promoting access to treatment.”

    In speaking to the Globe, Petrella did note that some providers struggle with “administrative hassles” and that steps are being taken to solve such issues. 

    He adds that Beacon has good intentions when it comes to clinics such as the one in Texas.

    “We’re trying to fill in the gaps in care, trying to do it in a reasonable way, with low stigma, and make it convenient,” Petrella stated. “Hopefully, we can improve the quality of some people’s lives.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • More Police Departments Partnering With Mental Health Experts

    More Police Departments Partnering With Mental Health Experts

    The mental health “co-responders” aid police by determining whether a person should go to the hospital or if they would have a better outcome under a treatment plan.

    Police officers who find themselves face-to-face with people who may be suffering from mental health problems now have the proper support to de-escalate potentially deadly encounters.

    We’ve heard of police departments partnering with mental health experts in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Kansas. Now, this strategy is being tried in Livingston County, New York, where police officers say it’s a step in the right direction.

    “They’re trained professionals. They’re certified. They know much better than a deputy sheriff what exactly is going on mentally,” said Livingston County Sheriff Tom Dougherty, according to News 10 NBC.

    Neighboring Monroe County is also experimenting with the new strategy, according to NBC.

    According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, people suffering from mental health issues are 16 times more likely to be killed by police.

    “The police officers are really asked to wear a lot of hats. They’re supposed to get on the scene and quickly assess the mental health status of someone,” said Michele Anuszkiewicz, Livingston County director of mental health.

    Once police officers determine that there is no immediate danger on scene, mental health experts arrive to assess the situation.

    “We’ll get there as soon as we can. We’ve got some very brief but we think evidence-based effective assessments that we can do with folks,” says Anuszkiewicz.

    The mental health “co-responders,” who are on call 24/7, are able to determine whether a person should go to the hospital or if they would have a better outcome under a treatment plan. This is a better long-term solution for the individual, says Sheriff Dougherty.

    “I can tell you, we have repeat offender after repeat offender and when I say offender, I mean somebody taken into custody on an MHA (mental health arrest)… There’s times, when we feel like patrol will drop them off at the hospital and we feel that they beat us back to the county.”

    He added, “My belief is this new program may be more of a long-term involvement with the mental health crisis team. There may be more of a bond between the person that’s going through these struggles and a long-term commitment from the crisis team that maybe we don’t have the repeat calls, maybe they don’t have the repeat feelings because they’re getting more long-term treatment.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Bruce Springsteen Discusses Mental Health Struggles Ahead Of Netflix Special

    Bruce Springsteen Discusses Mental Health Struggles Ahead Of Netflix Special

    Bruce Springsteen says he used music as a distraction from his mental health struggles.

    As the release of his new Netflix special approaches on Dec. 15, music legend Bruce Springsteen sat down and openly discussed his past mental health struggles with Esquire magazine.

    Springsteen says his struggles date back to his childhood and that early on in his life, he used music to distract from the onset of depression.

    “When I was a child, and into my teens…I felt like a very, very empty vessel,” Springsteen said. “And it wasn’t until I began to fill it up with music that I began to feel my own personal power and my impact on my friends and the small world that I was in. I began to get some sense of myself. But it came out of a place of real emptiness.”

    Springsteen went on to state that as a teen, he didn’t feel he had his father’s approval of who he was as a person. 

    “My mother was kind and compassionate and very considerate of others feelings,” he said. “She trod through the world with purpose, but softly, lightly. All those were the things that aligned with my own spirit. That was who I was. They came naturally to me. My father looked at all those things as weaknesses. He was very dismissive of primarily who I was. And that sends you off on a lifelong quest to sort through that.”

    According to Springsteen, he had his first breakdown when he was 32 years old, in 1982, during the release of the album Nebraska. Though he says he remains unsure what prompted the episode, he suspects his aging and childhood played a role. 

    He went on to discuss the loss of a close friend to suicide, stating he got “very, very ill.”

    “So can I understand how that happens? Yes,” Springsteen said. “I think I felt just enough despair myself to—pain gets too great, confusion gets too great, and that’s your out. But I don’t have any great insight into it, and in truth, I’ve never met someone who has.”

    In experiencing what he has, Springsteen says he now knows the warning signs of a downward mental health spiral and that he keeps watch of his children for the same signs.

    “I have come close enough to [mental illness] where I know I am not completely well myself,” he told Esquire. “I’ve had to deal with a lot of it over the years, and I’m on a variety of medications that keep me on an even keel; otherwise I can swing rather dramatically and…just…the wheels can come off a little bit. So we have to watch, in our family. I have to watch my kids, and I’ve been lucky there. It ran in my family going way before my dad.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Amanda Bynes Talks Being Four Years Sober, Reflects On Past Drug Use

    Amanda Bynes Talks Being Four Years Sober, Reflects On Past Drug Use

    Amanda Bynes credits her parents with helping her “get back on track” after her past issues with problematic drug use.

    Amanda Bynes is moving on from her past. The actress, now 32, was a popular target of the paparazzi during her twenties, racking up DUIs and a reputation for drug abuse and bizarre behavior.

    But she’s now sober and studying at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles.

    In a new interview with Paper magazine, the former Nickelodeon star relives her hectic past.

    As a child, Bynes landed a place on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy show All That, alongside Kenan Thompson and Nick Cannon, and quickly became a fixture of the network. As a teenager, Bynes appeared in films like Big Fat Liar, What a Girl Wants, and She’s the Man.

    Despite her success, Bynes began having issues with her self-image. She recalled being thrown “into a funk” after seeing herself in She’s the Man. In this 2006 film, Bynes plays a teenage girl who disguises herself as her brother in order to play on the boy’s soccer team. “When the movie came out and I saw it, I went into a deep depression for 4-6 months because I didn’t like how I looked when I was a boy,” she said.

    Still, she continued to churn out hits on the big screen like Hairspray (2007) and Easy A (2010). But she couldn’t shake her self-image issues. While watching herself at a screening of Easy A, Bynes said, “I literally couldn’t stand my appearance in that movie and I didn’t like my performance. I was absolutely convinced I needed to stop acting after seeing it.”

    Bynes “never liked the taste of alcohol” and “never really liked going out that much. I [only] started going out around 25 years old,” she said.

    While she couldn’t stomach alcohol, Bynes did start using marijuana when she was 16. “Even though everyone thought I was the ‘good girl,’ I did smoke marijuana from that point on.”

    However, this progressed to molly, ecstasy and Adderall. The combination of drugs that she was abusing did not agree with her.

    Bynes announced that she was retiring from acting, and found herself out of work with not much to do. “I just had no purpose in life. I’d been working my whole life and [now] I was doing nothing. I had a lot of time on my hands and I would ‘wake and bake’ and literally be stoned all day long,” she said.

    This cycle of being “just stuck at home, getting high, watching TV and tweeting,” eventually spiraled out of control. Bynes began “hanging out with a seedier crowd and I isolated a lot… I got really into my drug usage and it became a really dark, sad world for me.”

    She explained that her bizarre behavior was truly “drug-induced, and whenever I got off of [drugs], I was always back to normal.”

    Bynes, with her past behind her, is now looking forward to earning her fashion degree and returning to acting. “I’ve been sober for almost four years now.” She credits her parents with “really helping me get back on track.”

    “Those days of experimenting [with substances] are long over. I’m not sad about it and I don’t miss it because I really feel ashamed of how those substances made me act,” she said.

    With everything she has been through, magnified by the relentless pursuit of the paparazzi, Bynes says she’s now able to live fearlessly.

    “I think that’s kind of how I go about [life] now—like, what’s there to lose? I have no fear of the future. I’ve been through the worst and came out the other end and survived it so I just feel like it’s only up from here.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Inside The Mental Health Crisis In Federal Prisons

    Inside The Mental Health Crisis In Federal Prisons

    At some federal prisons in the midst of a mental health crisis, the number of inmates receiving care has fallen by 80% in the past four years.

    Despite promises for better health care and oversight, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has dramatically cut the number of inmates on its mental health caseload, according to an investigation by the Marshall Project.

    In part, that’s because the prison system didn’t add more employees while officials promised more care, increasing the workload for the existing mental health staff without providing the resources to do it. 

    “The catchphrase in the bureau was ‘Do more with less,’” Russ Wood, a long-time federal prison psychologist, told the Marshall Project. “The psychologists were getting pulled off to work gun towers and do prisoner escorts. We’re not really devoted to treating.”

    As of February 2018, only 3% of federal prisoners were classified as mentally ill enough to need treatment. At some facilities, the number of inmates getting mental health care has fallen 80 or more percent in the past four years.

    Afterward, suicides and self-harm increased, data shows. Between 2015 and 2017 the figures for suicides, suicide attempts and self-injuries rose by nearly one-fifth. And, having fewer prisoners on the proper medication or receiving the care they need could have other effects on the prison system; the average monthly rate of prison assaults bumped up 16% between 2015 and 2016. 

    FCI Hazelton in West Virginia—the lock-up where Whitey Bulger was killed earlier this year—had among the largest decreases in mental health care treatment, accompanied by a sharp increase in the assault rate which rose from 29 per 5,000 inmates per month to 40 per 5,000 inmates per month. 

    In addition to failing to hire mental health providers, the federal prison system has come under scrutiny for reassigning non-security staff to cover for guards—who also face understaffing problems. Using a practice called augmentation, federal prisons routinely force teachers, medical workers, counselors and cooks to work as correctional officers, a USA Today investigation found earlier this year. 

    The paper reported on the problem two years ago, but since then it seems only to have gotten worse, according to prison workers. 

    “The problems have only escalated,” said Eric Young, president of the union for prison workers. “Some of the facilities are making those assignments every day to avoid paying overtime to corrections officers.”

    View the original article at thefix.com