The Midwest, where NAMI originally coalesced as an organization, continues
to be a vital source of new ideas, energy
& hope for families living with mental illness.
via namimi.org
The pioneer of Dialectic Behavioural Therapy, a variation of CBT designed for suicidal people with Borderline Personality Disorder (now being applied to other mental health issues), talks about her research and challenges with treating BPD patients. Includes full transcript. See also: Learning From Suicide, another excellent lecture by Linehan on the ethics of research on suicidal people.
More than 450 people filled the Unitarian Church in Portland Oregon February 10th for the Rethinking Psychiatry event. Robert Whitaker keynoted the evening, followed by a panel with Beckie Child, Director of the Mental Health America of Oregon; Cindi Fisher, Movement of Mothers Standing – Up -Together: Taking Back Our Children; Chris Gordon, Assistant professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Medical Director of Mental Health Advocacy; Gina Nikkel, Director of the Oregon Association of Community Mental Health Programs; and Will Hall, Director of Portland Hearing Voices.
Listen to the entire evening’s talks here:
The findings, so far, are tantalizing. Recent studies have shown that shy people are spending more time on Facebook than more socially confident people do, and that the shy report higher satisfaction with the service than do others. Shy people even say they develop closer friendships via the network than the non-shy say they do. One study, published in the journal CyberPsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, showed that the Internet and social networks helped lonely children fill "critical needs of social interactions, self-disclosure, and identity exploration.
I’ve collected several things I do to cope with the pain I experience as a result of long-term psychotropic drug use and the subsequent withdrawal pain I find myself in. Many people suffer from these pains upon withdrawal from many different psychiatric drugs and psychiatric drug classes so I thought I’d share how I cope. In most instances the pain remits in time but that can take up to a few years so we do need to have coping strategies in place while the time passes. This is by no means an exhaustive list of what might be done to cope with pain.
Best Tweets for Trauma and PTSD Survivors is a weekly Friday feature. My selections are entirely subjective, and I know it will never be possible to include every great resource tweeted. But I can try! I’ve personally read all tweeted links, and believe them to be of great value.
This is an action proposed by MindFreedom International beginning in 5 May 2012, to unite peaceful activism, theater and protest all over the world for major change in the mental health system.
via mindfreedom.org
This is a free webinar, though you do need to pre-register.
via mindfreedom.org
Placebo effect is one of my favorite interests. I’ve said again and again, we need to learn how to harness the power of placebo because it is, essentially, nothing other than our own minds power to heal our whole beings. Pharma and many scientists want to dismiss it. Placebo is experienced as a nuisance in research. It’s clear to me the phenomena is part of our human heritage and rather than find it an annoying thing that gets in the way of drug making, we should put more effort into learning how to use it within ourselves without the props!
Thanks and a hat tip to Marty
Welcome to issue five of BeingWell! BeingWell is a quarterly newsletter on issues relevant to disability and health. This issue includes information on Seasonal Affective Disorder, an update on a recent inclusiveness training offered to fitness professionals, and an upcoming conference on Universal Design on March 22. We introduce the nutrition evaluation system NuVal, offer new data on the health of people with disabilities in Michigan, and showcase a new online training for health professionals.