-
Improving Medication Adherence in People with Serious Mental Illness
Psychotropic medication nonadherence in populations with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) can lead to inadequate symptom control, reduced treatment effectiveness, significant relapse risk, and increased risk of death (Semahegn, 2020). Nonadherence to medication also results in increased healthcare...
-
Overcoming Self-Stigma in Bipolar Disorder: A Targeted Intervention for an Urgent Problem
For many with bipolar disorder, as well as other mental health conditions, stigma remains a real and regular burden in everyday life. In addition to the stressors and difficulties of the condition, the experience of stigma can lead to a host of deleterious outcomes including lower self-esteem,...
-
Destigmatizing Mental Illness: Music Therapy in the Clinical Outpatient Realm
Destigmatizing mental illness through the power of music in clinical mental health treatment therapy combined with peer support can be beneficial to achieving transformation within the current paradigm in mental health. The effects of stigma are felt most by disregarded communities who tend to be...
-
Overcoming Stigma to Create More Inclusive Communities
April is Autism Awareness Month and World Autism Day was April 2, 2023. These observances create important opportunities to break down existing biases and build more inclusive communities where all people are valued for their unique abilities. While greater awareness is needed to foster...
-
Finding Peace: A Journey to Positive Mental Mindset
Like many people who struggle with mental illness, Helise withdraws and isolates herself when she feels overwhelmed. While alone and shut in, she found herself ruminating about her thoughts and feelings, this pattern only made her feel worse. Feeling isolated and uncertain about what to do,...
-
Applied Behavior Analysis as a Treatment for Survivors of Trauma
Understanding trauma has become a major focus for many different fields of mental health, with each proposing a different strategy for addressing traumatic symptoms and core issues. This has not been an easy feat for several reasons. First, the current reports of trauma are only as accurate as the...
-
From the Shadow of COVID, a Bright Emergent Resource: Crisis Stabilization Center
One enduring effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is its intense illumination of the need for more accessible mental health and substance-use services in our community (a patchwork of towns east of New York City). During the pandemic, CN Guidance & Counseling Services—born in 1972 to fill a gap in...
-
Ketamine for Mental Health Treatment: How Promising Is It?
For centuries, we have sought cures for depression. Some discoveries, such as psychotherapy and medication treatment, are now widely accepted. But they don’t work for everyone. More recently, an unorthodox drug has garnered attention as a new, possible intervention: ketamine. Classified as...
-
Increased Access to Telehealth as a Means of Reducing Stigma
The Random House College Dictionary defines stigma as “a stain or reproach, as on one’s reputation.”1 Dictionary.com adds to this definition “a mark of disgrace or infamy.”2 In the context of mental health, stigma means a negative perception of mental illness, which has long served as a...
-
A Case for the Discerning Application of Treatment Models: Proceed with Caution
In recent decades we have witnessed a proliferation of models for the treatment of behavioral health conditions, many of which enjoy robust evidence bases that support their application in accordance with overarching principles and intended outcomes. In many respects, we inhabit a “Golden Age”...
