by Catholic Church (England and Wales)
When most people think about mental health, they immediately think about depression, stress and anxiety. People will also think about how the causes of poor mental health, such as someone living in poor conditions, someone living in an abusive situation or someone who is suffering an addiction. There are many things in life that can contribute to poor mental health and there are just as many things a person can do to improve their mental health. Past traumatic events, stress, work, family and the overall lifestyle that someone has can all lead to a decline in someoneâs mental health.
Many have heard that maintaining oneâs physical health can go a long way in helping to maintain a personâs mental health, because they go hand in hand with each other. Others will tell you that eating well, getting enough sleep, having some confidence and respect for oneâs self and having enough time set aside for oneâs self are all things that a person can do in order to improve and maintain their good mental health. There is, however, one other thing that appears to help with improving a personâs mental health, or at least their mood. Apparently, most people tend to feel better after giving their living space a thorough cleaning. Taking the time to clean the home from top to bottom is like cleaning oneâs life. The dirt, dust and clutter are done away with and the house has a fresher, more comfortable atmosphere that the person can feel happier and more relaxed in. In fact, some therapists might even suggest cleaning the house as a good way to take oneâs mind off of something they tend to fixate on and to improve the look and feel of the home. The state of the house has a significant impact on a personâs mental health, as does cleaning; such an impact, in fact, that many people who are agitated, annoyed or frustrated can use cleaning as an outlet for their emotions and energy until they feel better. In most cases, this can be quite effective. Of course, if one finds that they are cleaning nearly everyday to vent frustrations or trying to improve their mood, it might also be a good idea to consult a therapist. Online therapists are always available for inquiries about how one can improve their mental health in other ways besides cleaning their home.
Anyone who finds that they are suffering from an overall decline in their mental health, such as a loss of confidence, a loss of concentration, depression and so on, should seriously consider contacting an online therapist. The online therapist can help work with the patient to find out why they might be feeling down, they can then suggest what the patient could do in order to improve their mental health. Life is meant to be enjoyed and someone who is not happy and has a bleak outlook on life canât fully enjoy life. Seeking advice and help from an online therapist can go a long way in improving a personâs mental health.
Trauma Resource Centre Part of Five-Year Mental Health Services Upgrade
The Manitoba government has launched a five-year strategic plan to improve mental health services. One component will be establishing a trauma resource centre. The overall plan is geared to promoting good mental health, and strengthening support and services to those with mental health problems.
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by MilitaryHealth
You might think that you are unable to help a friend or family member who is experiencing a mental health crisis, but there are a number of things you can do to help somebody suffering from this problem. Below are a number of steps and strategies you can take to provide help to someone going through a mental health crisis.
The Action Plan
Mental Health First Aid teaches a five-step action plan, ALGEE, for individuals to provide help to someone who may be in crisis.
- Assess for risk of suicide or harm
- Listen nonjudgmentally
- Give reassurance and information
- Encourage appropriate professional help
- Encourage self-help and other support strategies
Assess for Risk of Suicide or Harm:
When helping a person going through a mental health crisis, it is important look for signs of suicidal thoughts and behaviors and/or non-suicidal self-injury.
Some Warning Signs of Suicide Include:
- Threatening to hurt or kill oneself
- Seeking access to means to hurt or kill oneself
- Talking or writing about death, dying or suicide
- Feeling Hopeless
- Acting Recklessly or engaging in risky activities
- Increased use of alcohol or drugs
- Withdrawing from family, friends, or society
- Appearing agitated or angry
- Having a dramatic change in mood
Always seek emergency medical help if the person’s life is in immediate danger. If you have reason to believe someone may be actively suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Listening Nonjudgmentally
It may seem simple, but the ability to listen and have a meaningful conversation with an individual requires skill and patience. It is important to make an individual feel respected, accepted, and understood. Mental Health First Aid teaches individuals to use a set of verbal and nonverbal skills to engage in appropriate conversation -such as open body posture, comfortable eye contact and other listening strategies.
Give Reassurance and Information
It is important for individuals to recognize that mental illnesses are real, treatable illnesses from which people can and do recover. When having a conversation with someone whom you believe may be experiencing symptoms of a mental illness, it is important to approach the conversation with respect and dignity for that individual and to not blame the individual for his or her symptoms.
Mental Health First Aid teaches you helpful information and resources you can offer to someone to provide consistent emotional support and practical help.
Encourage Appropriate Professional Help
There are a variety of mental health and substance use professionals who can offer help when someone is in crisis or may be experiencing the signs of symptoms of a mental illness.
-Types of Professionals
Doctors (primary care physicians or psychiatrists)
Social workers, counselors, and other mental health
professionals
Certified peer specialists
-Types of Professional Help
“Talk” therapies
Medication
Other professional supports
Encourage Self-Help and Other Support Strategies
There are many ways individuals who may be experiencing symptoms of a mental illness can contribute to their own recovery and wellness.
These strategies may include:
- Exercise
- Relaxation and Meditation
- Participating in peer support groups
- Self-help books based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Engaging with family, friends, faith, and other social networks
With this information and these strategies in mind, you will be well-equipped to help a friend or family member going through a mental health crisis. It is important to be patient and understanding, but most of all, it is important that you are there for this person in any way needed.
Report criticizes W.Va. mental health care system
The Associated Press The Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. A consultant’s report says West Virginia’s mental health care program for the poor and disabled is unnecessarily restrictive. The report is part of an ongoing legal case involving the treatment of people with mental illness. According to the report, the state’s Medicaid program emphasizes compliance with federal regulations and focuses …
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Link to Amy and Danielle’s channel: www.youtube.com
Neo soul artist, Angie Stone puts to lyrics what many Black women have been thinking about Black men for years when she said “you got mad issues, and you tend to refuse every opportunity to right your wrong”. Because the women in our lives, who know us so intimately and care for us so deeply, can see when we are hurting or responding out of pain. But Black men young and old are walking around with anger, hurt, and stress which is literally sucking the joy out our lives through high blood pressure, impotence, fatigue, alcoholism, and many other physical and emotional manifestations as the result of poor mental health. However, many of us stubbornly refuse to get the mental health help that is needed to be better men – husbands, fathers, boyfriends, or just plain ole emotionally whole.
No, it’s just not “Crazy Uncle Joe” in the backroom of your granny’s house who desperately needs mental health help, but it’s also those brothers out there who seem to have everything together. They are suffering alone, bottling up their emotions, or self medicating. And the ones who depend on them and love them dearly are suffering too.
But why, when mental health help is available?
When I sat down with Dr. Verdi Lethermon (Director of the Psychological Services Division for Houston Police Department and owner of Lethermon & Associates), she said that Black men are reluctant to get mental health help because “Black men have been historically misunderstood, misjudged, and oppressed. Black men have tried to walk a fine line of being assertive and understood without being aggressive. Black men tend not to show their weaknesses because of this. In therapy you have to be vulnerable and let your feelings out and address that.”
And letting feelings out is something that Black men were taught not to do at a very early age. We can all remember what was said to little girls when they fell down and scraped their knees, “aw baby, come here, it’s gon’ be alright.” However, the speech was much different when a little boy fell down and began to cry, “boy stop crying like a little girl, get yo’ a** up and walk it off”. And at those moments, little boys were trained to be grown men who can’t express emotions and are afraid of being vulnerable. But Dr. Lethermon believes that negative emotions have to be dealt with because if not “they eventually come out in an uncontrollable way and then we all pay the prices”.
We know that Black men have been used as scientific and medical guinea pigs from the slave ship to Tuskegee. And while this truth exists, it should not preclude us from getting the mental health help needed. Dr. Lethermon says that when Black men refuse to get mental health help “they tend to be re-victimized by the pain and stress in their lives and continue to victimize others”
So, now may be the right time for Black men to get the mental health help needed! But it takes other Black men and Black people in general to break the stigma about seeing a psychologist and to share mental health challenges. We should take advantage of our oral tradition of storytelling to tell the truth about our mental health. In the same way we ask for a good barber, we should be asking for a good therapist if we really need one.
But how do you know that you need mental health help? Dr. Lethermon says that some of the symptoms are when “you find yourself losing control in areas of your life that you typically have under control, or if a person finds their self slipping into a dark hole and removing self from people, stuff, and routines that you used to do.”
And if you ignore the symptoms, trouble is around the corner. “Anger rises to the surface, because anger is a safe feeling – instead of the real feeling of fear, inadequacy, emotional, stressed, overwhelmed, or powerless – and instead of looking at self that individual blames other people,” Leatherman says.
Fellas, it is not okay to bottle up your feelings or hold back the tears -your issues are real and the way that you feel about them are real also. Jesus wept, Job lamented, David sought counsel, and the O’Jays cried together with their women. So, instead of counseling with brown liquor, with another joint, another woman, or with ESPN – maybe it’s time to call a therapist to talk out these issues.
Ladies can assist in helping the Black men in their lives get the mental health help needed. Dr Leatherman says that mothers, sisters, girlfriends, and wives can “invite him to consider therapy or to a therapist out of your love for him to get him to take care of himself.” Women have great influence on how a man handles his mental health issues – they can be an advocate or a hindrance. Leatherman says that “sometimes women inadvertently stifle a man’s effort to express his feelings by the way women respond to him when he expresses his feelings. Sometimes women minimize his feelings or are overwhelmed and don’t want to hear them, and sometimes women invalidate them. And this can prevent future vulnerability and his willingness to get help, but sometimes they (women) are fighting back. I encourage women to take a look at themselves also – are they hurting or helping the man in their life express his feelings openly.”
So what happens when Black men get the mental health help needed? “It’s pretty amazing”, says Dr. Leatherman, “They feel better about themselves. And that feeling ripples to everybody else – particularly wives and children- they become role models and become the heads that they should be. Then the wives and children are more willing to submit and follow.”
Jill Scott may have said it best when she said “We Need You!” Black women need us, our children need us, and we need ourselves to be whole and emotionally stable. But that cannot happen if we continue to represent false manhood by being afraid to be vulnerable and get the mental health help that some of us so desperately need. Dr. Leatherman says this to Black men, “It takes a lot of courage to come to therapy, everybody won’t do it, but it is one of the best gifts that you can give yourself in life.” And the next generations are counting on you. Our race needs help, so help us God. Future generations are counting on Black men.
Do you have the courage?
Note: Dr. Verdi Leatherman is the author of the upcoming book, When God Speaks People Who Hear are Healed!
Carers consulted on mental health centre closure
PLANS to close a mental health rehabilitation centre in St Albans are moving one step closer as carers are consulted on the potentially life-changing move.
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Copyright (c) 2007 Steven Magill
When literally translated from its Greek roots, the word “schizophrenia” means “split mind.” It is this translation that has led many people to confuse multiple personality disorder with schizophrenia. While they are so similar that scientists used to classify MPD as a form of schizophrenia, it has since been proven that the two diseases are actually independent of each other. This article is going to give a basic rundown of the signs of schizophrenia.
Delusions are very common signs of schizophrenia with people suffering from signs of schizophrenia. Delusion is the word that is given to beliefs that the schizophrenic has that other people do not also have. An example of this is the belief that somehow their internal thoughts are being broadcast for the rest of the world to hear. Delusions can also come in the form of thinking that they are being hunted down by an outside entity. Sometimes delusions come in the form of the schizophrenic believing that he or she has super powers and super abilities that they do not actually have.
Hallucinations are another of the common signs of schizophrenia. Hallucinations are typically in the form of voices heard by the person who is suffering from the disease. The voices come from outside of the schizophrenic’s head (this is one of the major differences between multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia). Sometimes the voices do not have a physical point of origin. Sometimes the voices come from something that would not ordinarily be talking and sometimes the voices come from people that only the schizophrenic can see and hear. These hallucinations often encourage or influence the schizophrenic’s behaviour. Sometimes the hallucinations take on other sensations like smells and tastes.
Disorganized thinking and languages are more of the common signs of schizophrenia. People who suffer from schizophrenia will sometimes talk in ways that are difficult for other people to understand. Their thoughts will sometimes stop following a coherent pattern and their speech can vary wildly. Schizophrenics will often talk about several subjects at the same time but will not connect the subjects to a central theme. They will skip from subject to subject without warning.
There are a multitude of other signs of schizophrenia. Schizophrenics are often depressed, prone to mood swings and have problems connecting with other people. They can be very withdrawn. Schizophrenics will have a hard time going about their daily tasks like bathing, getting dressed and eating. Some other signs of schizophrenia include problems with movement. There is a form of schizophrenia called Catatonic schizophrenia. With catatonic schizophrenia, the patient can be just as likely to stop moving altogether as they are to experience erratic and uncontrollable movement.
Most of the signs of schizophrenia are also associated with other mental disorders and because of this, the disease can be hard to diagnose. The key to getting treatment is to see a professional as soon as possible if you or someone you know starts to exhibit signs of schizophrenia.
Tip #1
Schizophrenia is not the same thing as having multiple personality disorder. In multiple personality disorder a person has a number of independent identities that all share one host body. Typically one of the personalities is dominant and the others exist under the surface. With Schizophrenia, there could be independent personalities but the person suffering from the disease believes that these identities exist outside of him or herself.