Psychotherapy Myths: Therapy Can’t Treat Serious Mental Illness

There’s an ongoing misnomer among some people today that psychotherapy isn’t effective for serious mental illness and therefore can’t be used to treat it. A person might say, “Well, I have severe depression and have tried therapy on multiple occasions, with little effect.”

Lived experience is an important thing to take into consideration when choosing a treatment option. However, I believe it’s equally important to examine the research too, to see what science has to say to such questions. Can psychotherapy be used to treat serious mental illness, like clinical depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)?

Let’s find out.

This article examines the effectiveness of psychotherapy for clinical depression and OCD through research studies. While acknowledging that everyone’s experience with treatment is different, only scientific research can answer questions about what treatment holds the best hope for most people with a given condition. It cannot tell us, however, whether a specific treatment will work for you, individually (no medical or psychological research can do that).

Psychotherapy Is Effective for Severe Depression

Let’s start by looking at psychotherapy’s effectiveness in the treatment of clinical depression. Psychologists have long recognized that a wide variety of psychotherapies can be as effective — and in some cases, more effective — than antidepressant medications.

The latest meta-analysis on this topic was done just last year (Cuijpers, 2017). This analysis begins by noting that “since the 1970s about 500 randomized controlled trials have examined the effects of psychological treatments on depression.” That’s no small number. I’d dare say that it is one of the most well-studied topics in clinical psychology.

Cuijpers and his colleagues at the University of Amsterdam have been studying this topic for over a decade now, compiling and updating a database of every research trial on the topic of psychotherapy’s impact on a person who suffers from depression. They’ve found the following types of psychotherapy have at least 10 control-group, randomized trials:

• Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) (94 studies)
• Behavioral activation therapy (31 studies)
• Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) (31 studies)
• Problem-solving therapy (13 studies)
• Nondirective supportive therapy (18 studies)
• Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (10 studies)

CBT has been, by far, the most studied type of psychotherapy in the research literature. Keep in mind that the researchers didn’t include and aren’t talking about case studies, smaller studies without a control group, or other kinds of experimental research. Each of these types of psychotherapy have hundreds each of these additional types of less-robust research.

So how effective are these therapies? The researchers report that the number needed to treat (NNT) is 3 for all therapies (except for problem-solving therapy, where it is 2) when compared to a control group. That means for 3 people need to be given psychotherapy to get one more patient better than if they had forwent therapy. (Generally speaking, the lower the NNT, the more effective the treatment.)

Psychotherapy vs. Medication for Depression

What about when you compare psychotherapy to treatment with an antidepressant medication? The researchers answer, “Our meta-analyses of trials directly comparing psychotherapies and pharmacotherapy for depression indicate that there are no major differences between these two types of treatment.” In short, both types of treatment are effective in treating clinical depression.

What about long-term outcomes? “Although psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy are probably about equally effective in the short-term,” note the researchers, “it is clear that the combination of the two is more effective than either of them alone. In meta-analyses of trials examining these comparisons we found that combined treatment is significantly more effective than pharmacotherapy alone.” In other words, if you’re just taking an antidepressant medication alone to treat your depression, you’re likely not doing yourself any benefit in the long-term.

What About Severe Depression?

Sometimes critics of psychotherapy will make the claim that most of the research done on therapy and depression is only with the “worried well” or mild depression. Such criticism ignores the actual data, however, as this meta-analysis demonstrates. “We found no indication that baseline severity was associated with outcome” (Cuijpers, 2017).

We have shown that, contrary to what is thought by many clinicians, baseline severity is not a significant predictor of outcome and CBT is as effective in severe depression as pharmacotherapy (Weitz et al., 2015). […]

We also found that there is no difference in effects between CBT and pharmacotherapy in patients with melancholic depression or with atypical depression (Cuijpers et al., in press).

And other research confirms that psychotherapy works not just for severe depression — it also seems to work for moderate depression too (Aherne et al., 2017).

Psychotherapy Is Effective for OCD

People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) wait on average 10 years before seeking treatment (Pozza & Dettore, 2017). The disorder is characterized by intrusive thoughts or impulses and repetitive behaviors, and can affect up to 2 percent of Americans over the course of a lifetime. According to these researchers:

Consistent research through randomized controlled trials showed that individual cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) including exposure and response prevention (ERP) and/or cognitive restructuring (CR), was the first-line psychological treatment leading to symptom improvement in approximately 70% of treated patients.

ERP is the most studied and effective treatment for OCD. According to (McKay et al., 2015), ERP involves:

developing a hierarchy of presenting symptoms, from least fear producing to most, and then guiding the client through exposure to items on the hierarchy until the highest level items are readily tolerated. In parallel, response prevention is included, whereby the client is asked to refrain from completing the compulsions that would otherwise eliminate the anxiety or distressing emotional reaction, or by reapplying the exposure to the fear stimulus immediately following the completion of compulsions.

These researchers’ findings suggest that: “Over the past several decades, considerable research work has accumulated to show that ERP is an efficacious intervention for OCD.”

Olatunji et al. (2013) did a similar meta-analysis a couple of years earlier, clumping together all types of CBT treatments (which they considered ERP to be a type of) and came away with similar conclusions:

Consistent with predictions, CBT out-performed control conditions on primary OCD symptom outcome measures at post-treatment showing a large effect size. This finding is consistent with prior meta-analyses demonstrating that CBT is highly effective in reducing OCD symptoms (Abramowitz, 1997; Rosa-Alcázar et al., 2008). Importantly, the present study included a number of studies that have been published since these previous meta-analyses, and thus adds to the evidence base of CBT for OCD. The present investigation also found that CBT outperformed control conditions on primary OCD symptom outcome measures at follow-up showing a medium effect size.

In short, CBT therapies — including ERP — are effective in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, a serious mental illness.

The Takeaway: Therapy Can & Does Treat Serious Mental Illness

The takeaway from this small sample of research is to bust the myth that psychotherapy only treats “mild” mental illness. Or that it can’t be used until a person is “stabilized” on medications. The research data just don’t provide evidence to support these beliefs.

None of this is to say that psychotherapy works for all people, all the time, with every therapist. In fact, psychotherapy remains a frustrating treatment option for many, such as those who’ve tried a half-dozen different therapists over the years to little symptom relief. We don’t yet have a great algorithm for predicting success in therapy, nor why some people seem to benefit from it more than others.

In time, however, I believe such algorithms will become available to help people find the therapist that can most effectively be able to work with them on their condition. Until that time, please understand that while not a perfect process, psychotherapy works. Because the data don’t lie.

 

References

Aherne, D.; Fitzgerald, A.; Aherne, C.; Fitzgerald, N.; Slattery, M.; Whelan, N. (2017). Evidence for the treatment of moderate depression: A systematic review. Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, 34(3), 197-204.

Cuijpers, P. (2017). Four decades of outcome research on psychotherapies for adult depression: An overview of a series of meta-analyses. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 58(1), 7-19.

Foa, E.B., M.R. Liebowitz, M.J. Kozak, S. Davies, R. Campeas, M.E. Franklin, H.B. Simpson. (2005). Randomized, placebo-controlled trial of exposure and ritual prevention, clomipramine, and their combination in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Am. J. Psychiatry, 162, 151-161.

McKay, D. Sookman, F. Neziroglu, S. Wilhelm, D.J. Stein, M. Kyrios, D. Veale. (2015). Efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy for obsessive–compulsive disorder. Psychiatry Res., 225, 236-246.

Olatunji, B.O., M.L. Williams, M.B. Powers, J.A.J. Smits. (2013). Cognitive behavioural therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder: a meta-analysis of treatment outcome and moderators. J. Clin. Psychiatry, 47, 33-41.

Pozza, A. & Dèttore, D. (2017). Drop-out and efficacy of group versus individual cognitive behavioural therapy: What works best for obsessive-compulsive disorder? A systematic review and meta-analysis of direct comparisons. Psychiatry Research, 258, 24-36.

Weitz, E. S., Hollon, S. D., Twisk, J., van Straten, A., Huibers, M. J., David, D., Cuijpers, P. (2015). Baseline depression severity as moderator of depression outcomes between cognitive behavioral therapy vs pharmacotherapy: An individual patient data meta-analysis. Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry, 72, 1102–1109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.1516

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/psychotherapy-myths-therapy-cant-treat-serious-mental-illness/

11 Ways to Simplify and Enjoy Your Life More

“Our life is frittered away by detail…simplify, simplify.” – Henry David Thoreau

If the idea of simplifying your life is appealing, you might be more motivated and likely to get started on this goal if you can find an easier way to do it. Complicated lists filled with difficult tasks won’t get the job done.  What will, however, are ways that are both easily-understood and generally easier to do and have the added benefit of helping you get more enjoyment out of life. Here are 11 to try.

Streamline your to-do lists.

Most efficiency and time-management experts recommend streamlining items on your to-do lists. There’s good reason for this, since having less items staring you in the face daily helps remove the gnawing impediment of impossible-to-achieve success. Maybe you have 20 tasks, projects and objectives you’ve told yourself are essential. That’s too many. No wonder you get frustrated and abandon or put off working on them. Start by paring the numbers, doing away with the nonessential and non-value-added ones.

Focus on quality, not quantity.

It’s easy to lose enthusiasm and get lost in the muddiness of details, timelines and complexity of too many goals. Instead of generating momentum, the opposite is likely to occur. The solution? Once you’ve pared your to-do lists, focus on delivering quality results, not half-hearted and hastily completed items that add up to an arbitrary and too high a number. Remember, you’ll get more satisfaction out of producing a quality result than several that are less-than-your-best effort versions.

Do what matters most to you personally.

Simply put, when you do what you find valuable and focus on what matters most to you personally, you’re much more likely to be motivated to begin with and to follow through to completion. Tackling goals, projects and tasks that you don’t feel strongly about or that don’t align with your values will drain your enthusiasm as well as your energy. It will also add complexity to your life that will leave you feeling less satisfied overall. On the other hand, when you get to work on what excites and interests you, time will fly, and it will seem less like work and more like fun. Isn’t that a terrific way to enjoy your life more?

Create desirable goals and create workable plans to achieve them.

In line with streamlining to-do lists and focusing on quality over quantity, another highly-recommended way to simplify your life and enjoy it more is to create desirable goals and workable plans to achieve them. You may identify an overarching goal, such as getting your college degree, buying a home, getting married and starting a family, or a few seemingly-unrelated goals, even some that are tangential. If it stimulates your interest enough to research and pursue, it’s worth adding to your list. Keep in mind that goals and plans are a work-in-progress strategy, something you revise as your interests and objectives change, you achieve some and identify others. It’s also a great feeling to tick off the successes as you make your way through your goal list.

Eliminate sources of stress – and find effective ways to keep stress at bay.

Stress, especially chronic stress, depletes you in every possible way. There are numerous physical consequences of stress, as well as emotional and psychological ramifications of this insidious condition. Learn how to recognize stress, whether the cause is something at work, relationship oriented, self-generated, or environmental. Get rid of the stress sources that you can and then research and put into practice effective ways to keep recurring stress from negatively affecting your life. One proven method to reduce stress is exercise, and experts say almost any exercise will help to manage stress.

Focus on a few true friends.

Trying to please 100 friends or follow up and stay in contact with a 1,000 or more social media contacts is a losing proposition. Casual contacts, commenting on posts, celebrating milestones is one thing, but you simply cannot maintain high-quality friendships with that many individuals. Instead, single out those who you value as true friends. Spend one-on-one time with them as often as possible and practical and be truly with them when you are together. This is both satisfying and personally enriching as well as adds to your overall well-being and life enjoyment.

Clean out your closets and de-clutter your surroundings.

A UCLA study on “The Clutter Culture” found that the need to constantly reward ourselves with material things, to offset the stress of the workplace and life in general, instead contributes to increased stress. At least it did for moms in the survey of American families. One of the quickest ways to get busy simplifying your life is to literally clean out your closets and buckle down to declutter your surroundings at home. Researchers in the study found that participants mentioned parking their cars on the street, so they could store accumulated stuff in the garage and piling the dirty laundry in the shower because there’s no other convenient place to stash it out of the way. How many of us have garments and objects ferreted away in the closet and drawers that have never been used, still have the price tags on them and have gone out of style? Start with your wardrobe and keep going from there. Once you’ve got piles of things you never wear or use, are still serviceable and potentially useful to others, donate them to a worthy charity. Recycle, repurpose or toss out everything else. Trust me, this suggestion is very effective in both simplifying your life and helping you find more joy in it.

Practice gratitude daily.

There must be something you’re grateful for, even if what that is does not spring immediately to mind. Start by acknowledging the gift of life today. Go on to express mental thanks for all that you’ve been given, whether that’s good health, recovery from illness, accident or injury, a satisfying job, plentiful friends or something else. Being grateful is a personal sentiment in the sense that you’re putting out to the universe a thank-you for what you value. The more you practice gratitude daily, the more your well-being will improve and the happier with your life you’ll be.

Enrich your spirituality.

Along with expressing gratitude every day, find ways to nourish and enrich your spirit and your spirituality. This may mean going to the church, temple or synagogue or being outside in nature and reflecting on a Higher Power. It may involve meditation, yoga, visualization exercises, imagery, focused breathing or some other technique to connect you to your inner self and the overarching meaning of life. A sense of connectedness to the universe, to the God as you know Him or Her is always beneficial in expanding your enjoyment of this precious life on earth, altogether fleeting and worthy of spending what time you have well.

Make time for yourself.

It isn’t selfish or self-centered to carve out time to do what gives you pleasure. On the contrary, making time for yourself is an endeavor that’s both life-affirming and produces a sense of joy and satisfaction. Go for that walk in nature. Meet with friends. Relax with a good book. Garden. Pass the hours involved in a hobby, gardening, sports or other form of relaxation or activity. You’ll know you’ve simplified your life if you feel good about allocating time in your daily schedule to do what you like. It will also make today much more enjoyable.

Live in the present.

In addition to creating space and room in your life through simplification of non-essential, non-value-added items and activities, focusing on doing what matters most to you personally, spending time on yourself, eliminating sources of stress, prizing a few true friends, creating desirable and workable goals and plans, exercising gratitude, nurturing your spirituality and embracing quality over quantity, you’re primed and ready to accept and practice living in the present. This is also called mindfulness. Frankly, the present is when you live. You cannot relive the past or experience the future. Today is it. Make the most of today by fully being present in the moment. It doesn’t get any simpler or better than that to enjoy your life more.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/11-ways-to-simplify-and-enjoy-your-life-more/

How I Met the Woman Behind Schizophrenic.NYC

When I first met Michelle Hammer, she made exactly zero impression. I remember the conference we were both attending, but I don’t remember her. I have some vague recollection of a loud, inappropriate woman talking about meeting men on Tinder, but to this day, she claims it wasn’t her.

My first memory of “meeting” Michelle is was when she emailed about being a guest on The Psych Central Show. The email was pretty short and, frankly, not very inspiring:

“I’ve been following your facebook and social media and it looks like you’re doing some awesome stuff. I was wondering if you would like to collab in any way? One way I was thinking was being a guest on your Podcast. Of course it’s your decision.”

I had no idea who she was and, awkwardly, I had no idea what a collab was. I ignored the email, as I saw it as a pitch to get on the show. In any given week, I turn at least five people away who write me better pitches, so the decision to ignore her was an easy one.

Then she sent me a video that WebMD made about her life with schizophrenia. I did take a little more interest because they had recently hired me, but her pitch, again, was lacking:

“Hey! Watch my video that WebMD made about me!”

I didn’t watch the video and I didn’t reply to her until — through a series of odd events — I was on a panel to help choose a speaker. Michelle’s name was on the top of the short list and, frankly, the only one I recognized at all. So, I Googled her, looked at her website, and sent her an email.

A Late Night Conversation with a Schizophrenic

We began chatting, sharing our experiences, and, after a few weeks, fate intervened again and I was working on a project near her home. Michelle agreed to take a train, a bus, and walk two miles to meet me in New Jersey. We met in the lobby of my hotel where, after an obligatory hug, she started loudly proclaiming that she was wearing a cock ring. It was a weird piece of jewelry in the shape of a penis she wore on her finger for, well, I still don’t know.

My first impression was that she was loud, short, and energetic — and, despite my best efforts at ignoring her, she drew me in. I wanted her to talk softer and louder all at once. I wanted to explain to her how inappropriate she was and do whatever it took to make sure she didn’t stop. She was something I couldn’t put my finger on, but I was certain the world needed more of whatever it was she was doing.

I’m long past the point where I think that every person who lives with mental illness is a hero. Maybe I’m jaded; maybe the fact I’m bipolar makes me evaluate others in similar situations differently. More than anything, I’m tired of people thinking we are all heroes just because we’re not drooling all over ourselves.

Michelle, however, is different. She battles a terrifying illness with a quiet dignity that manifests itself in loud outbursts. She can command a room by sitting slumped over in a corner, exhausted. She doesn’t filter her words, maybe because she’s a schizophrenic or maybe because she’s a New Yorker.

To make life better for people living with mental illness, she designed a clothing line to educate and start conversations about mental illness. While the rest of us sit in the relative safety of our homes and write blogs or make social media memes, she stands on the streets of one of the most aggressive cities in America and explains to anyone who will listen that one in five New Yorkers will have a mental health crisis this year. She looks them in the eyes and doesn’t flinch.

She is one of the bravest advocates I know — and I know many amazing advocates. She pretends to be confident in a way I can’t help but admire. She’s scared of her Mama, but not of yelling “suck my d***” in a crowded room. She comes off as detached from and disinterested in the world and people around her, but has told me the story of a homeless man she saw “who probably has schizophrenia, too” no less than ten times. She’s outwardly confident and inwardly paranoid, a combination that I find uniquely exhilarating.

Collaborating with a Schizophrenic

Eventually, I figure out what a “collab” was and we decided to start a podcast titled “A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast.” It’s a cool show where we talk about the past, present, and future through the lenses of people who live with mental illness. Michelle is reserved when the microphone flips on and censors herself in a way that is endearing, but extremely regrettable. I enjoy working with her because she makes me better at what I do. She is a good person to commiserate with, when she’s not singing Britney Spear’s songs at the top of her lungs.

If Michelle has taught me nothing else — and believe me, she’s taught me a lot — it’s that I need to pay closer attention to the awful pitches I get to be on The Psych Central Show. There might be another Michelle in there. . .

. . . Which is altogether exciting and terrifying.

 

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-i-met-the-woman-behind-schizophrenic-nyc/

Best of Our Blogs: May 22, 2018

We all have different strengths, skills and tools to support us during difficult life events. What do you pull from when things get hard?

New challenges forces us to develop new ways of building hope, support and resilience.

Support groups online and in person, for example, can help us feel less alone.

Therapy can give us individualized treatment and teach us ways to also feel supported.

Books and blog posts can provide an alternative view.

What tools can support you during these challenging moments? What skills can you develop to add to your list?

This week’s top posts on dealing with a major life event, sleeping better and preventing overwhelm and anxiety will give you creative ideas for your own emotional toolbox.

How To Calm Your Tantruming Child In A Way That Prevents Future Tantrums
(Childhood Emotional Neglect) – It’s possible to view your child’s tantrums as an opportunity instead of an inconvenience. Here’s how.

Snowballing Thoughts: How to Stop Creating Anxiety
(Reaching Life Goals) – Stop the trickle before the waterfall to manage your anxiety better.

Lull Yourself to Sleep with This Simple Tip
(Weightless) – Instead of tossing and turning tonight, try this.

The Cure for Feeling Overwhelmed
(Happily Imperfect) – It’s how to feel safe, relaxed and protect yourself from feeling out of control.

How to Successfully Transition Major Life Events
(The Exhausted Woman) – It’s the thing you need if you’re undergoing a significant change and don’t know how to respond.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/best-of-our-blogs-may-22-2018/

How To Help Your Clients Undo What They Haven't Yet Done

Once, a man who was recently released from prison told his counselor how enraged he was that he just had his wallet stolen from him. This man was visibly angry as he described having $450 dollars in that stolen wallet; and to make things worse, he had a strong suspicion who stole it. He told the counselor that he was going to seek out the thief, get his money back, and kill him. The counselor did not flinch, judge, or panic when the man told him he would seek out and kill the thief. Instead, he asked the former prisoner how long he’d been incarcerated. “I was down for 8 years, and I just got out,” the man replied.

The counselor asked, “Did you like your time in prison?”

“What?” replied the man angrily.

"Did you like spending time in prison?" the counselor repeated in honestly inquisitive voice.

The man then stared angrily and directly into the counselor's eyes and asked, “Did you ever spend time in prison?”

“No,” said the counselor.

“I didn’t think so,” said the man angrily, and he looked away shaking his head in disgust.

The counselor prodded further, again, genuinely inquisitively, “Let me ask you: In all that time in prison, were there ever moments when you wanted to get out?”

The former inmate seemed to get even angrier at this question, “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “Of course I wanted to get out! I wanted to get out every single day!”

Unfazed by this man’s anger, the counselor asked, “How badly did you want to get out?”

The man, now visibly more agitated and enraged, stared down the counselor intensely and said, “I wanted to get out every second of every day!”

And the counselor asked, “What would you have done to get out?”

And the man, still staring through the counselor, replied sharply, “Anything.”

“Anything?” asked the counselor, matching the man’s eye contact and in a firm voice of his own.

“I would have done anything!” said the former inmate, stepping aggressively toward the counselor.

The counselor looked piercingly but compassionately back into the eyes of the angry man without flinching and finally asked, “Would you have paid $450?”

The man stopped. He got it. He understood. The counselor's words moved through him. He realized that if he would have killed the man who stole his $450, he would have ended up in prison (this time probably for life), and while he was in prison, he would have “done anything to get out,” certainly including paying $450 - and his anger left. He thanked the counselor and walked away.

Now, this is a true story, and the client was mine, and because it’s a true story, you probably want to know the rest of what happened, so I’ll tell you. The man, the former inmate, he was calm enough after talking to me that he went home and went to sleep instead of seeking out the man he believed to be the thief who stole his money. In the morning when he awoke, he said a thankful prayer that he didn’t go after that man and end up in prison. In fact, he even imagined that he paid the amount that was stolen from him and was now free. He felt so good knowing that he resisted acting on impulse for the first time in such a long time, that he decided to make another good decision and clean his room as soon as he got out of bed. To his grateful surprise, not long into his picking up the pile of clothes off the floor of his room, he found his wallet - and the $450.

The question you can ask your clients is this: How much would you pay to undo impulsive decisions you've not yet made? Would you be willing to pay the price of self-control? In the safety of your counseling office, it's often helpful to play out your clients' most impulsive thoughts without the slightest bit of judgment. The more you can play out future scenarios, impulsive decisions, realistic consequences, and what your clients would be willing to do to go back and "undo" something that they haven't even technically done yet, the more you can expand their consciousness and move them from the impulsive, emotional center of their brain to the higher-level thinking center that will help them make more effective decisions.

It's never too late to undo what hasn't yet been done.  

from http://www.psychotherapy.net/blog/title/how-to-help-your-clients-undo-what-they-haven-t-yet-done

5 Best Practices for Maintaining Good Mental Health

Mental health rarely gets the credibility it deserves. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, 43.8 million adults in America experience mental health issues in a given year. These millions of people are experiencing an invisible, or hidden, disability. Hidden disabilities may not be visible to the naked eye, but they still significantly impact the people who have them. Individuals with hidden disabilities often report that people question the legitimacy of the barriers they face because they aren’t obvious. Whereas individuals with visible disabilities commonly face assumptions that they are unable to do certain things, individuals with hidden disabilities often face implications that their accommodations are unnecessary.

Though invisible disabilities and mental health issues don’t have to stand in the way of a full and happy life, success often hinges on the availability and accessibility of resources and treatment options. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reported that only 41 percent of adults in the U.S. with a mental health condition received services in the past year. This lack of treatment can result in major consequences. For example, the same report found that serious mental illness costs the U.S. just over $193 billion in lost earnings per year. Additionally, mood disorders, including major depression and bipolar disorder, are the third most common cause of hospitalization in the U.S. for both youths and adults aged 18-44.

Mental health can have a direct impact on other life areas, like educational attainment, sustainable employment, independent living, friendships, physical health and many other areas. In our Tangram Life Coaching services, we often see how unaddressed mental health issues can act as barriers to success in these areas, which is further compounded by the stigma attached to mental health in our culture.

Adopting good mental health management practices is a critical first step in building the foundation for overall wellness. In honor of Mental Health Month, here are five tips for achieving and maintaining positive mental health.

1. Surround yourself with good people. People with supportive family members and friends are generally healthier than those who lack a support system. If you are struggling to find this, seek out activities where you can meet new people, such as volunteer opportunities, a new hobby or a support group.  
2. Value your own self-worth. Treat yourself with kindness, respect and grace, avoiding self-critique. Take time to do the things you enjoy and arm yourself with the knowledge that you are doing the best you can.
3. Set realistic goals. Decide what matters most to you in life, whether that’s academically, professionally or socially. Write those goals down and include the steps you need to take in order to achieve them. Focus on attainable goals and enjoy the sense of accomplishment you feel after completing them.
4. Know your resources. Plenty of mental health resources exist online and in your community. Furthermore, most employers offer an Employee Assistance Program, which may offer free or reduced cost counseling or therapy, and a plethora of other resources. Colleges and universities also have mental health resources.
5. Know your rights. Being informed is the best way to empower yourself in the event that you encounter any discrimination.

Maintaining positive mental health is vital in improving your overall wellbeing. Building a trustworthy network of family and friends, taking the time to value yourself and setting attainable goals is critical in the process of achieving a balanced and fulfilling life. It is also important that we work together as a culture to erase the stigma associated with mental health and create a supportive, inclusive community.

More information on mental health supports can be found on the following websites:

National Alliance on Mental Illness: https://www.nami.org/

MentalHealth.gov: https://www.mentalhealth.gov/

National Institute of Mental Health: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help/index.shtml

Mental Health America: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/resources

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/5-best-practices-for-maintaining-good-mental-health/

How Many Problems Do You Create By Assuming You Have Problems?

Assuming that people have difficulties can seem caring but can actually turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why is it so hard to allow the possibility of things being fine?

Tags: in practice, therapy

from Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life https://counsellingresource.com/features/2018/05/21/do-you-create-problems/