Depression tagged posts

Balancing Family Rights to Know with Patient Rights to Privacy

CounselingFamily members are an inescapable fact of life for most of us—good and bad. So how do peers navigate personal decisions about their own treatment options and living a life of recovery with their family members? Today we continue our series on HIPAA with peers sharing their thoughts on the role of family members vs the right to direct their own treatment and recovery.

Balancing Family Rights to Know with Patient Rights to Privacy
It can be difficult for family members, who often have the best interest of their loved ones at heart, to provide enough space for their loved one to accept their disorder, seek treatment and build a life of recovery based on personal choice. But when speaking with individuals living with a mood disorder, many state that this is exactly what needs to happen. While it can be tempting to place oneself in a position of “knowing what’s best,” loved ones may need to recognize that they are on their own separate journey with an unknown destination.

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Change HIPAA for Better Care

Nancy Sharby profileNancy Sharby

This is the second week of our series discussing HIPAA regulations with regards to mental health care. In this post, we provide a family perspective.

Good and Bad Experience with HIPAA
As a mother, I have had positive and negative experiences with HIPAA, with an example for each.

The negative event happened when my adult son was hospitalized while I was out of town. I knew he was in that particular hospital because that is where the ER told me they were sending him. His doctor, who had permission to talk with me, was the one to tell me which ER he was in. I called the hospital where I knew he was and tried to tell hospital staff about his medications. The staff person kept insisting that they could not confirm or deny that my son was at the hospital, and they refused to hear what I was telling them about his meds. I knew he was there and didn’t need them to confirm it. What I really needed them to do was to take the information about his medications. They would have it to use if he was there, and they could throw it out if he wasn’t.

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Why I Advocate for Better Suicide Prevention Programs

molly_jenkins

Molly Jenkins
Mental Health Advocate

Today we continue our five part series on youth suicide prevention. Guest perspectives come from National Network of Depression Centers and Active Minds Inc., as well as personal stories from both a peer and family member. In today’s audio post, mental health advocate and suicide attempter Molly Jenkins shares why advocacy is so important in her life of wellness.

Why I Advocate for Better Suicide Prevention Programs

While a Junior in college, Molly Jenkins attempted suicide – twice...

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Speaking Out About Youth Suicide

alison_malmon_2_websiteAlison Malmon
Founder and executive director of Active Minds Inc.

Today we continue our five part series on youth suicide prevention. Guest perspectives come from National Network of Depression Centers and Active Minds Inc., as well as personal stories from both a peer and family member. In today’s post Alison Malmon writes about the role peers and others play in preventing youth suicide on college campuses.

Speaking Out About Youth Suicide

At first glance, the 1,100 backpacks spread out across the campus quad or in the student union look puzzling. Walking through them, you notice that most have stories attached. Some have pictures. Signs reading, “Don’t be afraid to ask for help” and “Stigma is shame, shame causes silence, silence hurts us all,” poke out among the packs. Students quietly mill around, picking up the bags and reading the stories.

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Can We Reduce Youth Suicides by Understanding and Identifying Risk factors?

Coryell,WilliamWilliam Coryell, MD
George Winokur Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine

Today we begin a five part series on youth suicide prevention. Guest perspectives come from National Network of Depression Centers and the Active Minds, Inc., as well as personal stories from both a peer and family member.

In the United States, someone dies from suicide every 13.7 minutes. As a physician, I understand that the vast majority of people who die by suicide have a mental disorder at the time of their deaths, and that both attempted and completed suicide take a great emotional toll on family members. As a research scientist, I recognize that studying the characteristics of individuals who attempt and complete suicide will help us better understand who is most at risk. This knowledge can empower clinicians, family members and peers to seek emergency care for those in need.

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Criminalizing Mental Health in the United States

Melody_MoezziMelody Moezzi

More than 60 percent of the population in U.S. prisons are minorities, and by some accounts, the three largest mental health facilities in the country are prisons. CFYM continues its interview with attorney, author and mental health activist Melody Moezzi as she points to educating ourselves and the public about our legal rights as a means to righting these injustices.

Criminalizing Mental Health in the United States

CFYM: Melody, in addition to being an award-winning author, you are a public speaker, attorney and an advocate, you also have a Masters in public health. What changes would you like to see in public health policy with respect to mental health care?

MM: First, we need to stop criminalizing mental illness in the US. The three largest mental health facilities in this country are prisons. That’s beyond unacceptable, and it needs to change, particularly in a country that imprisons more of its citizens than any other on the planet. Furthermore, the use of solitary confinement—both in prisons and hospitals—needs to end. I feel very strongly about this because I’ve experienced “isolation,” and I have no doubt that it is cruel, unusual and downright inhuman. No human being is meant to live like that, even for a short period of time. We are social creatures. We need contact with others; we need compassion; we need connection—especially when we’re going through a crisis. That’s just human nature.

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Does Cultural Bipolarity Create Barriers to the Delivery of Quality Mental Health Care?

Melody Moezzi

Melody_MoezziWhat would it be like if your clinician didn’t understand your culture or treated you as something other than “normal” because of your ethnicity, religion, or gender?  Would you receive appropriate, effective treatment? Attorney, author and mental health activist Melody Moezzi talks with Care For Your Mind about how her religion influences her mental health and why the mental health care system should become more culturally competent.

Does Cultural Bipolarity Create Barriers to the Delivery of Quality Mental Health Care?

CFYM:  In your book, Hadol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life, you write about your experience living with and recovering from both clinical and cultural bipolarity. Can you expand on how you experienced cultural bipolarity?

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Tackling Disparities, Achieving Equity

vivianVivian H. Jackson, Ph.D.
National Center for Cultural Competence, National TA Center for Children’s Mental Health
Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development

We are a nation of immigrants, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at our mental health care system. It’s hard enough to access quality mental health care services, but the challenge is even greater when cultural, racial, linguistic, or other demographic factors come into play. Today, Dr. Vivian Jackson blogs about what is being done to reduce the barriers to quality care and to promote culturally and linguistically appropriate services in mental health.

Tackling Disparities, Achieving Equity
How You Can Help Eliminate Disparities in Mental Health Care

What’s the problem?
As a society we claim to value fairness, yet every day there is evidence that we are a nation operating with significant disparities in mental health care. Is this fair? Are we offering services in a manner that meets the definition of fair: “not exhibiting any bias, and therefore reasonable and impartial”­?

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