5 Reasons You Need Psychosocial Rehab After a Mental Health Crisis

In mental health care, the focus is too often on managing symptoms, but not frequently enough on getting back to normal life. But mental health care needs to adopt a rehabilitation mindset, so we can restore people to health, not simply manage symptoms of illness.

Here are 5 reasons rehabilitation is necessary after a mental health crisis:

1. If You Wait to Until You Feel Comfortable to Return to Normal Life, You May Never Start

After a serious or disabling mental health crisis, returning to normal can feel overwhelming. It can seem like you have to take on everything at once. You need to get back to work, get back to school, pay your own bills, shop, clean, take care of your pets, and even tend your hygiene again. It all feels like too much to take on.

2. Your Confidence is Shot

You’ve been through the ringer, and you’re left feeling incapable. “Am I a screw-up? Am I the source of the problem?” You tell yourself, “Maybe I can’t do this at all.

3. You’re Out of Practice

All those daunting things you need to start doing again, you feel like you’ve forgotten how to do them. It seems like forever since you were running your life successfully. Can you even remember how?

4. You Feel Lost

There are so many pieces of life to get back on track, it’s hard to know where to start or what is most important.

5. Because Restoring You to Health is About More Than Symptoms Management

Most of your mental health care plan has focused on getting rid of symptoms, but now it’s time to help you truly get back on your feet.

**STUCK in the Sick Role: How Illness Becomes an Identity**

Posted on September 18, 2017 by Melissa Deuter.

Is It Possible To Advocate For More Mental Healthcare And Less At The Same Time?

Is it possible to advocate for more mental healthcare and less at the same time?

Mental health awareness and mental health advocates contend that we need more mental health care for those in need. One in four people suffer with a mental health condition, and one in five children. Anyone who would argue against the need for more is “anti.”

We need more mental healthcare resources and services. More places people can go to get help in a crisis. More and better treatments, delivered with expertise and compassion. More services for impoverished people with lack of access to care. More care for the severely ill who too frequently cannot obtain the treatments they need. More services to keep the mentally ill out of jail and more support services to prop up those with debilitating diseases to stay on their medications and out of hospitals.

But I think we also need less mental healthcare.

We need less mental health intervention for the normal-yet-squirmy kindergarten boy. Less mental healthcare for the tumultuous seventh grader with big feelings and a bad attitude. Less for the twenty-something whose plans didn't work out. Less medical treatment for the young person coping with a break-up. We need less use of antipsychotics in routine depression care, and fewer advertisements for these treatments via TV commercials.

We need to prevent suicide without medicating everyone. We need to recognize the serious signs without overreacting to the mild ones.

We need more mental health care for the sickest folks, and less for the worried well.

Why? Because we’re raising awareness and getting more and more people into psychiatric treatment, but too often they are the wrong people. The ones with the greatest need are still overlooked and underserved. And then there is harm to both groups.

Posted on September 11, 2017 by Melissa Deuter.

8 Normal Behaviors That Mimic Mental Health Symptoms

Fear and Worry about new experiences can emulate an anxiety disorder.

Anxiety is a part of life. Every time we face change, we tend to get nervous and anxious. When lots of things are changing at once, it’s common to feel overwhelmed.

Does Advice on “Finding Joy” Help or Harm People with Depression?

According to The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, there is a simple formula for creating a life of joy: dedicating your life to compassion and service of others.

Does giving create happiness for the giver?

Does compassion lead to inner peace?

Does a life of service lead to feelings of joy?

While they come from 2 different religious traditions that teach compassion, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu are both walking testimonials to the power of service and its capacity to create joy. They both emit warmth and peacefulness. But these men have devoted their lives to spiritual and religious practice. How can their advice help the rest of us? And how helpful can these ideas prove to mental health?

Many people have criticized the notion that simple practices like meditation and prayer are useful in depression. Sufferers and advocates point out that while increasing everyday happiness is lovely for most of us, the conception that self-help practices can cure depression implies that depressed people aren’t trying hard enough to get better. That increases stigma and adds to the burden of depression.

But I think creating joyfulness in daily life may have a place in the mental health world. Finding joy may help people with mild or early symptoms, or it might function as a preventive measure for some.

There are two distinct groups of people receiving mental health care services in America- the very sick who often receive too little, and the not-so-sick who often receive too much intervention. Certainly compassion and service to others wouldn’t suddenly transform the neurobiology of serious depression, but for people suffering lesser forms of unhappiness, could a life of service be part of the answer? Might such a practice even prevent the harm that comes with aggressive treatment, often not indicated in milder cases?

If non-medication practices can improve mental health for some, the benefits spill over to those with the greatest need as the system unclogs. Resources become available for those who need them most.

Perhaps we should be advising people in mental health treatment to practice things like compassion and service. If those practices bring joy, then that’s wonderful! If compassion doesn’t offer any relief, maybe that’s further evidence that aggressive biologic treatment (like prescription medication) is indicated.

***STUCK in the Sick Role: How Illness Becomes as Identity***

Posted on August 28, 2017 by Melissa Deuter.