David Susman

Do More That Brings You Joy

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Stories of Hope: An Interview with Krystianna Livernash This is part of a series featuring individuals who share their life experiences with mental health issues. Recently, I asked advocate and student Krystianna Livernash about her mental health journey and her current activities. Here’s our interview: DS: Tell us about when you first started becoming aware of concerns related to your mental health. How did these issues continue to affect you before you sought treatment? KL: I knew at a young age that …

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Join The ‘Mental Health Advocates International’ Facebook Group

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If you’re reading this, I’m confident you care about mental health and about improving mental health care and services. So I’d like to invite you to connect with a group of dynamic mental health advocates who also care deeply about these same issues. A few years ago, I started a new group on Facebook for mental health advocates. This idea had been percolating for some time, and I’d met many terrific advocates over the past several years through this blog, …

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You Are Worth Being Helped

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Stories of Hope: An Interview with Jordan Ricks This is part of a series featuring individuals who share their life experiences with mental health issues. Recently, I asked graduate student and mental health advocate Jordan Ricks about his history of mental health challenges and his current activities. Here’s our interview: DS: Tell us about when you first started becoming aware of concerns related to your mental health. How did these issues continue to affect you before you sought treatment? JR: In my journey, …

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15 Principles for Compassionate Mental Health Crisis Response

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In a recent post, I covered the ten essential values for responding with compassion to a mental health crisis. These values came from the “Practice Guidelines: Core Elements in Responding to Mental Health Crises,” published by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). This time around, let’s do a brief recap of the second half of the guidelines, which outlines 15 key principles for enacting those essential values in our mental health crisis intervention practices. (As I noted before, the …

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There is Always a Silver Lining

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Stories of Hope: An Interview with Traci Jones This is part of a series featuring individuals who share their life experiences with mental health issues. Recently, I asked non-profit executive and peer specialist Traci Jones about her history of mental health challenges and her current activities. Here’s our interview: DS: Tell us about when you first started becoming aware of concerns related to your mental health. How did these issues continue to affect you before you sought treatment? TJ: As long as I can …

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Responding with Compassion to a Mental Health Crisis

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Having worked for many years as a clinical psychologist in a busy psychiatric hospital, I saw mental health emergencies and crises just about every day. These included a wide variety of challenging situations, including statements or actions related to self-harm or harm to others, and traumatic experiences related to abuse, victimization or other horrific experiences. In addition, drug or alcohol use, psychosis and mania were other contributing factors to many crises, and the situation sometimes became further complicated by work …

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Tomorrow is Always a New Day

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Stories of Hope: An Interview with Erin Macauley This is part of a series featuring individuals who share their life experiences with mental health issues. Recently, I asked mental health advocate and Registered Nurse Erin Macauley about her history of mental health challenges and her current activities. Here’s our interview: DS: Tell us about when you first started becoming aware of concerns related to your mental health. How did these issues continue to affect you and those around you before you sought …

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Lessons Learned from Mariah Carey’s Struggle with Bipolar Disorder

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It was big news when pop megastar Mariah Carey recently disclosed that she has been dealing with bipolar disorder since being diagnosed in 2001. In an interview with People magazine, Carey said she is diagnosed with bipolar II disorder. (Bipolar II is a less severe form of the disorder than bipolar I disorder. While both forms of the illness are characterized by mood swings including bouts of severe depression, in bipolar II, the periods of elevated mood are called hypomania, …

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