Discussing Inpatient Psychiatric Care on “The Psych Central Podcast”

I recently was invited to be a guest on “The Psych Central Podcast” by host Gabe Howard. Gabe is a terrific mental health advocate, who I’ve featured previously in my “Stories of Hope” series. Gabe asked me to talk about my 25 years of experience working in a public psychiatric hospital from the perspective of a health care provider. I’ll provide the link to the podcast episode below, but I thought I would provide a brief preview here of our …

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Helping Sexual and Gender Minority Male Survivors Heal from Sexual Trauma

Guest Post by Joan Cook, Ph.D. and Amy Ellis, Ph.D. Trauma impacts nearly all of us. Really bad, horrible, life-threatening events can and do happen to people. But, some of us are in greater danger of getting a bigger dose of bad events. As trauma psychologists, we’d like to help the world heal from trauma, but, in this guest post, we’d like to take the opportunity to talk about a specific type of trauma in a particularly marginalized population. One …

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A Great Resource for Serious Mental Illness

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “serious mental illness” before and wondered what it means. Aren’t all mental illnesses potentially “serious”? A “serious mental illness” or “SMI” is defined as “a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder resulting in serious functional impairment, which substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities,” according to the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The three diagnoses most commonly associated with SMI are schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. The NIMH …

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My 24 Years in a Psychiatric Hospital (part 3: a new beginning)

In two recent posts, I recounted much of my 24-year journey working as a clinical psychologist at Eastern State Hospital, a public psychiatric hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. To catch up, my early years are covered in part 1 and the development of the Recovery Mall program is detailed in part 2. Even as our recovery-based programming garnered broad positive feedback from staff, patients and external organizations, we still dealt with the physical limitations of being in an aging 185-year old …

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My 24 Years in a Psychiatric Hospital (part 2: the Recovery Mall)

In a recent post, I chronicled the first half of my 24 years of employment as a clinical psychologist at Eastern State Hospital, a public psychiatric hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, which opened in 1824. If you would like to catch up and read part 1 first, it’s right here. In the early 2000’s, “recovery” entered the scene as a new way of thinking about treatment. The concept of recovery had primarily been used in reference to substance use concerns, but …

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My 24 Years in a Psychiatric Hospital (part 1: the early years)

It’s probably safe to say that psychiatric hospitals have gotten a bad rap. They have often been inaccurately depicted in films, TV and other media as dark, scary institutions where deranged patients are forcibly medicated, put into straitjackets, or mistreated by cruel and sadistic staff. Even worse is the demeaning language which has been used to describe these facilities: “loony bin,” “nuthouse,” “bedlam,” or “lunatic asylum.” Just to be clear, these terms are now considered inappropriate and unacceptable. When I …

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10 Ways to Help Your Therapist Help You More

You may already know that I’m a big fan of psychotherapy to treat mental health concerns and other personal and emotional challenges. In previous posts, I’ve discussed various aspects of the therapy process, including “How to Find a Good Psychotherapist,”“Psychotherapy Works!,”“20 Life-Changing Benefits of Psychotherapy,” and “10 Things You May Not Know About Your Therapist.” Now, let’s talk about some simple but important things you can do to help your therapist. Help your therapist? That’s right. By being more in …

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15 Principles for Compassionate Mental Health Crisis Response

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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