Tag Archive - mental health

Upcoming Trip to Haiti: Nothing to Offer But Our Vulnerable Selves

February 4, 2010 in Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 6 Comments


Last week I wrote about some of my initial thoughts on my upcoming trip to Haiti, and with each passing day I’m getting more and more excited, and a bit more nervous as well. One of the really exciting things is the coming together and completion of the team I will be serving with. The team is being sent out by Adventures in Missions, and is composed of Anne Jackson, Tim Schmoyer, Adam McLane, Mark Oestreicher, Seth Barnes, Jeremy Zach, Lars Rood, Clint Bokelman, Ian Robertson and myself. This is a great team of people and I’m excited to serve alongside of them in Haiti.

There are lots of things we will be doing on this trip, and there are still many unknowns, and like any trip abroad, we will just have to be flexible when opportunities arise. Mark Oestreicher has a good break down of some of the work that awaits us, as well as some of the things we will be doing among the Haitian pastors. What I do know is that we will be serving the people in Haiti and doing a lot of work with those who have fled out of Port au Prince and who are currently living in refugee camps.

One of the things that we have been asked to do along with serving the people of Haiti, is to also bring awareness to not only the situation that all of you are witnessing on the nightly news, but to also tell the stories of our personal experiences, and in doing so, hopefully encourage you, as well as further laying the foundation for future teams to follow after us, and serve long after Haiti is not the top story in the nightly news. If you are interested in following our journey you can do so at our team Facebook page, our team Twitter feed, or just stay tuned to this blog or my personal Facebook page. You have lots of options. I hope to do a good job of keeping you all updated through writing and video.

Offering Our Presence
I’m not a doctor, I’m not an engineer, and I’m not a professional in disaster relief, but I’m hoping and praying that my experience as a pastor and as a marriage and family therapist will come in handy as I work among the Haitians. And no, I’m not preaching sermons on performing therapy, but my work in those fields has given me the opportunity to travel the world and provide relief in the area of mental health. I was blessed to live for three months in Guatemala where I volunteered at Obras Sociales del Santo Hermano Pedro; I’ve been able to serve at the Sisters of Charity in Calcutta, India (the week of Mother Theresa’s funeral); I’ve been able to serve on several occasions at the Sisters of Charity in Mexico City. And my work as a college pastor allowed me the privilege to lead numerous trips during my eight years at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. One of the real exciting things for me is that I’m not leading this trip, but just get to be a part of an amazing team. Continue Reading…

Breakthrough: An Online Platform for Therapy

September 16, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 1 Comment

58916v2-max-250x250-1The world of online therapy is emerging quickly and there are a lot of tools out there to make this easier, and most importantly, secure. The AAMFT which I am a member of recently sent us out emails about a service they endorse, Therapy Hosting. This is just one of many, and even I at one point last year was in conversation with a technology company about creating an online tool for therapy that I had outlined.

Yesterday I was watching TechCrunch, TC50, and the presentation by Breakthrough.

One thing that stood out to me was this exchange of Q & A:

TO: How do you get therapists to participate?

A: We have a log of providers who are interested.

TO: How do you qualify them?

A: We only get licenses medical therapists and make sure to authenticate all professionals.

In the emerging online world of counseling and therapy it can be quite difficult to authenticate people’s credentials, while many are just plain practicing without credentials. So it will be interesting to see how this does.

I’m going to test out this tool for a little bit and blog about it some more.

For a more in-depth analysis of the company and tool, check out the post, TC50: Have You Considered Tele-Psychiatry? Schedule a Session with Breakthrough.

Can Community and Openness De-Stigmatize Therapy?

June 26, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 7 Comments

This is Post 2/100 in my 100 posts in 100 days series.

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[image by tboard]


Yesterday I asked the question, Is There a Therapy Stigma? If you haven’t had a chance to answer that question…please take a moment to do so, as I’m interested in your opinion on this important subject.

One of the things that has been on my mind for the last couple of years is the question: Can the stigma be taken out of therapy if there was more openness and transparency in the process, rather than anonymity and secretness?

I have received various feedback on this subject…usually about 50/50. There are many who hold to the more traditional methods of anonymity and secretiveness in the therapy process (note: I’m not talking about client confidentiality here–obviously that is super important and must be upheld). While many, especially those raised in the internet age, are more prone to see the necessity of a more open therapeutic process. Wherever you fall on this question, I think the reality is that many things are changing in the field of therapy…and so it’s something we should be thinking about.

Two months ago I came across an interesting conference that I blogged about, Taking the Stigma Out of Mental Health with the Help of Social Media. I won’t spend this post talking about social media (because I will devote plenty of time to that soon), but I do want to mention some of the questions they were asking at the Mental Health Camp–a Conference about Mental Health and Social Media. The specific interest of the camp was “Erasing Stigma and Exploring Possibilities with Social Media.” And some of the questions they were asking were as follows:

* How can blogging help decrease the stigma of mental health?
* How does someone with a mental illness navigate the waters of anonymity in the transparent world of social media?
* How is the journaling that happens in blogging similar to or different from journaling for healing?
* How can social media participants with mental health issues help each other?

What’s interesting to me is that they were not only asking these questions, but they were getting at the idea that openness in mental health can de-stigmatize it. And more importantly, as we live more and more in an open society, especially with our reliance upon the internet…will therapy head more in that direction?

So I have been pondering various ideas in regards to my practice. And just a few questions come to mind that you might have some thoughts on.

What would it look like to have an office in a more public, highly visible and busy area? Say for example, in an office above retail shopping, or next to a coffee shop. Would you be attracted to that, or is that to open for you?

Do you think therapy should remain more anonymous and secretive?

If you were to see a therapist, would you keep it confidential, or is it something you would share with some people?

Do you think that therapy can be more beneficial if the client has a community of supportive people that are aware of the therapeutic process, and are able to lend support in and out of the office?

Taking the Stigma Out of Mental Health with the Help of Social Media

April 21, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 0 Comments

3336971302_613f580637The other day I received an @reply from Mikey Ames on Twitter with the message,

@rhetter SM mental health, Vancouver- http://tinyurl.com/dhd2y4

When I opened up the link I read this,

Mental Health Camp – a Conference about Mental Health and Social Media

with the following synopsis,

MentalHealthCamp is a conference about the intersection of social media and mental health. What is social media? Social media is the online practice of sharing personal opinions, insight and content (of text, images, and music). Examples of social media are blogs, Facebook, YouTube, flickr, and Twitter. And mental health? For the purposes of this conference, mental health is the wide spectrum between mental wellbeing (e.g. experiencing a minimum of stress, anxiety and interpersonal problems) and serious mental illness (e.g. heroin addiction, schizophrenia or anorexia). We are also including issues such as ADD. After very positive feedback to a panel discussion about social media and the stigma of mental illness at the 2009 Northern Voice blogging conference, a spontaneous decision was made by some of the attending bloggers that this topic is something that cries out for more attention. We are asking questions such as * How can blogging help decrease the stigma of mental health? * How does someone with a mental illness navigate the waters of anonymity in the transparent world of social media? * How is the journaling that happens in blogging similar to or different from journaling for healing? * How can social media participants with mental health issues help each other?I absolutely love this concept, and my only regret is that I can’t get there on such short notice. But I have been using social media for a long time and have been trying ways to connect it in the mental health, therapy and counseling settings. If you look at my blog I am attempting to use some social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed to bridge the often isolated world of therapy, with the community of social media.

Though the field of psychology and the practice of therapy is rooted in a long and rich historical tradition, I have always tried to push against the stigma that is often associated with mental health…or with someone going to see a therapist. Maybe I see less of a stigma because I have gone and do go to therapy myself, or maybe it was living in California all those years where having a therapist is right up there with having a physical fitness trainer.

I think there are a lot of things that can be done to slowly erode away the stigma of therapy and mental health, and I think this generation is ripe to break down many of those stigmas that have kept so many people for so long from getting help. I will be interested to see what comes of this gathering, and I hope that we can put one together here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex in the coming year as well. But for now I will have to follow the work of Raul from Hummingbird 604 and Isabella from Change Therapy. And hopefully I will get a chance to connect with them via social media.

[image from publik15]

Depression, Burnout & Ministry: Discernment in Pastoral Caregiving

February 6, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

Discernment
As we talk and think about the issue of depression in ministry one of the most important factors that we have in helping us determine what exactly we are dealing with is discernment.

the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure

Discerning what type of help a person needs can be tricky. Should they see a therapist? A psychiatrist? Both? Is a recommendation for meds necessary? Are we dealing with depression, melancholy, burning out, etc? Maybe it’s all, maybe it’s some, maybe it’s none. But the act of discernment is a process and often involves multiple people helping one through their difficult journey.

In the book Depression and Hope: New Insights for Pastoral Counseling (which I mention quite a bit, is a great resource, and which I will reference and quote from heavily in this post), Howard W. Stone says:

Depression disturbs one’s most important relationships; for melancholics this may mean family members or close friends. For the mystic or hermit monk, and indeed for all faithful Christians, that most important relationship is with God. When people feel the absence of God, when they doubt, when religious ritual and service lose meaning, their experiences are very similar to the symptoms of depression.

Pastoral caregivers listen in a certain way to the words of those who are disconsolate, a way that is distinct from other helping professionals. To clergy and other professionals in ministry, despair, suffering, struggle, and adversity are laden with spiritual import, because reflection on the experience of melancholy and spiritual desolation can bring depth and meaning to those who are trying to be faithful to the call of Christ (Stone, 21).

When dealing with issues of such vital importance, you can see why discernment is key. One of the reasons I went back to graduate school again for my MFT (Master of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy) was because after 10 years in ministry, I was well aware of the fact that my Master of Divinity had not prepared me adequately enough to deal with such issues…In fact, I would say that it’s quite rare for most people entering into ministry to have a decent understanding of mental health issues and the role of the pastor in pastoral caregiving.

In his book Stone talks about four experiences that “compare strongly to depression: the dark night of the soul, ‘accidie’, desolations, and Martin Luther’s understanding of ‘Anfechtungen’”. Fascinating stuff! Let me just mention them briefly here:

Continue Reading…