December 1st, 2013
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
It’s not every day I get a chance to attend a world premiere, so when my neighbor Joe sent me the invitation, I promptly accepted. Never mind that it wasn’t exactly Hollywood. A student documentary about our town’s recycling center, affectionately known as “the dump,” complete with pre-screening hors d’oeuvres in the company of friends and neighbors was reason enough to break out the black tie and tails or a least put a fresh shine on my old wing-tips. Of course, since the subject matter was the dump, none of that is necessary. I went on a lark and returned [More]
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December 1st, 2013
By Paul Efthim PhD
“Listening with Purpose: Entry Points into Shame and Narcissistic Vulnerability” By Jack Danielian and Patricia Gianotti Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2012, Lanham, Md. Application of psychodynamic therapy examined Reviewed by Paul Efthim, Ph.D. Few contemporary writers have tackled clinical work with shame and its vicissitudes as thoroughly as Jack Danielian and Patricia Gianotti in their new book, “Listening with Purpose.” Based in southern New Hampshire, psychologists Danielian and Gianotti have built careers practicing, teaching and supervising psychotherapy. They saw a need for a training manual that helps clinicians move beyond quick fixes by deepening their understanding of how [More]
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November 1st, 2013
By Phyllis Hanlon
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than one-third of children and adolescents in the United States are considered overweight or obese, a condition that can lead to asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes and other physical illnesses. The CDC reports further that 70 percent of obese children had, at minimum, one risk factor for cardiovascular disease and 39 percent had two or more. In some states, school systems have been introducing body mass index (BMI) report cards as a means of evaluating and monitoring a child’s weight. Although well intentioned, these reports are drawing a mixture [More]
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November 1st, 2013
By Pamela Berard
Open enrollment for state health insurance exchanges mandated under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) kicked off October 1 and psychologists are preparing for its impact. Deborah C. Baker, J.D., director of legal and regulatory policy for the American Psychological Association (APA) Practice Directorate, says the direct impact won’t be as clear until after coverage takes effect Jan. 1. Baker says, “We’re going to be experiencing a whole new area and I think we’re going to find a lot of good things and also areas for improvement.” The exchanges are state-level marketplaces for individuals and small businesses to buy coverage. States [More]
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November 1st, 2013
By Catherine Robertson Souter
The numbers are staggering. By some estimates, a full one-third of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade have come home as the “walking wounded.” With the invisible scars of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or a traumatic brain injury, these men and women are not easily identified nor, because of the stigma of mental health care within the military, do they always seek treatment. The good news is that, while previous war veterans may have similar concerns, there is far more attention being paid to the problem today. One of the more innovative and promising treatments [More]
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November 1st, 2013
By Phyllis Hanlon
Technology has invaded many aspects of daily life and some psychologists may be ready to make the leap into digital therapy. But before engaging in tele-treatment, psychologists should consider a number of factors, including patient privacy and jurisdictional regulations. Nancy T. Silberg, Ph.D., who works in the Bariatric Program in the Department of General Surgery at the Health Centre at Williston, Vermont and also has a private practice, Associates in Psychology, in Burlington, says that medical disciplines have been using technology, particularly teleconferencing, for some time. But psychologists who want to offer therapy electronically face some challenges. Privacy ranks as [More]
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November 1st, 2013
By Rivkela Brodsky
A legal battle that has been brewing in Vermont over the state’s involuntary medication law is picking up steam – with one side saying the law delays necessary treatment of mental health patients and the other saying the law protects the civil rights of patients under state care. A court order is required before a mental health facility can medicate a patient who is refusing medications. A separate hearing to commit a patient to state care must take place before the medication hearing can happen. The patient also has 30 days to appeal the decision. The process takes an average [More]
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November 1st, 2013
By Phyllis Hanlon
On October 8, Ken Duckworth, M.D., medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, discussed his thoughts on a variety of mental health issues in an informal event sponsored by the Association of Health Care Journalists. He touched upon some current issues that have an impact on the mental well-being of individuals in Massachusetts and across the country. As former commissioner at the Department of Mental Health (DMH), Duckworth is intimately familiar with the Commonwealth and its efforts to help those who have a mental illness. He applauds the state for being a pioneer in this field, although he [More]
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November 1st, 2013
By Catherine Robertson Souter
In a situation that was still unfolding at press time, the state of Maine has been informed that Medicare/Medicaid funding for services at the state hospital have been terminated. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) was informed that the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) had decided to remove Riverview Psychiatric Center from its Medicare Provider Agreement, effectively cutting off $19-20 million, nearly two-thirds of its annual $33 million operating budget. The hospital, which has seen a sharp rise in the number of forensic patients since 2012 without a matching increase in funding, has had a number [More]
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November 1st, 2013
By Susan Gonsalves
A recent study published in Health Services Research tracking mental health care episodes found that blacks and Latinos are much less likely to initiate treatment. And whites are much more likely to have care that consists solely of filling psychotropic drugs without checking in with a provider. Benjamin Lê Cook, Ph.D., MPH, study author, is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and senior scientist at the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research at Cambridge Health Alliance. Cook says this research is unusual because it looked at the beginning, middle and end of episodes of [More]
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