Columnists
Navigating layers of change
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
One day last fall, my colleague Martin asked if I had seen what had become of the hospital where we used to work. Martin is the hospital’s memory, and his passion for history and the natural world makes him someone I take very seriously. So, when he told me that they had turned the place into luxury condos, I had to go and see for myself.
Later that same afternoon, I turned off the main street onto the hospital road and into a landscape that bore little resemblance to the grounds I had walked with my patients for nearly two decades.…
NEP in 2020
By John Grohol, Psy.D.
With another year ending, it’s time to share news of New England Psychologist’s (NEP) print future with you. As I’ve mentioned here previously, traditional publishing has become increasingly challenging with the rise of printing and mailing costs year after year.
How often we publish in print form impacts our ability to keep publishing. With that in mind, we’ve decided to change our print publishing schedule to go to publishing once each quarter in 2020. We will also be discontinuing the psychiatric treatment facilities special directory, but keeping the residential schools directory (which will be published in the fourth quarter issue moving forward).…
The magic of found objects
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
There are few things better able to stimulate the imagination than finding an interesting, unknown object. The first time I had this experience I was a boy playing in the vacant lot at the corner of our block. The block was really a triangle, with the town hall and World War II honor roll near the apex, three two-story houses in the middle, and the first-aid building and vacant lot occupying the two corners.
Against all odds, grass grew in the lot, which was bisected by a dirt path worn diagonally into the earth by ironclad men taking a shortcut to and from the factories that hummed in the background.…
What astronomy offers psychology
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
It had been a long time since I took the telescope out onto the front lawn for a spell of stargazing, just over a year according to the calendar built into the electronic guidance system of my small glass. Time gets away, new concerns take precedence, and the town installs brighter streetlamps. The stars fade.
But one night this past summer before Jupiter slipped beneath the treetops, a quick glimpse reminded me of what astronomy has to offer psychology. A heightened sense of awe, perspective, humility, and a feeling of wonder are all there at the price of simply looking up.…
Reducing mental illness stigma is everyone’s responsibility
By John Grohol, Psy.D.
It may seem that trying to reduce the prejudice and discrimination that’s commonplace when talking about mental illness is a never-ending job. Because it is. But I believe that every single one of us needs to be responsible for helping to forward the conversation about mental illness. It can’t just be left to advocacy groups, government agencies, or professional associations.
To me, that means challenging friends and even family members if they say something that is stigmatizing to people with mental illness, or suggest that a person with mental illness is somehow “less than.”…
Practical Practice: Continuing ed can provide learning, networking opportunities
By Catherine Robertson Souter
Nearly every state in the U.S. requires continuing education (CE) for renewing a psychology license. The requirements vary from Idaho’s 30 hours every three years to 60 hours every two years in Vermont, Arizona, and Washington. There are a few states that have no required amount of continuing ed credits and South Dakota inexplicably asks for “some” with no guidance on the exact amount.
In New England, the requirements vary. New Hampshire and Maine ask for 40 hours every two years, Rhode Island is at 24 and Massachusetts requires 20. Of these hours, each state allows for a certain amount to be completed online or by reading pertinent information but the rest must be done at live, interactive events.…
Your online directory service doesn’t have to be so expensive
By John Grohol, Psy.D.
Nearly every therapist subscribes to an online therapist directory service. Paying hundreds of dollars of a year to be listed in a directory may seem like it makes good business sense for a psychologist in individual practice.
But there’s no reason these directories need to cost $300 to over $500 per year for a basic listing. To me, that just seems over-priced.
Psych Central is committed to changing the directory space by offering an affordable directory listing to mental health clinicians. Our directory listings are only $9.95/month for a basic listing or $14.95/month for an advanced listing.…
How traveling the inner state highway works
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
When it comes to wisdom and humor both, there is nothing like the comics in the daily paper. Given the content of the news these days, we need wisdom and humor more than ever.
In a recent edition of The Boston Globe, Hilary Price’s strip, “Rhymes with Orange, ”featured a worried looking driver reading a road sign on the “Inner State Highway” bearing this message: “Is it missing your exit that’s bothering you, or something deeper?”
The idea of the inner state highway appeals to me as a psychologist. For many of us, it was the first road we learned to travel in graduate school when our professors, supervisors, and patients taught us how to do psychotherapy.…
The empowered patient
By John Grohol, Psy.D.
Patients nowadays are empowered more than ever. They’ve not only read all about their disorder online, but they may have even participated in an online support group or previously tried online therapy before coming to you.
This trend is a good one that every clinician should embrace. A fear of misinformation online has been put to rest by research suggesting that most information about mental health concerns online is trustworthy. Of course, people can always seek out non-mainstream opinions and viewpoints, but most do not.
An empowered patient doesn’t just mean they’re informed and educated about their condition.…
What I imagined in the psychology aisle
By Alan Bodnar Ph.D.
About once every decade, I go down to my local bookstore to scan the shelves in the psychology aisle and simply let the titles speak to me. These rare excursions are not meant for shopping or browsing. As a book store junkie, I shop and browse often enough, but scanning and waiting for an insight is a special activity reserved for special occasions. I suppose if I were more systematic in my observations, I might be able to discern the Zeitgeist of every decade from the titles of the books on offer, but I go more out of curiosity and an impish sense of fun than from any serious scientific purpose.…