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Ask Dr. Max: Family Life Cycle and Mental Illness Challenges
It is important to start with the understanding that everyone thinking about and desiring to have a family is not only with great expectations but with many hopes and aspirations. Unexpected events result in shocks and traumas impacting everyone and each family system based on many factors...
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Federation of Organizations: A Family Affair
Families have been and continue to be instrumental in the development and implementation of treatment and support options for people with mental illness. Founded by family advocates, for the last 50 years Federation of Organizations (Federation) has been developing an array of community-based,...
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The Integral Role of Families in Promoting Mental Health and Managing Mental Illness
When you think about those at the forefront of managing mental health concerns – psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, counselors, and other professionals may come to mind. However, former Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher released a mental health report in 2000 that declared “families are...
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Mental Health and Families: Working Together to Strengthen and Support Loved Ones
Having a family member diagnosed with a mental illness can cause great stress and a deep sense of isolation. Mental health challenges are difficult to open up about because of the fear of judgment, believing that no one will understand. Relationships with family and friends can be difficult to...
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The Lens of Loss: Perspectives of Family Members Following Suicide Loss
When we think about the suicide of a loved one, we think of profound loss, of grief, of finding a way to endure amid unyielding pain. But we gain something in the aftermath, one nearly as burdensome. It is a new perspective: Loss becomes a lens through which life is lived. And it can be difficult...
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From Blame to Burden and Beyond: Changing Perspectives on the Family and Behavioral Health
Over the past 40 years or so, there has been a dramatic shift in the views about the dynamics of families with mentally ill family members, a shift from blaming them to sympathizing with them for the burden they have to bear. 50 years ago, when I was learning to be a clinician, I was taught...
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Centering the Family: What It Means to Implement Family-Focused Practice (FFP) in Adult Mental Health Care
Providers have an important role and responsibility to engage families when patients have a psychiatric hospitalization. HIPAA is often used to deny patients' families access to critical information. By educating and engaging families along the way, we can significantly reduce patient readmission...
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Families and Suicide: How to Engage Your Child in Conversation
As parents, we must balance our feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, on top of our own emotions with those of our children. There are many aspects to the relationship between suicide and families, especially having conversations to find out if children are thinking about suicide. Many parents are...
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Supporting Families in the Recovery Process
At the New York State Office of Mental Health, our Office of Advocacy and Peer Support Services (OAPSS) – formerly the Office of Consumer Affairs –supports families to play a vital role in the recovery and resilience process. The office is staffed by individuals with expertise gained through...
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The Behavioral Healthcare System’s Response to Families: A Legacy of Unfulfilled Promises
Family members of those with serious behavioral health conditions often encounter innumerable obstacles in the pursuit of effective treatment and other essential services for their loved ones. Navigating a byzantine network of resources, many of which entail restrictive eligibility criteria and...
