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The Challenge of Caregiving: A Personal Story
Parents, spouses and other caregivers of individuals with illnesses and disabilities do not have special gifts. We are very average people who tap into our superhuman strengths that everyone has, but don’t always need to draw on. Twenty-five years ago this Fall my life changed forever. My son,...
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The NYSPA Report: A Response to the NYS OMH Report on Inpatient Suicide
The poet A. Alvarez titled his book about suicide, “The Savage God” to evoke its lure and horror for its victims and their families. Suicide is one of the most upsetting paths to death for all touched by it. It has been the subject of much study, aiming to understand what drives it and how to...
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Clinicians and Suicide Loss
For mental health professionals, the loss of a client to suicide is surprisingly common, if not an unfortunate occupational hazard. Studies show that one in five psychologists and counselors (Bersoff, 1999; McIntosh, 2000, McAdams and Foster, 2000) and one in two psychiatrists (Ruskin, 2004;...
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Caring for The Caregiver: Becoming Fearless During Illness and Loss
When illness comes, the entire family network starts hurting. Everyone in it becomes sensitized and in need of greater attention and care. Rivalries may begin to develop with family members jockeying for control. A great deal of fear and anxiety can get stirred up. Sometimes an individual becomes...
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Caring for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Clients and the Providers Who Serve Them
To paraphrase Tolstoy: happy clients are all alike – but unhappy clients are each unhappy in their own way. However, as the recovery movement gains ground, providers are finding that clients can have a bewilderingly diverse array of ideas about what would make them happy. These days, clients...
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Caregivers Plan for the Future with Federation of Organizations’ Financial Management Program
What will happen when I am not around? How can I protect the future of my loved one? These are some of the questions that caregivers ask themselves as they search for reassuring answers. After years of work helping families to prepare for the future of their loved ones, there is one point we cannot...
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Being Your Own Caregiver When There Is Nobody Else
This issue of Mental Health News examines the topic “Addressing the Needs of Caregivers.” The response to our theme was very enthusiastic with many people indicating how happy they were that we were examining this import and timely subject. Throughout the many wonderful articles in this issue...
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An Update on the RAISE Schizophrenia Research Project – An Interview with Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD
Over the past several issues, Mental Health News has been following the progress of the RAISE project, an NIMH sponsored research study that is examining the role and potential that early and specific interventions can play in the recovery of people that have just been recently diagnosed with...
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Addressing the Needs of Caregivers
Our society relies on families to provide care for disabled family members. They provide 80% of such care, and the financial value of their work is close to $400 billion per year. If families did not provide this care, it would add 15 to 20% to the costs of health care in the United States. I...
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Addressing the Needs of Caregivers
All too often, the severely mentally ill do not have family or friends involved in their care to act as a vital support system when they become symptomatic. For those people who are lucky enough to have supportive family and friends, those support people are often, and validly so, frustrated with...
