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Collaboration for People with MI/IDD: System Failures and Promising Practices
Individuals who have both mental illness (MI) and intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) present unique challenges to both mental health and developmental disability service structures. The group comprises a complex population whose needs are often poorly identified and who are often...
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Commentary on Treating Vulnerable, Mentally Ill Patients
Dr. Falconer effectively drives home the travesty of the disproportionate representation of those with serious behavioral health issues behind bars. Alarming, but not new, the “trans-institutionalization” of the 80’s and 90’s continues unabated to its tragic conclusion. She cogently...
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Have Some CLAS: What Leading Organizations Are Doing to Address Population Health
Adherence with the National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) is a common expectation for healthcare organizations of all types. Many providers assume that their efforts are sufficient as long as they hire staff who reflect the racial, ethnic, cultural, and...
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Helping the Most Vulnerable Among Vulnerable Populations
Our client, LM felt guilty when she wasn’t able to make it to her weekly counseling session. She felt like the therapist she was working with became disappointed with her and that added guilt made her not motivated to go to the next counseling session as well. The therapist wasn’t necessarily...
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System Transformation in Substance Use Disorder Care: New York State Progress and Priorities
The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health (https://addiction.surgeongeneral.gov), issued in November 2016, is a landmark report for the substance use disorder (SUD) care system. This report makes clear the importance of identifying and treating substance use disorders and places...
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Supervision: Paying Attention to the Soul, Not the Technique
Although I’ve never been a psychoanalyst, I did spend a year in analysis and took classes at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Institute. I left at the end of a year because being in practice at that time I came to realize that my own style of work was much more realistic, confrontational and time...
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An Integrated Model of Care and Education: Wellspring and the Arch Bridge School
Residential Treatment” has been under assault for some time, as you may know. Critics have made claims about its shortcomings, many of which are absolutely true. But residential treatment is not just one model. There have been several models available to families that have been successful, time...
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Intensive Outpatient Programs: When More is Better
The world of substance abuse treatment has gone through a great deal of change in the last decade. In the past, when a person entered substance abuse treatment, there was an immediate assumption that they needed a 28-inpatient rehab in order to “recover”. However, this standard has been changed...
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Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery in Substance Use and Mental Illness
With the changes brought about by the growth of managed care, evidence-based practice and the advent of the Affordable Care Act, we increasingly recognize that substance use disorder and mental illness are behavioral health issues often found together in the same patient. The field of behavioral...
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We Don’t Treat Brains, We Treat People
The US government estimates there are 80,000,000 Americans with diagnoses of substance abuse, dependence or binge drinking patterns, and we treat a tiny, tiny fraction of them effectively. We spend billions on the war on drugs, on research and on treatment and yet have little overall impact on the...
