It’s either World Autism Day (April 2) or World Autism Awareness Week (March 27-April 2) or Autism Awareness Month (April). Or all three.
From the National Autistic Society:
• Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people. It also affects how they make sense of the world around them.
• It is a spectrum condition, which means that, while all people with autism share certain difficulties, their condition will affect them in different ways. Some people with autism are able to live relatively independent lives but others may have accompanying learning disabilities and need a lifetime of specialist support. People with autism may also experience over- or under-sensitivity to sounds, touch, tastes, smells, light or colours.
• Asperger syndrome is a form of autism. People with Asperger syndrome are often of average or above average intelligence. They have fewer problems with speech but may still have difficulties with understanding and processing language.
• Autism is much more common than many people think. There are around 700,000 people in the UK with autism - that's more than 1 in 100.
• Five times as many males as females are diagnosed with autism.
• Over 40% of children with autism have been bullied at school.
• Only 15% of adults with autism in the UK are in full-time paid employment.
About World Autism Awareness Week
World Autism Awareness Week (WAAW) is all about doing something to stand out for autism! This week, you can raise funds to support people with autism to live the lives they choose, spread the word about autism, and have a fantastic time!
The money you raise will make a huge difference. By standing out and raising funds during WAAW, you could help The National Autistic Society deliver vital services to support over 700,000 people with autism and their families across the UK.
World Autism Awareness Day, 2 April
The United Nations:
2015 Theme: Employment: The Autism Advantage
It is estimated that more than 80% of adults with autism are unemployed.
Research suggests that employers are missing out on abilities that that people on the autism spectrum have in greater abundance than “neurotypical” workers do – such as, heightened abilities in pattern recognition and logical reasoning, as well as a greater attention to detail.
These qualities make them ideally suited to certain kinds of employment, such as software testing, data entry, lab work and proofreading, to name just a few examples. </p>
The hurdles that need to be overcome to unleash this potential include: a shortage of vocational training, inadequate support with job placement, and pervasive discrimination.
• My Autism Awareness Month playlist (Age of Autism)
• Apple highlights selection of Autism-related apps (MobileSyrup.com)
• My three daughters are autistic. I despise Autism Awareness Month. (Washington Post)
General Election 2015: Improving mental health should be a priority in this election
Alastair Campbell writes in The Guardian:
To be fair to Nick Clegg … you won’t find me saying these words too often, what with his broken promises and his propping up of one of the nastiest, most rightwing and incompetent Tory governments we have known. But – to be fair to Clegg – he has at least helped drive mental health and mental illness up the political agenda. He has been a consistent supporter of the Time to Change campaign. He made mental health the centrepiece of his conference speech, and the subject of his first major outing of the election campaign, with a Lib Dem manifesto commitment pledge of £3.5bn funding for mental health over the next parliament.
So Clegg has talked the talk, and that is a good thing. But over the course of this parliament, though we have made some progress in the anti-stigma campaign – if not enough to prevent some awful reporting of the Germanwings tragedy – on services I believe we have gone backwards. Indeed, there is a danger that politicians see improvement in attitudes as a substitute for the need for services when in fact improved awareness and understanding will lead to more reporting of mental health problems, and therefore the need for more not less resources within the NHS for mental health.
Mental health has long been the Cinderella service. NHS managers and commissioners, confronted with the reality of austerity policies, have to make tough judgments. When it comes to a choice between, say, cancer, A&E, and mental health, we all know where they find it easier to make the cuts.
I sometimes crowdsource before making speeches and when doing one such speech on mental health, I asked people to tweet me telling me what was going on in their area and I was deluged by people saying “we used to have this service and now it’s gone”.
The last Labour government did good things such as introduce IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies), which signalled an understanding of the role that talking and counselling can play in helping people improve their own mental wellbeing. If Ed Miliband becomes prime minister, I hope he can put mental health right at the heart of the NHS agenda where it needs to be. And I hope the NHS can involve mental health patients more in their own care, and also integrate physical and mental care better for the individual patient.
I don’t think the Conservative part of the Department of Health gets it at all. When I met the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, he said he didn’t understand how someone like me could get depression, because from the outside it looked like I had a great life. To be fair to him – something else I don’t say too often – he did at least seem embarrassed when I pointed out that I didn’t choose to be depressed, any more than I choose to be asthmatic, or would choose to have cancer.
• General Election 2015: Nick Clegg pledges improvements to mental health care (The Independent)
• Politicians say all the right things about mental health – but where's the action? (The Guardian)
• The General Election: Anyone but “Camilibegg”
Children with mental health problems can wait for more than three years to be assessed
From The Independent:
Children with mental health problems can wait for more than three years to be assessed and up to nearly two years to receive treatment, according to a report.
Freedom of Information requests submitted by The Times newspaper found that the longest wait from first referral to being formally assessed since 2012 was at the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, where this took three years and 20 weeks in one case.
The longest wait from being assessed to getting treatment was found at the South London and Maudsley Trust in which a child waited a year and nearly 42 weeks.
Sarah Brennan, chief executive of the charity Young Minds, said: “Children’s and adolescent mental health services are creaking at the seams as they are being hit with increased referrals at the same time as cutbacks to their services.”
The number of children being sent to mental health service rose by more than 6 per cent between 2013 and 2014, according to information about 26 mental health trusts. In some cases children had to travel hundreds of miles from one trust to another because of a lack of beds.
Norman Lamb, the care and support minister, said: “It’s completely unacceptable for children and young people to wait years for treatment sometimes hundreds of miles from home — we wouldn’t accept this for physical health.”
Veterans' mental health: Referrals rise by 26%
From BBC News:
Mental health referrals for ex-servicemen and women have increased by 26% in the last year, says a specialist mental health charity for veterans.
Combat Stress said referrals for ill mental health or post-traumatic stress disorder rose from 1,802 to 2,264.
It said an increase in veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking help was the main reason for the rise.
The charity said it wanted to increase its clinical resources to meet the rising demand.
Wales: Counselling service launched for clergy
Clergy are often turned to when people need help but now a new counselling service will support clergy when they face difficulties themselves.
From money worries to family crises or addictions – the new Cynnal Churches’ Counselling Service was launched today to provide a free confidential counselling service available throughout Wales for all members of the clergy and their families who might be facing challenging times in their personal lives.
Is a 'marriage MOT' the key to a happy relationship? Ben and Marina Fogle say yes
From the Daily Mail:
Adventurer Ben Fogle and his wife Marina have said that regular 'MOT' therapy sessions with a marriage counsellor have helped them to cope with the pressures of childcare and strengthen their relationship.
The pair, who married in 2006 and have two children, have urged other couples to invest time in their marriage as a preemptive measure 'before it's too late'.
Marina, who is founder of antenatal courses The Bump Class, told The Telegraph, 'The most compatible couples will struggle when into the mix you throw an exhausted, emotionally volatile woman who is physically vulnerable after giving birth, and a new father, equally tired and overwhelmed by his new responsibility.
'Wrapped up in just getting through each day, the parents have little time left for each other, and the communication breakdown begins.'
Marina has been keen to stress the importance of communication in a successful marriage, and has said she can see how couples can easily get so busy that they leave no time for each other.
Whilst many of her toddler-raising friends agree that marriage counselling is a good idea, Marina suggested that most couples who receive therapy make the decision too late.
Texas state trooper ordered to undergo counselling over Snoop Dogg photo
From The Guardian:
A state trooper has been reprimanded – and will be required to undergo counselling – after posing for a photo with Snoop Dogg at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, because the rapper has several convictions for drug possession.
Billy Spears was working security at the March event when Snoop Dogg asked to take a picture with him. The artist posted the image to Instagram with the comment, “Me n my deputy dogg”.
Department of Public Safety and Transportation officials saw the posting and cited Spears for deficiencies that require counselling by a supervisor.
Spears’s attorney says his client didn’t know about the rapper’s criminal record. Spears cannot appeal the citation because it isn’t a formal disciplinary action.
Trauma-informed psychotherapy puts the body – and love – back in mental healthcare
A good summary of trauma by Laura K Kerr, Ph.D, in in Social Justice Solutions:
For the past 50 years, psychotherapy has taken a back seat to biomedical psychiatry, largely due to reliance on medications for the treatment of mental disorders. Yet clinical evidence increasingly points to chronic, unresolved traumatic stress as the source of many — if not most — mental disorders. Furthermore, longitudinal analyses show continued use of psychotropic medications is bad for the body, even causing chronic diseases. Granted, medications can stabilize a body wracked by recurrent distress, but such an approach is hardly a long-term cure. According to psychiatrist and trauma specialist Bessel Van der Kolk, “dramatic advances in pharmacotherapy have helped enormously to control some of the neurochemical abnormalities caused by trauma, but they obviously are not capable of correcting the imbalance.” To correct the “imbalance” often requires learning to inhabit one’s body and relationships in new ways.
Fortunately, the psychotherapeutic treatment of psychological trauma has advanced significantly the past several decades. In part, this is due to scientific discoveries of how the body and relationships naturally defend against traumatic stress. In particular, trauma-informed psychotherapies that draw from neuroscience and attachment studies are more holistic and scientifically based than ever before, although they often support the intuitions held by originators of psychotherapy such as Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud, and C. G. Jung.
Chicago: Deerfield woman mixes dance, psychotherapy in unique sessions
From Chicago Tribune:
She's been dancing since she was 3, so it was a natural step for Erica Hornthal of Deerfield to make dancing her career. Hornthal, a licensed clinical professional counselor and board certified dance therapist, assists people of all ages who have movement disorders.
She's the founder of North Shore Dance Therapy, a business that since 2011 has provided holistic counseling and psychotherapy for individuals, families, couples and groups impacted by movement disorders such as Parkinson's and dementia. She has been practicing her specialty since 2009.
Phone counseling reduces pain, disability after back surgery
From Medical Xpress:
Research by Johns Hopkins scientists suggests that having a short series of phone conversations with trained counselors can substantially boost recovery and reduce pain in patients after spinal surgery.
The phone calls, designed to enrich standard pre- and post-operative care by reinforcing the value of sticking with physical therapy and back-strengthening exercise regimens, are a relatively inexpensive and simple intervention that can maximize surgical outcomes for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who undergo spinal surgeries every year, the investigators say.
A report on the findings of the federally funded research is published online March 28 in the journal Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
"Phone counseling appears to be an easy, low-cost strategy that yields meaningful results by improving patient engagement in physical therapy and at-home exercise programs that are so vital for their recovery," says study lead investigator Richard Skolasky Jr., Sc.D., associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Approaches like this one will play an important role in improving patient outcomes and reducing health care spending in an era when hospitals are increasingly being judged on the quality rather than quantity of care they provide."
Jamaica: relatives of those killed need special attention
From Jamaica Gleaner:
Dr Beverly Scott, arguably western Jamaica's best known family therapist, is calling for special counselling to be provided for the relatives of young people whose lives are violently snuffed out.
Scott's comments were made against the background of a spate of cases of children being murdered across the island since the beginning of the year.
"When you look at the stress scale, the loss of a child is 100 per cent on the scale, so it is very difficult for the surviving relatives to cope," Scott told Western Focus in a recent interview. "For the rest of their lives, they will not be the same. They need real professionals, who know about grieving and how to get people through the grief process."
Sri Lanka: common mental disorders among adult members of ‘left-behind’
From BioMed Central:
Nearly one-in-ten Sri Lankans are employed abroad as International migrant workers (IMW). Very little is known about the mental health of adult members in families left-behind. This study aimed to explore the impact of economic migration on mental health (common mental disorders) of left-behind families in Sri Lanka ... Negative impact of economic migration is highlighted by the considerably high prevalence of CMD [depression, somatoform disorder, anxiety] among adults in left-behind families. A policy framework that enables health protection whilst promoting migration for development remains a key challenge for labour-sending nations.
Uganda: Group support psychotherapy for depression treatment in people with HIV/AIDS
Group support psychotherapy (GSP) is a culturally sensitive intervention that aims to treat depression by enhancing social support, teaching coping skills, and income-generating skills. We compared GSP with group HIV education (GHE) for treatment of depression in people with HIV in Uganda ... The benefits of existing HIV educational interventions in HIV care services could be improved by the addition of GSP content. Potential benefits of the integration of GSP into existing HIV interventions, such as adherence counselling or group HIV educational programmes, should be addressed in future studies.
No, Psychiatry Could Not Have Prevented the Germanwings Disaster
Psychotherapist Gary Greenberg, author of “The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry,” writes in The New Yorker:
While some Germanwings Flight 9525 investigators sorted through debris in the Alps, others were in apartments and hospitals and doctors’ offices, seeking fragments of Andreas Lubitz’s life. As details leaked out—a doctor’s note, a depression diagnosis, a prescription, thoughts of suicide, a broken heart, an eye problem—they seemed to add up to the story of a mentally ill young man driven to commit mass murder and suicide. They also added up to trouble for Lufthansa, Germanwings’ parent company, which, according to some experts, could now face damages in excess of an initial estimate of three hundred million dollars. The airline, the experts argue, should have known that Lubitz was not someone who should have had the lives of a hundred and fifty people in his hands.
As had happened in the cases of Jared Loughner and Adam Lanza, the attribution of the disaster to mental illness has spurred calls for more thorough mental-health screenings of people seeking access to instruments of mayhem, and for more restrictions on those diagnosed with a mental illness. But as any mental-health professional will tell you (and as many did in the wake of the crash), nearly one in three Americans meets the criteria for a mental-disorder diagnosis in any year, and more than half of us will qualify at some point in our lives. Once diagnosed, people with mental illnesses, even severe psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, do not commit violent crimes at higher rates than the rest of the population. And most people who have had suicidal thoughts do not go on to kill themselves, let alone a planeload of strangers. More intense psychological scrutiny coupled with the possibility of getting fired, as the head of an organization of German flight attendants warned, could easily backfire. “I would warn against making the crew into completely transparent people,” he said. “That would just mean that someone would not go to a doctor.” Or, since diagnosis is almost entirely dependent on self-reporting, the pilot could evade mandatory diagnostic scrutiny by lying—or, as Lubitz apparently did, by confining his queries about cockpit doors and suicide methods to a search engine.