If you really want to influence your social care and/or mental health service users for the better, learn critical thinking.
Category Archives: mental health
Rights and mental health
Work in #socialcare &/or #mentalhealth is not an exercise in #HumanRights removal. The #law giveth, the law taketh away. #rights are not ours to withhold.
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Risk appreciation
Without risk life becomes empty, dull and lacking in quality. It’s not our job to remove all risk – we can’t anyway. Everything carries some risk. The trick is to learn to balance risk with reward, with benefits.
We do people no favours by trying to wrap them up in cotton wool to insulate them from all risk.
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Reacting to self harm
It’s easy to become emotionally disturbed when faced with a service-user, patient or client who self harms. Workers feel bad for the patient and bad about themselves for not being able to prevent it.
Unfortunately this emotional response – an element of High Expressed Emotion (HEE) known as Emotional over-involvement can make things worse. Try this instead.
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Online seminar 23rd Feb 2023
It’s like a big jigsaw – and it’s easier to understand when you can see the picture on the box!
What: 1 hour online seminar to show how #mentalhealth and disorder fit together When: Thursday 23rd February at 7pm.
Where: Your choice.
Cost: £12.50
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Don’t try to be perfect
It’s ok to be human. It’s OK to make mistakes. To be fallible.
Don’t make your #mentalhealth depend upon infallibility.
You can never be more than human and humans get stuff wrong. It’s inevitable and it’s OK!
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The eternal ‘now’
the eternal ‘now’ aids mental health and helps us to be effective.
In this moment I am safe, I am warm, well fed and comfortable. It’s a good moment. I will not spoil this moment regretting the past or worrying about future moments.
I can take the time to plan for the future just as I have learned from the past but I will not allow the small number of genuinely distressing moments to overwhelm my life’s majority of moments like this one.
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Control freaks have no life!
Many people try to control other people because they think it will help to keep them happy and mentally healthy. But actually the opposite is true.
Mental well-being depends upon a variety of experiences but control-freakery, in so far as it’s successful, limits a person’s experience only to what they already understand and can imagine. Most people find that their lives are enriched by the actions of others – even when those actions are surprising.
The more we control other people, the less we experience variety in life, the more frustrated and resentful we become when we fail and greater the risk we run of developing mental health problems.
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Meaningful activity & mental health
The problem with distraction
Mental health nurses are encouraged to rely heavily upon distraction to help people manage anxiety, depression or the emotional consequences of past trauma. That’s OK so far as it goes but unfortunately it really doesn’t go very far.
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Upcoming online seminars
Do you work in mental health or are you keen to know more for another reason? Are you frustrated at not being able to get on group training without travelling miles and paying through the nose? Look no further.
If you have an hour to spare and access to a pc or mobile ‘phone then you can join our 1 hour seminars with an experienced mental health nurse and trainer. For just £12.50 you can have a PDF booklet and access to an online presentation and question and answer session from the comfort of your own home.
Upcoming sessions include…
Thursday February 23rd 2023 The picture on the box
Thursday March 2nd 2023 Psychosis and schizophrenia
Thursday March 9th 2023 Self harm
All sessions begin at 7pm.
Fill in the contact form below to reserve your place on any or all of the sessions listed.
Mind The Care Training 