Blog posts with the tag "Staff Perspective"

Staff Perspective: Using Humor to Reduce Stigma Around Mental Health

As we head into a month of Staff Perspective blogs focusing on the stigma around mental health, I struggled to come up with an angle that had not been addressed, either in previous blogs by CDP staff or in a myriad of other venues. The construct of stigma around mental health is well researched and many have written on the root of the stigma, why the military may be particularly plagued by stigma and potential directions to go in reduction efforts. 

Staff Perspective: Lessons From the ACEs Study

Dr. Kelly Chrestman

Once upon a time, in the post-disco 1980’s, Madonna was singing about material girls and Vincent Felitti was trying to figure out why so many people were prematurely dropping out of his weight loss program at Kaiser Permanente’s Department of Preventative Medicine in San Diego. The weight loss clinic was a state-of-the-art program designed to help those who were 100 to 600 pounds overweight. Inexplicably, many were dropping out even though they had successfully been losing weight.

Staff Perspective: Nightmares and Disturbing Dreams

Today you’re meeting a new patient. They present with a history of combat trauma and report significant sleep disturbances including problems falling asleep because they fear they will have another nightmare.
This may feel familiar to you, and there is a good reason for that. Nightmares are incredibly common after a traumatic event, with some estimates suggesting posttraumatic nightmares occur in 90% of patients with PTSD. 

Staff Perspective: What is Trauma? Careful Assessment Facilitates Effective Treatment

Dr. Kevin Holloway

Trauma. The word means different things to different people and in different circumstances. Sometimes the word refers to intense distress. Sometimes it means actual physical tissue damage. Sometimes it means an emotional upset. And all of these definitions are legitimate and understood in specific contexts

Staff Perspective: The History of PTSD Awareness Month

Dr. Carin Lefkowitz

We observe PTSD Awareness Month every year at CDP by writing new blogs about PTSD, offering several workshops on PTSD assessment and treatment during the month of June, and focusing our monthly CDP Presents webinar on the topic. Yet few of us (including myself) know the history of PTSD Awareness Month and how we came to observe it every year.

Pages