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Unforeseen Stress When a Child Receives a Transplant

April 26, 201800Featured news, Guilt, Health, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stress, Trauma April, 18

Source: debowscyfoto at pixabay, Creative Commons

On April 13, 2016, Bill and Lindsay Brent received the phone call they were desperate for. Their youngest child Nathan would get the liver transplant he urgently needed. Within hours, the family from Barrie, Ontario was heading to The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

By 8:00 the next morning, Nathan’s life-saving surgery was underway. Twelve hours after surgery began, the Brents’ feisty toddler emerged from surgery sedated, but holding his own, and began his road to recovery.

Twenty months earlier, Nathan was diagnosed with Alagille Syndrome, a genetic disorder affecting his liver, and severe enough that his only hope for survival was a liver transplant. But as the months passed, the situation began to look bleak. Nathan’s rare AB negative blood type greatly decreased his chances of finding a donor match.

Complicating matters further, Nathan was ineligible for the program; he required a liver from a deceased donor rather than from someone who was living. In his case, a pediatric donor would increase the odds of success, meaning that another child would have to die for Nathan to live.

And yet, despite insurmountable odds, thanks to the decision of one family, a liver was donated and Nathan survived.

Raelynn Maloney, a clinical psychologist and co-author of the book Caring for Donor Families: Before, During and After, says that the donor waiting period can be extremely stressful for families.

“Many traumas can occur during the ‘waiting period’; seeing a loved one suffer from illness without a clear outcome in sight, financial stress as families juggle care demands with work schedules, and, of course, the fear of running out of time.”

For the Brents, though, the psychological impact of their son’s traumatic journey started to surface only after the transplant was completed. Bill explains:

“Even though you are devastated when you receive the news that your child has a life-threatening illness, your need to remain focused on the outcome and to stay positive takes over. What has been shocking is the magnitude of post-transplant emotions that we’ve had to face. You’ve received a miracle, and yet, somehow, you are gripped with guilt and sorrow for the donor’s family, and an anxiety about the future that is so strong, it hinders your ability to feel good about life.”

For the couple, while they shared the same concerns for Nathan, their struggles with anxiety manifested in different ways. While Lindsay tended to ruminate and panic about the risks to Nathan post-transplant, such as illness, injury, and organ rejection, Bill reported an increase in social anxiety and was gripped with survivor’s guilt and depression. He says:

“It is very difficult for me to accept that my son needed someone to die for him to live. The donor family is in our thoughts constantly, and words cannot describe how thankful we are to them. They are our heroes.”

Maloney explains that recipient families can have a delayed reaction to the distress they experience while their loved one is on the donor list, and they are often unprepared for the rush of emotions that come after transplant.

While remaining focused on a solution, recipient families often do not allow themselves the space to grieve setbacks as they occur. Rather, they strive to maintain hopefulness while supressing the pain of the situation.

Maloney emphasizes that it may only be during recovery, when these families finally have a chance to process what they have gone through, that the traumatic grief hits.

The Brents recognized that, post-transplant, there was much more time to reflect on the enormity of what they had been through. Although grateful for Nathan’s outcome and the support of their family and friends, the Brents still faced ongoing emotional issues, all while trying to build normalcy back into their lives. Lindsay explains:

“Since Nathan has received his new liver, we no longer have access to the transplant support team that was available to us before the surgery. The medical team has moved on, the social support from the families at the hospital has been less frequent since we have returned home. In a way, Bill and I feel like we’ve lost family members, people that up until the transplant were a part of our innermost circle. In some ways, we feel left to navigate this post-transplant terrain on our own.”

Maloney acknowledges that there is an illusion held by the public that, after a transplant, all is well and life returns to normal. In reality, this is a time when transplant recipients and their families may need even more support as they try to reconcile the trauma of the illness with a hopeful and optimistic view of the future.

Now at home, Nathan continues to improve. Bill and Lindsay look forward to the time when this difficult journey will be surpassed by many happier, hopeful moments.

–Kimberley Moore, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Inadequate Training Increases Risk of Compassion Fatigue

March 15, 201870Burnout, Caregiving, Featured news, Health, Stress, Trauma, Work March, 18

Source: Pennsylvania National Guard at flickr, Creative Commons

Every afternoon, personal support worker Susan (name changed) struggled with administering medication to a particular elderly patient in the dementia ward where she worked. On one such occasion, fed up with the patient’s behaviour, Susan became so frustrated that she mumbled a profanity, reached over, and pinched the patient’s arm. With a sharp cry of pain, the patient quickly accepted the medication and Susan was able to move on.

Stories of malpractice or poor patient care like this are not as uncommon as one might imagine. Evident from media reports of negligence in hospital settings, such cases can ignite an outcry in the community and prompt questions about individuals’ suitability for caretaking roles. How could someone with a career revolving around caring for others lack empathy?

Grace, an Ontario care worker who witnessed Susan’s behavior firsthand, believes the demanding nature of the job took a physical and mental toll on her co-worker. Having worked for eight years at a residential center for dementia patients, Grace knows from experience just how mentally exhausting the work can be. In an interview with the Trauma and Mental Health Report, Grace explained:

“There’s so much to take care of with these particular patients. When it’s dinnertime, you have to make sure to clean the patient, take them to the dining room, prepare the area for them, feed them, etc. But the next thing you know, they may have soiled themselves or vomited and you have yet another thing to clean when you already have so much to do… There are times when you need to take dirty clothing or dishes from them and they refuse to give them to you or just start yelling at you.”

When faced with the same situation on a daily basis, Grace explains that it’s hard not to become exasperated:

“It can get annoying and even angering at times. It’s hard to control… I didn’t hear much from Susan when I first started working here, but then she began yelling at the patients. I do believe it’s because the stress finally got to her.”

Mental health professionals support Grace’s theory. Overworked employees who are plagued by such feelings of frustration are showing signs of Compassion Fatigue (CF).

Francoise Mathieu, CF specialist and founder of Compassion Fatigue Solutions in Kingston, Ontario, describes the condition on her organization’s website as a gradual emotional and physical exhaustion of helping professionals. While CF is sometimes used interchangeably with Vicarious Trauma (VT), there is a difference between the two. VT is a secondary form of post-traumatic stress disorder, where a worker becomes preoccupied with a specific event or patient problem. On the other hand, CF is an overall decline in the ability to empathize with others.

The American Institute of Stress also differentiates CF from ‘burnout’. With CF, the constant pressure to show compassion toward patients may wear on mental energy stores, leading workers to become emotionally blunted to people and events. Burnout is less dependent on this loss of compassion.

CF is not limited to mental health professionals. It has been shown to affect teachers, social workers, police officers, prison guards, and even lawyers who work with trauma victims. In Grace’s words:

“At first, the stories you hear and the things you see involving the patients really do follow you home. They used to make me feel depressed. Over time, that sensitivity does lessen. After being exposed to this type of thing day after day, you start to lose those feelings.”

According to CF expert Francois Mathieu, once workers begin to experience this emotional exhaustion, they may be prone to moodiness, irritability, difficulty concentrating, intrusive thoughts, feelings of hopelessness, and apathy in both workplace and personal relationships. Fran McHolm, Director of Continuing Education at the Nurses Christian Fellowship has written about how CF can lead to a decrease in general employee happiness, workplace satisfaction, and quality of patient care.

CF is not a rare condition. Results from a 2012 dissertation study by Shannon Abraham-Cook at Seton Hall University show that, out of 111 urban public school teachers in Newark, New Jersey, 90% were at high-risk for CF. In 2010, Crystal Hooper and colleagues from the AnMed Health Medical Center in South Carolina also found that 86% of emergency department nurses exhibited moderate to high levels of CF.

While CF is common in many workplaces, help for employees who are experiencing symptoms, is not readily available. In an interview with the Trauma and Mental Health Report, Isabella, an assistant teacher working with special needs children at a Toronto daycare, describes her experience:

“When we began training, the instructors only talked about how to care for the children and how to work with the different age groups. Management didn’t provide us with anything else. The only thing we can do when feeling overly stressed is go for a break.”

Grace adds that her center for dementia patients fails to directly address employee needs:

“Recently, they added cameras everywhere to prevent poor patient care, but it’s made things worse. Now we are forced to seem especially compassionate and the littlest mistake can lead to a suspension. The management doesn’t try to understand the worker’s view of things at all.”

Dan Swayze, vice president of the Center for Emergency Medicine of Western Pennsylvania, discusses several ways management can address employees’ personal needs pertaining to compassion fatigue. In an article in the Journal of Emergency Medical Services, Swayze writes about the importance of implementing policies and developing programs that can help ease the onset of CF. Teaching employees how to set professional boundaries with patients, conducting meetings to solve individual client issues as a team, and offering counselling services to stressed employees are just a few options administration can take.

And a 2015 study by researcher Patricia Potter and colleagues in the Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing argues for resilience training, a program designed to educate personnel about CF and its risk factors. Workers are taught how to employ relaxation techniques and build social support networks to cope with symptoms that arise from working with difficult populations. Staff members from a US medical center who participated in the training self-reported an increase in their empathy and overall emotional health.

Volunteer crisis hotline operator, Anabel, explains the benefits of these resources in her line of work:

“The staff at the distress center are really considerate of their volunteers. In the training they prepare you for compassion fatigue, encourage volunteers to take care of themselves, and to not take the calls home with you. They also make sure to be available to the volunteers 24/7 in case they need to debrief a call with someone. It really helps to know they’re there to talk to—often after a distressing call.”

Training and intervention programs can help safeguard against the development of compassion fatigue in care workers. But many people working in the field, like Grace and Isabella, have been thrown into care-taking roles with no consideration for the risks to their mental wellbeing. Both women have identified various ways of coping as a stopgap until they receive the assistance and support they need.

Isabella suggests taking full advantage of breaks every few hours:

“Whenever you feel overwhelmed, go for a break right away—even if it’s just to the washroom or for a coffee… When you leave and come back, you feel refreshed. I’m lucky that I live so close to my workplace that I can go home during lunch.”

Grace recommends taking a deep breath and focusing on any positive aspect of the job:

“I learn so much from the patients. Hearing their stories, you can end up getting really close to some of them. I try to listen to them when I can and when I see the positive effect that has on them, I feel very fulfilled.”

These coping mechanisms do not work for everyone, which is why early intervention is so important. While camera implementation has prevented some inappropriate conduct like Susan’s from continuing, it doesn’t address the root problem.

“There are times where I get angry,” Grace admits. “I can’t always entertain patients or be friendly. I try… but it’s so hard… I know a lot of people, like myself, are really sensitive, which is why we are so emotionally affected by this job. There’s no stress management or counselling here, but… these training programs could really help.”

For many helping professionals, compassion fatigue may be inevitable. Cases like Susan’s show that the wellbeing of individuals in caretaking roles directly influences the quality of care that patients will receive. Support in the form of training programs and other preventative measures can make a difference in the lives of these workers, and, improve patient care.

–Anjali Wisnarama, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Mental-Health Stigma All Too Common in Iran

March 1, 201870Depression, Featured news, Health, Psychopathy, Stress, Trauma March, 18

Source: PakPolaris at Deviant Art, Creative Commons

A Minor Leap Down, an Iranian film featured at international film festivals in Berlin and Toronto, illustrates the struggle of a 30-year-old Iranian woman named Nahal, whose deteriorating mental health is undermined by her family.

When Nahal is told she’s had a miscarriage, instead of seeking support from her family—who have, in the past, refused to recognize her struggle with depression—she keeps the news to herself, leading to desperation.

Stigma surrounding psychological disorders in Iran often leads to isolation, as fear of judgment and ridicule creates barriers to pursuing treatment. Some reports show that 26.5 percent of Iranian women and 20.8 percent of Iranian men have mental-health difficulties.

In an interview with the Trauma and Mental Health Report (translated, Farsi to English), Hamed Rajabi, director of A Minor Leap Down, explains:

“This social system is only concerned with how people work and perform, and when that performance is lowered, their behavior is instantly condemned.”

Research by Ahmad Ali Noorbala and colleagues from Tehran University of Medical Sciences shows women in Iran have a greater incidence of mental disorders than women in Western cultures. One contributing factor may be that women in Iran are often confined to the home, leading to isolation and poor domestic conditions.

After the loss of her unborn child, Nahal spirals into deep depression, deciding not to remove dead fetal tissue from her womb. When she tries to address the issue with her mother and husband, she’s turned away.

Familial relationships and reputation are important aspects of Iranian culture. Mental illness in a family member is viewed as a familial flaw.

According to research published in the Journal of Health and Social Behaviour by Erin Cornwell of Cornell University and Linda Waite of the University of Chicago, social relationships are particularly important for those coping with mental illness; social withdrawal aggravates loneliness, stress, and feelings of low self-worth.

Nahal’s silence about her mental illness also relates to a worry that she’ll be forced to resume antidepressant medication, which she took prior to pregnancy. Medications like these are seen as first-line treatment in Iran.

In A Minor Leap Down, filmmaker Rajabi addresses the over-prescription of psychotropic medication in Iran, explaining:

“Depression signifies that a part of our lives hurt—and taking pills won’t solve anything until we distinguish which part of our life is causing the problem.”

Although recognition of mental-health problems in Iran has arguably increased over the past few years, considerable stigma still exists.

Awareness can translate to an enhanced understanding of the complexity of mental-health problems in a culture that holds rigid attitudes about mental health and illness.

–Nonna Khakpour, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Firefighters Fight Stress as First Responders

February 1, 201890Burnout, Featured news, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stress, Trauma, Work February, 18

We tend to think of firefighters saving lives as fires tear through homes or forest land. What many people don’t know is that firefighters are also first responders, arriving at crisis scenes even before paramedics or police officers.

Working in stressful and traumatic situations can take a toll on their mental health. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and suicide rates are much higher in first responders than in most other professions. Canadian first responders experience twice the rate of PTSD compared to civilians.

Ongoing exposure to stress means that access to support is critical. But cultural and administrative barriers get in the way. Because firefighters are regarded as tough and invulnerable, many feel embarrassed to ask for help, and available programs can be difficult to navigate.

Brian (name changed for anonymity), a 30-year veteran of the fire service and a District Chief in Ontario, Canada has experienced the stressful effects of the job firsthand, and has witnessed the toll it takes on colleagues and family:

“You’re just supposed to deal with the effects of the job. The stigma is that, if you can’t handle it, you’re weak. This idea has been built into the profession.”

When Brian entered his new role as District Chief, he received very little training on how to support the well-being of those working under him. He received only a phone number to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to distribute to team members if they had an exceptionally stressful day. The call is left up to individual firefighters rather than to an outreach program that communicates to them directly.

Although Brian believes that firefighters can benefit from the EAP, he knows that stigma exists around making the call. So, the resource doesn’t get used.

“There have always been employee assistance programs. In all my thirty years, I’ve only seen the EAP used once or twice. For the program to work, the agency needs to call the firefighters, because firefighters don’t reach out.”

To fight this stigma, the province of Ontario has launched several initiatives, including a new radio and digital campaign created to raise awareness and reduce the hesitancy of first responders to seek support. A free online toolkit has also been developed that addresses how to cope with PTSD.

Social support is another essential component of first responders’ wellbeing. In a study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Jasmine Huynh of Flinders University and colleagues found that support from family and friends was critical for protecting workers from burnout and for them to cope with the demands of frontline responsibilities.

Brian and his wife Sandra (name changed for anonymity) find support in each other and also through other firefighters and their families. Sandra explains that they often use humour to address the stress:

“When you go into the fire hall, there’s a lot of humour. I think we use humour to deal with the pressure, to keep going. That’s our coping mechanism. It’s also how we manage the stress as a family.”

While some programs exist to help firefighters work through their own issues, there is very little support for families of first responders. Having a loved one who is a firefighter can take a toll on the whole household.

In a study by social work professor Cheryl Regehr and a group of researchers at the University of Toronto, the authors explored how firefighters’ wives coped with the mental distress caused by their husbands’ emotionally taxing jobs. Wives handled partner stress by emotionally distancing themselves when necessary.

After thirty years, Sandra has learned to better read Brian’s emotional states, allowing her to recognize when he needs some space after a bad shift. She explains:

“If he comes home and is quiet, and not himself, I know that something is wrong. But I just let it go and let time pass, and then, eventually, I ask him about it. I can tell when it has been a rough shift. If he wants to be alone, I let him be.”

In an attempt to shield his children from the dangers of his job, Brian doesn’t discuss work much at home:

“When I was initially on the job, I talked to Sandra a lot about it, but when the kids came, I stopped. You don’t want to bring the experiences home; you don’t want the kids to worry. It’s bad enough that Sandra worries.”

Despite being proud of her husband, Sandra can’t help but feel constant fear in the back of her mind:

“I think about Brian’s safety all the time. The fear is always there. When he was first on the job, I tried not to think about it. I didn’t watch the news, and if I did, I prayed it wasn’t his fire truck at an emergency.”

To her relief, it has always been someone else’s fire truck. But that someone usually has a family at home, also worrying.

Brian and Sandra agree that more needs to be done to support frontline workers and families. At least initiatives like the media campaign and online toolkit serve as a starting point for an open dialogue surrounding the stigma of seeking help.

At the end of the day, Brian’s job is just that: a job. He says:

“People want to call us heroes. Most of the time, I don’t classify us as heroes. We do what we’re trained to do, and if we do it well, we all come home.”

–Alyssa Carvajal, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Parkinson’s Takes its Toll on Family Caregivers

January 18, 201820Caregiving, Family Dynamics, Featured news, Health, Neuroscience, Parenting, Stress January, 18

Source: Lesia Szyca, Trauma and Mental Health Report Artist, used with permission

Her hands and legs trembled, she could no longer drive. Cognitively, she declined. Her balance was affected, and she often fell. My grandmother Anna (name changed) had Parkinson’s Disease. It took over her life.

As a vibrant and independent woman, Anna had always been eager to help her family. Then, as the disease progressed, roles began to shift, and younger family members had to care for her.

Anna battled Parkinson’s Disease (PD) for more than 15 years. A degenerative neurocognitive condition, it is caused by a gradual loss of dopamine producing cells in the brain that worsens over time leading to tremors, cognitive impairment, and emotional changes.

To date, there is no cure, so a combination of medication and therapy is the only treatment. Anna battled this debilitating illness with no chance of recovery.

As she declined, so did her capacity to be self-sufficient. Her motor abilities drastically decreased, and her memory continued to diminish. She required supervision the majority of the day, and was unable to perform her favorite activities, such as baking, making crafts, sewing, and gardening.

Before Anna was admitted to a long-term facility in 2015, caring for her became a full-time job shared by my mother, my sisters, and grandfather. For my mother Charlotte (name changed), seeing her mother’s deterioration was particularly difficult. Unexpectedly shouldering the role of primary caregiver took a toll:

“At times on my own, I would go in the shower and cry. At other times too, the circumstances made me short and impatient with people. I would be intolerant and lose my temper due to the frustration.”

A study by Laurence Solberg and colleagues examined the emotional and mental health of adult children who are primary caregivers to ill parents. In administering a survey to identify stress levels, the researchers found that caregivers had heightened levels of negative feelings, such as anxiety, while caring for a parent. They found that being a caregiver of an elderly, sick parent adversely affected personal health. However, caregivers balancing the needs of an ill parent with those of their own children did not experience elevated stress compared to individuals without children.

But my own mother’s experience was different. She found it demanding to balance caring for an ill parent and caring for her own children.

“If you only have to balance an elderly parent and a job, it’s much easier than if you also have a family. With children, there’s additional responsibility. Anna required some priority, but I couldn’t lose focus on my children.”

When researchers Caroline Kenny and colleagues examined the experiences of family caregivers, many expressed distress over feeling unprepared for the role. My mother felt the same:

“We didn’t know how to properly care for Anna. We didn’t know how to lift her correctly, or how to deal with her frustration. On top of having the responsibility of caring for her, we had the added stress of not knowing how to handle her properly.”

And finding time for herself was not easy for my mother either. Solberg’s research supports this predicament: three quarters of caregivers reported decreased time for personal hobbies and interests. Charlotte said:

“I do think these responsibilities cause you to neglect your usual pastimes. I went from work to Anna’s home to my home. There wasn’t time for myself.”

In a study by Vasiliki Orgeta and colleagues, published in the International Psychogeriatrics Journal, the authors reported on the importance of social support for coping with the strain of becoming a caregiver.

For me, it was painful to see my grandmother’s decline alongside my own mother’s struggle to care for her. But consistent with Orgeta’s findings, I’ve found that relying on friends and family, and my social support system, has helped alleviate the anxiety of seeing my family in distress.

No one’s experience is the same; people cope in their own ways. For my mother, the situation has been heartbreaking:

“Seeing a person who is loving and vibrant, such a nurturing mother, become a person who is not nurturing anymore, not strong, whether emotionally or physically, is agonizing. It’s a part of life, but it’s hard to accept.”

–Alyssa Carvajal, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Medical Marijuana for PTSD?

December 14, 201780Addiction, Featured news, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stress, Therapy, Trauma December, 17

Source: Sinclair Terrasidius at flickr, Creative Commons

On October 1st, 2016, a Canadian medical marijuana company called Marijuana for Trauma opened a location in Edmonton, Alberta to treat PTSD in military veterans. It’s owned and operated by Fabian Henry, who uses marijuana to treat combat-related PTSD, resulting from his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. He claims that conventional medicine does not allow people struggling with PTSD to process their trauma, while marijuana does.

Although the use of medical marijuana for the treatment of physical and psychological disorders is controversial, medical marijuana is currently legal in Canada.

The Washington Post reports that therapeutic use of marijuana was banned in the U.S. in 1970, and marijuana is still categorized as an illicit drug despite its potential medicinal benefits. Given its controversial nature and association with stereotypes, cannabis research for treatment of mental disorders has been limited. But scientific interest is intensifying.

A recent study published in Molecular Psychiatry showed that treatment using particular compounds found in marijuana may benefit those with PTSD, and that “…plant-derived cannabinoids [psychoactive chemicals] such as marijuana may possess some benefits in individuals with PTSD by helping relieve haunting nightmares and other symptoms of PTSD.”

Research published in Science Daily also looked at symptom reduction in patients with PTSD. As a result of taking medical marijuana, participants reported a decrease in re-experiencing the trauma, less avoidance of situations that reminded them of the trauma, and a decline in hyper-arousal.

There is also anecdotal evidence. In an interview with the Trauma and Mental Health Report, Dianna Donnelly, a counselor and patient at the Canadian Cannabis Clinics, described her experience:

“I am a patient who legally uses cannabis for depression. The cannabis helps mute or lower my negative chatter, which allows for good thoughts and feelings to arise. One Veteran, a friend of mine, who recently started using marijuana instead of prescription medication for PTSD, said that with the cannabis, he can feel his emotions, and experience them properly and safely. Before, he just felt numb.”

Medical marijuana is not usually used on its own for the treatment of PTSD. Shelley Franklin, the Veteran Program Coordinator for the Canadian Cannabis Clinics, explained that:

“Medical cannabis is used in conjunction with other therapies. Peer support groups are a highly supported therapy for patients suffering an Operational Stress Injury [another term for PTSD]. Medical cannabis strains with the right CBD and THC [psychoactive chemicals in cannabis] levels are assisting veterans with chronic physical pain, as well anxiety and insomnia issues. I believe that medical cannabis will continue to work in conjunction with many other therapies.”

Conversely, former Canadian Member of Parliament Peter Stoffer believes that soldiers have too much access to medical marijuana. Although not opposed to the use of medical marijuana in certain cases, Stoffer believes that current legislation, which compensates veterans for up to 10 grams of cannabis per day, promotes overuse and could potentially lead to negative effects. In an interview with the CBC, Stoffer said:

“Ten grams a day is an awful lot of marijuana to give one person. It is an incredible amount. That’s simply not the way to go. You’re not helping that person at all. You’re not giving them any chance of recovery. All you’re really doing is masking the pain that they’re suffering.”

The research is still in its infancy and likely to explode in the near future, as the Canadian government prepares to remove restrictions on marijuana in 2017. This movement will make it much easier for researchers to study the effects cannabis has on psychological disorders and to form conclusions on its efficacy.

As for Fabian Henry and his cannabis dispensary Marijuana for Trauma, he continues to work with physicians to tailor the amounts dispensed to individuals and has no plans himself to stop using the drug.

–Andrei Nistor, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Medical Marijuana for PTSD?

December 14, 201700Addiction, Featured news, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stress, Therapy, Trauma December, 17

Source: Sinclair Terrasidius at flickr, Creative Commons

On October 1, 2016, a Canadian medical marijuana company called Marijuana for Trauma opened a location in Edmonton, Alberta to treat PTSD in military veterans. It’s owned and operated by Fabian Henry, who uses marijuana to treat combat-related PTSD, resulting from his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. He claims that conventional medicine does not allow people struggling with PTSD to process their trauma, while marijuana does.

Although the use of medical marijuana for the treatment of physical and psychological disorders is controversial, medical marijuana is currently legal in Canada.

The Washington Post reported that therapeutic use of marijuana was banned in the U.S. in 1970, and marijuana is still categorized as an illicit drug despite its potential medicinal benefits. Given its controversial nature and association with stereotypes, cannabis research for treatment of mental disorders has been limited. But scientific interest is intensifying.

A recent study published in Molecular Psychiatry showed that treatment using particular compounds found in marijuana may benefit those with PTSD, and that “plant-derived cannabinoids [psychoactive chemicals] such as marijuana may possess some benefits in individuals with PTSD by helping relieve haunting nightmares and other symptoms of PTSD.”

Research published on Science Daily also looked at symptom reduction in patients with PTSD. As a result of taking medical marijuana, participants reported a decrease in re-experiencing the trauma, less avoidance of situations that reminded them of the trauma, and a decline in hyper-arousal.

There is also anecdotal evidence. In an interview with the Trauma and Mental Health Report, Dianna Donnelly, a counselor and patient at the Canadian Cannabis Clinics, described her experience:

“I am a patient who legally uses cannabis for depression. The cannabis helps mute or lower my negative chatter, which allows for good thoughts and feelings to arise. One Veteran, a friend of mine, who recently started using marijuana instead of prescription medication for PTSD, said that with the cannabis, he can feel his emotions, and experience them properly and safely. Before, he just felt numb.”

Medical marijuana is not usually used on its own for the treatment of PTSD. Shelley Franklin, the Veteran Program Coordinator for the Canadian Cannabis Clinics, explained:

“Medical cannabis is used in conjunction with other therapies. Peer support groups are a highly supported therapy for patients suffering an Operational Stress Injury [another term for PTSD]. Medical cannabis strains with the right CBD and THC [psychoactive chemicals in cannabis] levels are assisting veterans with chronic physical pain, as well anxiety and insomnia issues. I believe that medical cannabis will continue to work in conjunction with many other therapies.”

“Ten grams a day is an awful lot of marijuana to give one person. It is an incredible amount. That’s simply not the way to go. You’re not helping that person at all. You’re not giving them any chance of recovery. All you’re really doing is masking the pain that they’re suffering.”

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Police Need Training to Deal With Mentally Ill Offenders

October 26, 201700Featured news, Health, Law and Crime, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Psychiatry, Psychopathy, Stress October, 17

Source: Free Images at Pixabay

On March 4, 2016, Devon LaFleur, a 30-year-old struggling with bipolar disorder, went missing. His father contacted law enforcement to notify police of his son’s mental illness and tendency towards violence. After learning that LaFleur had allegedly robbed a bank and was on the run, Toronto police tracked down and fatally shot the young man during a confrontation.

In many instances where mental illness is concerned, police officers respond too quickly with force. In an analysis conducted by The Washington Post, American officers shot 124 people who showed some sign of mental or emotional distress in 2015.

The Post explains that, for the majority of these crimes, the police were not called for reports of criminal activity. As in LaFleur’s case, police were contacted by “relatives, neighbors or other bystanders worried that a mentally fragile person was behaving erratically.”

An article by psychiatry professor Richard Lamb and colleagues at the University of Southern California reports that police officers are authorized to transport individuals with mental illness for psychiatric evaluation when there is reason to believe that they pose a danger or threat. But the researchers also state that this responsibility turns officers into ‘street-corner psychiatrists’ without giving them the training they need to make on-the-spot decisions about mentally ill offenders.

An article published in Criminal Justice Review by Teresa LaGrange shows that “higher educated police officers recognize a broader range of disorders” and they are more likely to “view the situation as requiring a professional intervention.”

However, LaGrange also recognizes that instead of teaching practical skills like learning how to identify individuals with mental-health conditions, many educational workshops only consist of general descriptions about psychological terms and concepts.

Police officers need to know how to handle individuals who display different types of mental illnesses. The Washington Post analysis states that the most extreme cases of mentally ill people causing a disturbance were schizophrenic individuals and those who displayed suicidal tendencies or had some form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In some states, crisis intervention team training (CIT) is being implemented to help officers identify mental illness and determine the best course of action.

CIT consists of a 40-hour training program for police forces that educates officers on mental-health issues and medications and teaches about mental-health services in the local community. CIT also teaches methods that help de-escalate heated situations by encouraging officers to allow vulnerable individuals to vent their frustrations—methods that could have been useful in LaFleur’s case to reduce the risk of violence from both the police and offender.

So far, this program has been considered effective by the police departments using it.

Major Sam Cochran of the Memphis police department, a retired officer and a coordinator of the CIT program, emphasizes that law enforcement should partner with local mental-health agencies: “If communities give attention only to law enforcement, you will fail as a training program. You cannot separate the two.”

Although the task of identifying mentally ill individuals can be daunting, these training programs are a step toward preventing injustices for individuals like LaFleur. Providing officers with appropriate training not only improves the ability to handle job stress but may also provide mentally ill offenders with a chance to receive treatment.

–Afifa Mahboob, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

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Denmark Declassifies Transgender as Mental Illness

June 1, 201700Bias, Featured news, Health, Identity, Sex, Sexual Orientation, Stress, Transgender June, 17

Source: Chey Rawhoof at flickr, Creative Commons

In March 2016, North Carolina passed a law that bars transgender individuals from using public restrooms that match their gender identity, and prohibits cities from passing anti-discrimination laws that protect the rights of gay and transgender people. The bill has thrust North Carolina into the centre of a national debate over equality, privacy, and religious freedom in the wake of a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling to legalize same-sex marriage.

For individuals who identify as transgender, this law has caused “emotional harm, mental anguish, distress, humiliation, and indignity,” according to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. These consequences are in addition to the emotional anguish and shame that transgender people frequently experience when their identity is classified as mental illness.

The World Health Organization (WHO) categorizes transgender individuals as having a “gender identity disorder” in their “Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders”.

But in Denmark, the issue is being addressed very differently.

Effective January 2017, transgender will no longer be considered mental illness in the country, and the term ‘transgender’ will no longer be listed as mental illness, making Denmark the first country in the world to remove the link between mental illness and individuals who identify with a gender other than the one they were born with.

Sexual orientation has always been a contentious topic, and homosexuality and other forms of expression of same-sex orientation are often stigmatized. According to Susan Cochran, a professor of epidemiology at UCLA, this stigma is worsened when sexual orientation is pathologized.

Research by psychologist Walter Bockting of the University of Minnesota Medical School found that transgender individuals often experience sanctioned prejudice, such as job discrimination, health discrimination, verbal aggression, and barriers to substance dependency services.

In 2014, the WHO acknowledged that linking transgender people to mental illness is harmful and pledged to remove the link from their next International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD)—but this version isn’t slated for release until 2017.

In response, social democrat health spokesman Flemming Møller Mortensen told The Local:

“The WHO is currently working on a new system for registering diagnoses. It has been working on it for a very, very long time. Now we’ve run out of patience, and want to send out a signal saying that if the system is not changed by October, then we in Denmark will go it alone.”

Mortensen also told Danish news agency Ritzau:

“At the moment, transgender is listed as a mental illness or behavioural problem. But that is incredibly stigmatizing and in no way reflects how we see transgender people in Denmark. It should be a neutral diagnosis.”

This is not the first transgender rights legislation that Denmark has passed. It was also the front-runner in enacting a law passed in 2014 designed to allow transgender adults to change their gender status without any legal or medical interventions. In many European countries, this is still not the case, and restrictive laws requiring sterilization and divorce are still in effect.

Amnesty International, a major player in LGBTQ human rights, has praised the Danish Parliament for their decision, which comes at a time when states in the U.S., such as North Carolina, are passing more restrictive and discriminatory legislation against transgender populations.

It is likely that the North Carolina ‘bathroom law’ will spark court cases for years to come, and a number of groups, including local LGBTQ organizations and celebrities, are boycotting the state. Even within the state, the University of North Carolina is refusing to enforce the bathroom portion of the law and, in fact, holds sensitivity orientation programs regarding LGBTQ students so that non-transgender populations will see their trans peers as equal and worthy of respect.

The entire question of transgender rights promises to be a hot-button issue with underlying mental-health implications in the coming years. But for now, Denmark is taking the first step to ensure the inclusion of transgender individuals by acknowledging them as normal human beings.

–Veerpal Bambrah, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

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Trauma Documented Three Decades after Chernobyl Disaster

December 1, 201600Appetite, Depression, Environment, Featured news, Health, Stress, Trauma December, 16

Source: Surian Soosay on Flickr, Creative Commons

Chad Gracia’s award-winning 2015 documentary, The Russian Woodpecker, addresses the legacy of trauma caused by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The film documents the investigative journey of Fedor Alexandrovich, a Kiev based artist who shares his own experience as a survivor while exploring the disturbing question: Was the disaster at the Chernobyl power plant an ‘inside job’?

When a reactor at the power plant exploded on April 26th, 1986, the effects were catastrophic. As radiation levels rose, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

Forced evacuation and relocation was traumatic for many who had no hope of returning home. In the most contaminated areas, entire villages were bulldozed and buried. Further, citizens were not notified of the risks they faced from radiation. Tamara Kovalchuk, who was employed by the Chernobyl power plant, tells Alexandrovich in the film:

“When the explosion happened, no one thought anything of it. They put on masks and we were surprised. Why wear a mask in such good weather?”

After the event, political authorities failed to implement policies to protect the health of their citizens. For example, the World Health Organization claims that:

“If people had stopped giving locally supplied contaminated milk to children for a few months following the accident, it is likely that most of the increase in radiation-induced thyroid cancer would not have resulted.”

Trauma is a recurrent theme of The Russian Woodpecker. Alexandrovich was four years old at the time of the disaster—he was evacuated from Kiev, Ukraine, separated from his parents, and sent to an orphanage. Reflecting on this experience, he says, “I thought I would be there forever. It’s quite a serious trauma for a child. And from that time I’ve felt strange…different.”

But this trauma is not unique to Alexandrovich—it extends to the hundreds of thousands of people who faced relocation, suffered from illness, and coped with deliberate misinformation from their government about health risks. To this day, those affected by the explosion continue to struggle, living in fear of long-lasting consequences such as birth defects and contaminated foods.

According to psychologist Lynn Barnett, trauma from the Chernobyl disaster is cumulative because it is “characterized by repeated adversity with no foreseeable end”. She describes radiation as an “unseen, unheard, unfelt and ‘un-smelt’ terror.” Its elusiveness, in conjunction with government deception following the event, has led to the spread of misinformation guided by unscientific explanations and recommendations for coping with radiation.

One such recommendation is that small doses of radiation are good for people of middle or old age. Others are that drinking red wine, or swabbing the throat with antiseptic iodine, can protect against radiation. But maybe false beliefs like these lessen the threat of the unknown by providing a sense of control.

Other research corroborates this notion. Anthropologist Richard Sosis at the University of Connecticut studied the effects of psalm recitation during the Second Palestinian Intifadain northern Israel. Among secular women, those who recited psalms to cope with violence experienced lower anxiety.

In relation to the Chernobyl disaster, Barnett wrote:

“The secrecy and lies that enshrouded the Chernobyl accident led to an almost total lack of knowledge about the facts, leading to the impossibility of any kind of personal control.”

Perhaps Alexandrovich was seeking control over the chaos inflicted by the event when he decided to look into the politics surrounding the disaster.

His inquiry led him to interview Vladimir Komarov, head of the Chernobyl investigation committee. This committee was tasked with identifying the cause of the explosion. In the film, Komarov tells Alexandrovich that the last Soviet Head of Atomic Energy, Georgy Kopchinski, made phone calls to Chernobyl engineers demanding that they conduct experiments on an unstable nuclear reactor.

Kopchinski, who Alexandrovich also interviews, denies that he made these phone calls, despite the fact that they were reported by engineers at the time.

Like trauma that affects the individual, politically motivated trauma leaves people with a sense of vulnerability and fragility. In traumatic events, key values, beliefs, and attitudes are largely compromised, and individuals turn to external sources of authority, such as political figures, for answers.

But when political figures are complicit in the trauma, or fail to perform their leadership duties, basic trust in one’s society and culture is challenged, and the ability to cope is further hindered.

Alexandrovich’s theory that the Chernobyl disaster was politically motivated is provocative and incendiary. But is it true? According to Chernobyl historian Natalia Baranovskaya, “To prove this you need all the documents. But the documents are still classified.”

Secrecy around the events of the Chernobyl disaster persist, preventing those affected from understanding the cause of their suffering. For now, the truth remains elusive.

–Rebecca Abavi, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Category: Stress