Psychoeducation

Talking Dementia: Causes and Prevention

Dementia Australia estimates that in 2019 there are 447,115 Australians living with dementia, a number expected to rise to nearly 600,000 by 2028 and over a million by 2058. Currently in Australia, 250 people join the population with dementia every day. There are about 5.4 million Americans with it (Godman, 2016; Mercola, 2017) and the condition affects 50 million people worldwide, predicted to ri... »

The Mental Health Benefits of Naps

What’s your reaction when your client leans forward in her chair and her voice drops to a whisper as she confides, “You know, I just get so sleepy after lunch that I feel I must have a nap, or I can’t function — but then I feel so guilty!”? Do you nod sagely, “getting” what she says because you feel guilty about the same thing? Do you immediately jump into... »

Building Shame Resilience in Clients

Jungian analysts have called it the “swampland of the soul”. Other psychotherapy writers have observed how it originally served to keep us safe; the tendency to shame has been a universal one in which our desire to hide our flaws from others has saved us from being kicked out of the group (the society), which evolutionarily would have meant death (Sholl, 2013). So which is it? Is shame totally pat... »

Seven Secrets for a Healthy Microbiome

In the first article of this series we proposed the radical idea (to some) that a new paradigm for mental health helping is emerging: one in which we cannot ignore the burgeoning research showing that the gut affects our psychological health as much as psychological health influences our physical (gut) health. »

Exercise: A Moving Part of Wellness

As with questions of diet, exercise is perhaps uppermost in the minds of those looking to enhance their wellness. The quest for fitness, however – as with diet – is so pervasive in developed cultures that some controversies are inevitable. As with our previous article on diet, we believe the best approach is for you to offer your client basic guidelines to help them (re-)shape their fitness regime... »

Identifying and Replacing Stress-inducing Attitudes in Clients

How willing are your clients to acknowledge unhelpful attitudes and beliefs that they may have? Some of these may be unexamined ways of thinking about themselves and their lives that were given to them by parents and other early caregivers. They may not really be the clients’ attitudes and values, but they were put there so early on, it is hard for clients to tell that they do not belong with them... »

Psychoeducation: Definition, Goals and Methods

Psychoeducation has been termed the combining of “the empowerment of the affected” with “scientifically-founded treatment expertise” in as efficient a manner as possible (Bauml, Frobose, Kraemer, Rentrop, & Pitschel-Walz, 2006/2014). A common understanding is that psychoeducation “refers to the education offered to people with a mental health condition” (Wikipedia, 2014). More broadly, it is also ... »

Psychosocial Treatments for Schizophrenia

Successful treatment of schizophrenia depends on a regimen of both drug and psychosocial support therapies. While antipsychotic medication can help control the symptoms of psychosis associated with schizophrenia, it cannot help the person find and maintain a job, establish effective social relationships, increase their coping skills, or teach them to communicate well with others. Poverty, homeless... »