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Mental Health Advocates Like the Giant Sequoias

10/24/2014

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Greetings from Sequoia National Park!  I write with my laptop upon a restaurant table in the park.  The nice server just presented me with a cup of hot chocolate topped with whip cream.  I awoke extra early leaving family asleep in tents in the nearby campground.  Not far away towers the largest living tree on earth named General Sherman.  It grows to a height of 275 feet—almost the length of a football field.  Its 1,400 tons of wood could build 120 medium-sized homes.

It started from a tiny seed a fraction of an inch long.  A park ranger told me these sequoia trees get so big because they produce a special chemical called tannic acid in their bark and wood that thwarts insects, decomposition, and fire.  So they can grow over 3,000 years and just keep getting bigger and bigger.

My mind likes think of metaphors about things that impress me.  So here I go.  To be good mental health advocates, we must have some tannic acid within ourselves.  Sometimes we get heat—even fire—in our efforts to overcome the stigmas and misinformation about mental illnesses.  We are fighting centuries of ugly stereotypes.  Unenlightened individuals sometimes make ignorant comments that can offend and discourage.  We must be strong enough to not allow these occasions to get us down.  Instead, we must use them to generate even more determination and enthusiasm within ourselves to carry on with courage.

I’ve wondered what it is exactly that that brings about this tannic acid in effective mental health advocates.  I’ve concluded that it’s primarily two things: 1) They have healthy self-esteem so they are not easily offended, and 2) They really care about helping other individuals—perhaps to assist them avoid the pain they’ve experienced with mental illness or that they witnesses in loved ones.

There is a man in my town who has a lot of this tannic acid.  His name is Lynn Bjorkman.  We work together in our local NAMI affiliate and on other mental health projects in our community.  He first got involved because he wanted to learn how he personally could aid family members who suffer from mental illness.  A couple of years ago he was recognized as the volunteer of the year for NAMI Utah—a well-deserved distinction.  Over the last year and a half, he’s created and grown a new organization I our county called “Reach 4 Hope” that fights suicide.  He’s built a network of leaders from several mental health related organizations in our community to coordinate suicide prevention efforts.  Schools, hospitals, mental health professionals, and other mental health promotion organizations are represented.  He’s spearheaded the training of hundreds of individuals in QPR on suicide prevention techniques.  His energy, organizational skills, creativity, and tenacity are remarkable.  Many lives have been positively impacted. 

I once helped Lynn with a booth on suicide prevention at a health fair in our city.  When I arrived he told me a woman noticed our signage and approach him to comment on it.  She said, “Our family doesn’t have those problems.  We are good people of faith.”  Lynn smiled as he related her words to me, being a bit taken back at her unenlightened boldness.  But I also saw in his eyes—and later through his actions—how he was even more determined to help educate people. 

I believe there have been suicide attempts in Lynn’s family.  Lynn and his wife are very good, religious people.  I’ve noted that they try to live their religion every day.   Nevertheless, Lynn could have found the woman’s words to be very hurtful.  But he didn’t appear to be offended at all…because Lynn has that tannic acid.  With it, he has grown into an effective and enormously impactful mental health advocate—as giant in this realm as the great sequoias are among trees.
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Self-Awareness Is Critical to Recovery from Mental Illness

10/16/2014

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Do you ever get so totally caught-up in reading about a topic at various sites on the Internet that you have trouble completely reading the article you were reading in the first place that launched you into your tangent?  That happened to me this morning. 

I was going through my personal morning devotional routine to prepare for the day.  I was reading an article by a religious leader about self-awareness.  He said “Being able to see ourselves clearly is essential to our spiritual growth and well-being.”[i]  I found his words uplifting and inspiring—and it led to some healthy self-reflection.  It was the footnote references that really got me going, however.

I learned a new big word: Anosognosia.  It’s a medical term that Webster’s Dictionary defines as “An inability or refusal to recognize a defect or disorder that is clinically evident.”[ii]  It’s applied to people with brain damage from strokes that don’t recognize that part of their body is paralyzed.  I once saw this condition in a relative.  When she drew a picture of herself, she included only the right side of her body.  Where the left side should be was left blank.  The word is also applied to those with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders who don’t recognize their condition. More than 50 percent of those who suffer from schizophrenia are unaware of it.   I once had a neighbor with schizophrenia who was unaware.  She would say nonsense things to me.  This embarrassed her other family members until they recognized that I understood what was going on and I was sympathetic to their situation.  Since I’ve observed anosognosia multiple times I think I understand what it means—though I can’t pronounce the word!

Here’s another new thing I learned: the Dunning-Kruger effect.  It’s “A cognitive bias manifesting in unskilled individuals suffering from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their own ability much higher than is accurate.”[iii]  Studies show that college students often significantly overrate themselves in their abilities in logical reasoning, grammar, and humor.  Test scores put some in the 12th percentile, but they rated themselves to be in the 62nd.

I think this topic of self-awareness is very interesting to me because it has had such a big part of my recovery from chronic clinical depression and generalized anxiety.  For years I had anosognosia combined with the Dunning-Kruger effect about my condition.  Until I was able to see my condition more clearly, I was unable to address my problems to get to recovery.

A good friend of mine who, like me, has undergone years of counseling defines psychotherapy as “Getting to know one’s self.”  I agree with this definition.  Therapy helped me get confidence to look at myself and get comfortable with who I am.  My therapists helped me overcome the negative self-talk recordings that constantly ran through my brain that I was a nothing—that I was worthless.  I’ve grown to like and feel comfortable about who I am.  My book entitled “Rising Above Fog” describes this journey.  The “fog” is a lack of self-awareness.

I teach classes and lead support groups for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.  In my community, there are two weekly classes taught: one for those living with mental illness and one for their family members.  There are always many more individuals who attend the classes for family members than those who have mental illness.  I believe part of the reason for this disparity is that often family members more readily recognize the symptoms of mental illness than do those afflicted.

So this morning’s journey into tangential topics on the article I set out to read was poignant and enlightening—and gratefully I’m aware that I took a detour—at least this time.

 
[i] Uchtdorf, Dieter F., Lord, Is It I?; https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/lord-is-it-i?lang=eng
[ii] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anosognosia
[iii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

 


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Psychology Meets Financial Analysis:  A Depressed CPA’s Nirvana!

10/2/2014

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“Accountants are not boring people; they just get excited about boring things.”  That’s a joke about accountants like me that I’ve heard.  And since most jokes do seem to have some element of truth, it’s not surprising that I got excited about something that perhaps no one else did in the audience of a thousand at a big substance abuse and mental health conference last week here in my home town of St. George, Utah.  I was likely the only CPA in the group made up primarily of mental health therapists and program administrators.

Keynote speakers Richard Catalano and David Hawkins were summarizing their well-respected program “Communities That Care.”   They spoke of the net present value of cash flows.  My CPA ears perked up and I suddenly became even more interested in their topic.

I used net present value formulas extensively earlier in my career when I performed financial analysis for cellular telephone companies—something I really enjoyed.  The formulas were used to determine the projected profitability of different kinds of customers so that the marketing folks would focus on luring in profitable customers.  Cell phone companies make an investment in new customers through subsidizing expensive cell phones and smart phones, the payment of commissions, and other marketing costs.  They hope to recover these costs and make a profit through monthly service charges.  So all the cash flows in and out are totaled taking into account how long the customer will remain.  The analyses also factored in the time value of money: a dollar today is worth more than a dollar later so future cash flows are discounted to today’s value.  The result is the projected net present value of all the cash flows related to a customer.

But back to what the conference speakers had to say.  They described how using net present value calculations they’ve proved that certain prevention programs are a good investment for communities.  The programs realize big savings from the prevention of crime and other societal costs in future years that are many times greater that the costs.  The net present value of savings was about four dollars for every dollar of costs.  What a great return!

I find their work really, really cool!  Psychology meets financial analysis!

It is so wonderful that the application of science by bright, enlightened men and women has brought to us better techniques for the prevention of drug abuse and mental illness.  This application has also brought us better treatments.  And this has all happened in my lifetime—a short period in all of human history. 

A few months ago I visited the museum at the Utah State Hospital in Provo.  Among the artifacts were handcuffs, cell bars, and a wooden cage with a bed pan.  As I understand it, these were thought to be the best tools available into the 1950s—the decade in which I was born.

But now psychologists—perhaps with the aid of accountants—use net present value techniques to help optimize program effectiveness.   Other scientists develop treatment techniques that include psychotherapy and psychotropic medications.  What a blessing!  We would be wise to take advantage ourselves and to encourage others to take advantage of these advancements when mental illness strikes.   Such an approach will make accountants that live with depression like me to feel really good!
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    Owen Ashton is an author, inspirational speaker, and mental health advocate as well as a CPA and former corporate financial executive.

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