Category Archives: Commentary

Armed Forces Day – today is one of 52 Armed Forces Days

Posted on by
Reply

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Armed Forces Day.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Today is Armed Forces Day here in the United States of America.

Fifty-Two different countries celebrate Armed Forces Days, though on different dates. In the U.K the date moves around, mostly late June, and so does the places of celebration. Australia and New Zealand celebrate a similar day on April 25th.

In some places, Armed Forces Day is merged with Veterans Day or Memorial Day.

The purpose of Armed Forces Day is to honor those who serve in the often difficult job of protecting and defending their countries.

Our American Armed Forces Day was created in 1949 when days devoted to the various branches of the military services were merged to create one overall day the whole country could celebrate.

In times of war, it is easy for us to remember our Armed Forces. When we are under attack they rise to the front of public view.

Unfortunately, we have learned that as soon as the crisis passes the public quickly loses sight of the role of the Armed Forces. While the public quickly forgets, the members of the Armed Forces will remember their time in the service throughout their lifetime.

In times of peace members of the armed forces are active in many ways. They are present in times of hurricane, flood, earthquake, and all manner of natural disasters. They fight fires and keep the peace, both at home and at times in other lands.

Those who serve often pay a heavy price. The images of things they have seen may persist for a lifetime. Service can leave them changed forever. Some wounded warriors bear the marks of service on the outside and some carry those wounds internally.

Some wars are popular and some have been unpopular, either way, the service and those who served can quickly fade from the popular mind.

For this one day, Armed Forces Day, regardless of where you live or when you celebrate the day, we all should seek to remember those who chose this path of service.

4 Ethical Loopholes strangle therapists

Posted on by
1

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Ethical loopholes strangle.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

4 Ethical Loopholes Strangle Therapists – Part 1.

Therapists who violate codes of ethics harm clients; they also may lose their licenses or ruin their carriers. Often these ethical breaches start with thinking that there might be sometimes when it is OK to make an exception to an ethical standard.

Not following ethical guidelines can harm clients. Making exceptions to ethical codes can be fatal flaws.

Therapists are taught codes of ethics in school. We take exams that include questions on laws and ethics or may even need to take a separate law and ethics exam. Every few years most of us have to take a refresher course in law and ethics. Still, people violate these guidelines. Why?

Somewhere down the line, some professionals start looking for loopholes, exceptions to those ethical requirements. When they do this, put their head through that ethical loophole, too often they can get strangled and lose their licenses or lose the trust of their clients.

Four ethical violations seem to create the most problems for clients and therapists. Most of these violations start with the professional think that while this rule is a good one there might be times when someone, not them of course, but another therapist, might do this and that would be OK. Once you have been able to picture a time when there might be an exception to this ethical rule it is likely that you will cross that boundary and try to put your head through that loophole.

Most therapists think immediately about the ethical standard that says no sex with clients. They know that if you think that might EVER be OK then you are at risk to do it. While this is huge for therapists, it may not be the ethical violation that harms the client the most.

Here are the Big 4 ethical violations in their order of harm to the client

1. Not keeping what clients say confidential.

When I get away from other professionals, out in the community this comes up more than I thought it would. Look at the list of top posts on this blog. Month after month people search for information about what is and is not kept confidential. Unfortunately, I also hear too many stories about how a therapist told that client’s story somewhere, someone recognized them from the story and this has hurt them when a family member, friend, or boss found out.

Knowing that the way counseling helps is because of the relationship and that strict confidentiality is fundamental to that confidentiality, how do so many professionals cross that line?

The first stretch through this loophole often happens innocently. Here is a HYPOTHETICAL example.

The therapist is somewhere and is asked about a particular mental health disorder. “Is there any treatment for Trichotillomania?”

“Sure there is, the therapist says. “I saw a client recently with Trichotillomania. She has suffered a trauma and began pulling out her hair uncontrollably, almost unconsciously. I treated her using treatment “X” and she got better.”

So far so good. But the therapist wants to sound great, impress this person, and get more referrals. He or she is thinking maybe I should become the authority on treating trichotillomania in this town. So they go on to tell more.

This was a tough case you know. Her family is very influential in this town. Her father is a prominent politician in this town and he did not want this getting out in his district or it might affect his reelection campaign. That district on the “X” side of town is awful conservative.

Is there a problem now? Sure there is. This is way too much information and has identified that client to anyone who thinks about this for over 5 seconds.

One little story – what harm?

But the next time the story gets more elaborate and before long this clinician is talking about their clients all over. They even decide to warn their church group about that sexual offender that has moved in on the same block as the church. What harm can there be in helping people keep their children safe?

The harm comes first because they have violated that client’s trust and eventually someone will find out and then it turns major. The harm may also include attacks on that client. Sometimes that registered sex offender, the one that the counselor warned people about, what he did was when he was 18 he had sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend and her parents pressed charges. This couple since has gotten married but he could still turn up on a list of sexual offenders.

If this therapist has a private practice and people find out about this they may just stop going to see them. But if the clients are low-income and have to go to a government-funded clinic they may not be allowed to change therapists. They may just stop coming and they will be counted, not as victims of the system but as treatment failures and drop-outs.

You would think a profession like counseling would police itself. Not usually. The complaint in this situation is most effective if it comes from the client. But then the client already afraid because of the harm done to them, that registered sex offender or Muslim may be getting death threats at this point, probably just wants to escape the system.

Other professionals may hesitate to report this. It is their word against the others. Whistleblowers can and do get punished. Also because this happened to a client there may be minimal ways that this can be reported by another counselor without violating this client’s confidentiality again. All of these are ethical and practical concerns.

Oh my! I am past 900 words and have only talked about one of four ways ethical boundary violations hurt clients.

One caution here – Ethical guidelines are just that “Guidelines” not hard and fast rules. So any professional, at any point, is in danger and may have a problem with something. What I am talking about here are the big problems and the professionals who repeatedly break these ethical principles.

In the future, I want to talk about other ethical problems also. My plan is to talk about one of these problems each Friday for the next three weeks. This post was mainly aimed at counselors and would-be counselors, but then I thought others might be interested in the ethical dilemmas we confront.

Here are ethical issues number two, three, and four.

2. Thinking that it is OK to party a little. If you just chip on the weekends how can that hurt clients?

3. Dual Relationships, hiring clients to work for you, getting them to loan you money or loaning them money, especially getting into investments together.

4. Falling in love and getting into sexual relationships with clients. We all want to believe in Snow White and Prince Charming but if a therapist falls in love with a client who came to him with a mental illness, this may turn out more like a sexual predator than a prince.

Let’s look at these three problems over the next three weeks.

Since we are over on words today I will skip the links to other stuff, you know where to find me. Check the categories to the right for more on other mental health and substance abuse issues.

David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Are we in the middle of a spiritual famine?

Posted on by
2

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Religion

Religious cemetery.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Is there a Higher Power shortage?

Recently I have been struck by the number of people who sit down with me to talk about their mental and emotional problems who say they are spiritual but can’t describe themselves as a member of any particular religion.

These clients know that they need some spiritual help, they often have some sort of general idea of a God or higher power that they feel could be particularly helpful to them, but they find no way to connect that belief in a higher power with any particular religious practice.

We know that for recovering people having a strong support system a key ingredient in their recovery. I suspect that having that resource is helpful in keeping other people mentally healthy also. But repeatedly I hear that despite multiple tries these folk are not getting their spiritual needs met at any particular religious organization.

As a professional, I try to not take sides in any religious controversies. It is not my place to tell you what you should believe. I find that having that spiritual belief, so long as it is helpful to you and does not encourage you to harm yourself or others, can be of great benefit to most everyone.

One question on the assessment form we use asks about the client having a particular religious or spiritual connection. Most clients can’t answer this one.

One common saying in recovery is that if you hang out in a barbershop you will get a haircut. We know this also applies to bars and crack houses, not getting a haircut there, but drinking and using drugs. So it makes sense that attending some sort of religious institution should help connect you with other supportive people who are working on their relationship with their higher power.

In trying to help clients find that support system, I often ask what religious or spiritual group they might choose to affiliate with. The suggestion here is that attending a particular church, temple, mosque, coven or what have you, might connect them with other people with similar spiritual beliefs. I make these suggestions despite my sometimes having personal misgivings about the particular religious group they have been affiliated with in the past.

A very large percentage of these folks report that they have tried and are unable to find a religious group that meets their spiritual needs.

It is not just my clients that have this problem. This situation is not unique to those who are in recovery from mental or emotional problems. It is not a special issue for just those who use or abuse drugs and alcohol. Nationwide surveys indicate that the number of people who report being spiritual rather than religious has been rising and in some surveys, those who describe themselves as spiritual rather than religious exceed those who have a particular religious affiliation.

It has been suggested that this move away from God and organized religion is the result of secular materialism and our modern culture. I find that hard to believe. Most of my clients have tried that culture of things and drugs, found it wanting, and are searching for some spiritual values.

There is a spiritual hunger that is not getting fed. This hunger is approaching famine stage.

One reason for this spiritual hunger is that the food being offered in so many religious institutions has spoiled.

We do not need to pick on any particular religion to see the effects of this spiritual spoilage.

Christian groups splitter and hate each other. Wars occur because of doctrinal differences. The Protestants fight the Catholics and then they fight each other. The Muslims divide up into Sunni and Shiite and they then bomb and kill each other.

Clearly these religions Gods are grumpy cantankerous, constipated old men who hate anyone who does not wear the right clothing and join the correct political party.

Too many of my clients have been harmed by someone under the guise of being the servant of some particular God. When I suggest taking the family to church the client may confide in me about being sexually or physically abused by a religious leader. They are afraid to leave their child alone with a religious leader.

They may have been told repeatedly that they are worthless and will never be of any value if they do not do the work prescribed by their religious leader. Once convinced you will never be satisfactory in your god’s eyes, you eventually give up trying. We call this learned helplessness.

When someone says they are an alcoholic I give thanks, I know where to send them. They will find a spiritual tradition and people who will accept them at an A.A. meeting. Drug addicts have N. A. I feel sorry for those who are merely depressed or anxious. I am not sure where to send them.

I find it hard to make religious referrals. Most places of worship do not want my clients. They dress funny, they have used drugs and some of them are mentally ill. Not many religions want those people around.

Where am I to send Mary Ann or Mary Sue? Churches do not want prostitutes or psychotic people coming to services. I am not sure I could make a referral for Mary Magdalena or even Jesus these days.

I am even worried about Mohammed if he were to return. If I send him to the wrong mosque will he die again, this time in a bombing?

Despite a church, mosque, or other religious institution on almost every corner, the spiritual famine continues. My only hope is that God is not restricted to doing business in a particular building and that spirituality can work anywhere.

So if your higher power has let you down consider a new search for a spiritual power and a spiritual home that can help you find that happy life you deserve.

For more on this topic take a look at a previous post here on counselorssoapbox.com about how to hire a God that is up to the task you need him for.

Wishing you the best on your road to a happy life

David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Warning – 6 reasons what you learned may not be true!

Posted on by
3

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Truth or lie

Separating truth from lies is hard work.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

6 Reasons why some of the things we learned turn out to not be true.

Turns out that a whole lot of what most of us think we know is not accurate. Some of this does not matter. But if you base your life on things that turn out to be wrong, you can be in a lot of hurts. If we got it wrong we may be teaching our children things that could hurt them. It pays to reexamine some of the things we think we know and see if we got it right.

Here are 6 reasons you may have gotten it wrong.

1. Parents are fallible.

Think back to the first lessons you learned in life. Did you learn a lot about life from your parent or caregiver?

Most of us have things tucked away in our brain, emotional learning, moral learning, and attitudes about life that we internalized at a very early point in our lives. Your parent may have told you wrong.

Not that they meant to lie. Back then they looked so big and strong and knowledgeable. For most kids, the adult that raised them looks like an all-powerful god. Then we get older and realize that this person does not know everything. We forget that much of our way of seeing the world was learned from that caregiver before we were able to judge if they had it right.

It continues to amaze me that humans have survived and prospered, more or less, on the earth. Consider that child production and rearing is mostly left to the youngest and least mature of our members. Think about those teen parents trying to raise children even before they have learned how to have a healthy relationship, get a job, and cope with life.

Is it any wonder that lots of what we learned, we learned from other children, even if they were our parents?

2. The person we learned from may have been wrong.

We all learned lots of lessons from our peers. Did you learn a lesson about how people are, how you should be on the playground, from another child in an early grade?

That first romantic partner, did you learn about life from someone who had little knowledge also? That 14-year-old girl with a 15-year-old boyfriend, did you learn about love and sex from them? How did they know? In those early relationships, that other partner can appear so adult and knowledgeable. Later we find, as we have more life experiences, that they knew no more than we did, they and we may have been making it up as we went along. Who wants to look ignorant with their lover?

3. Brain chemicals may have interfered with storing and retrieving memories.

Drugs and alcohol are significant culprits in this area. People under the influence have distortions in the way their memories are stored and retrieved. Drug and alcohol use has continued to creep down to younger and younger people. Children in elementary school are experimenting and using drugs on a regular basis.

Stress hormones also interfere with learning and memory. Prescription meds may or may not be needed but there is always that risk that prescribed medication will alter the experience. If you do not feel pain you are at increased risk to be injured. This applies to emotional as well as physical pain.

4. We may have been watching the wrong people for danger.

Many a child has been taught to avoid strangers and not talk to strangers. There is some truth to begin cautious around strangers. What we leave out is that the majority of abuse of children is perpetrated by close family members and friends.

Not every teacher or religious leader is a safe person. Every day we hear about children who were abused or molested, frequently by someone in a position of authority and trust.

If you learn an unrealistic view of the safety or danger of the world your future life experiences will be distorted. A child who is injured by someone they should have been able to trust will be affected for the rest of their life.

5. Even the best student does not get everything right.

For example, the top score in one class on a recent test was 80%, this is a passing score, maybe even a B in most classes. Now if that student teaches this material to a younger brother and that brother gets 80% of what he is taught he now has 64% correct

See how a small error gets rapidly compounded as the facts, almost correct, are repeated.

Consider the effect it may have had on you if someone you learned from had it mostly right but not completely. Then you learn most of what they taught you and now you are trying to pass this on.

This is a reason that we need to continue to check and recheck those things we think we know to see if they are really true.

6. The prevailing wisdom may be wrong.

Just because everyone says something is right, you see it on T. V. or in a movie, does not make that right.

Our media has made it look like the good guys go out and fight every day. Often they use guns and kill the bad guys. The result is a general tolerance for the use of violence to solve problems.

Would it surprise you to know that on some police forces the majority of officers go their whole careers, all the way to retirement, without ever having to discharge their gun in the line of duty?

People who get killed in their own home, they are often the victim of a family member or friend. It is not strangers breaking into your home that you should fear. It is your family member who knows where you keep the loaded gun.

Many of the things I learned as a child, that was thought to be absolutely the way things were, have since turned out to be wrong.

Even the flat earth society has suffered a decline in membership.

Consider these six reasons why things you learned may not be so and then continue to learn new lessons. Accurate knowledge helps make the journey along life’s road happier and more enjoyable.

If you have found other reasons that you have learned things that later turned out to not be true please leave a comment and share these with the rest of us.

Are you on the path to the happy life you deserve?

David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Want to write a post for counselorssoapbox?

Posted on by
Reply

By David Joel Miller

Man writing

Writing.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Interested in writing a counselorssoapbox post?

People who have lived with and overcome a life problem have a lot to share. We refer to that sometimes as lived experience. That perspective teaches you things that you can’t always learn in other ways.

I wanted to throw an opportunity out there for those of you who read this blog. If you have something to say but haven’t found a way to say it yet, I invite you to consider writing an article for this blog. Whether you currently have a blog, or this is the one and only time you are planning to write something you are welcome.

My plan is not to change the blog to an article one, but it might be fun to share some things written by others from time to time. Frankly, this may also help me by keeping the blog going with fresh posts during those times when my other activities keep me from writing.

In all fairness, I need to tell you what sort of articles I am looking for. The main focus of this blog is and will remain on having a happy life. I strongly believe in recovery, that people do not need to stay stuck in their illness forever and that they can and do get better and go on to have happy fulfilled lives. What that means to each of you may be a quite different thing.

Many of the posts I write are about mental and emotional illnesses, substance abuse, and their co-occurrence. Some posts have been about counseling and therapy. Related to those topics are self-improvement, parenting, and relationships.

What I most would like to hear about is not the daily problems but the daily successes. If you went for counseling, what worked and what did not work. If something else was helpful, what was it and how might others make use of the resource you found?

Even if you did not have a problem that got a diagnosis but you found a way to overcome that issue I would love to hear from you.

If there was a particular book or exercise that you have done that led to your growth and learning, by all means, share that also.

Professionals are welcome to join in this opportunity. Many professionals are themselves in recovery or have had to do a lot of work on themselves to get to the point they could be helpful to others. We also find we learn a lot from our clients. So if you would like to share those lessons learns, by all means, send them along, just please be sure, as I know you are aware, not to share anything that would violate someone else’s confidentiality, privilege, or otherwise get us in trouble.

Articles for consideration should be from 500 to 1,200 words and positive or constructive in nature. As the author and editor of this blog, I reserve the right to reject anything that does not fit with what I am trying to do on this blog and to make small edits as needed. I would ask the author before making any big changes in what you write. I also reserve the right to reuse your article or quote from it in other things that I am writing.

If you send pictures, make sure they are not copyrighted or I can locate a picture to add to your article. At this point, my blog is not big enough to pay for submissions but in exchange for your contribution, I can offer you a byline.

These articles should be original, not something already posted to another blog. Most bloggers know how to reblog and we all do that from time to time but for this submit-an-article program, I am looking for new and different points of view.

Whether you have written a lot of posts or this is the one and only one you will write all submissions are welcome.

This is not something that needs to be done right away, I have posts scheduled to appear for a few weeks yet but I find those who say they want to write but never get started never get them written. If you have an idea let me know and we can plan for a future date for your post to appear.

So if the idea of being a writer whose article is featured on counselorssoapbox appeals to you or you just have a burning desire to say something contact me and let’s see if this is something that could happen.

You are of course always welcome and encouraged to leave a comment on anything that is posted even if you chose not to write a long post.

Here is hoping that you all will continue to read counselorssoapbox and that some of you will decide to write an article for the blog.

Thanks for reading,

David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

counselorssoapbox.com most read posts – March 2013

Posted on by
2

Counselorssoapbox.com

counselorssoapbox.com most-read posts March 2013

By David Joel Miller.

Here are the most-read posts here at counselorssoapbox.com  for the month of March 2013.

How much should you tell a therapist? 

Is nicotine a stimulant or a depressant?

What is the difference between Depression and Major Depressive Disorder?

Do people really forget what happened when drinking? – Blackouts

Levels or types of Borderline Personality Disorder  

Which border is Borderline Intellectual Functioning on?    

Why can’t we forget the painful past?

Do therapists have to report a crime?

6 ways to recover from Complex Trauma or Complex PTSD   

Are you Hyperthymic?

Thanks to all of you who have read a post, become a follower, and especially an extra helping of thanks to those who have left a like or comment.

Thanks again.

David Joel Miller

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Do the mentally ill go to jail? Should they?

Posted on by
3

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

To the mentally ill go to jail?
Picture courtesy of Pixabay

Why do so many mentally ill people end up in jail?

Mentally ill people are not supposed to end up in jail simply because they are mentally ill. Unfortunately, our jails and prisons are clogging up with the mentally ill because our systems can’t always find appropriate housing and treatment options.

At this point, I need to point out that we are finding more and more that there are NOT two distinct groups – the mentally ill and the “Normal People.”  People with mental illness can have episodes where they get better or worse. Some mentally ill do recovery. There are also a lot of people who look normal for most of their life and then something happens that they can’t cope with and they find themselves in the mentally ill group.

The person who finds out their partner is cheating may “flip out.” And show up at that worksite with a gun. Before they found out about the affair they were apparently normal people but once they start shooting up the workplace they get reclassified as “mentally ill.” In that respect, people with long-term mental illnesses get a bad rap. The chronically mentally ill are more likely to be victimized than to attack others. They are also way more likely to get murdered than to kill anyone.

There are three principal reasons that law enforcement comes in contact with the mentally ill.

1. The person is thinking of harming themselves or they are so disabled they can’t care for themselves.

While completing suicide is illegal in most places, the person who has tried to kill themselves really does not belong in jail.

Most places have a system called involuntary commitment that allows this person to be placed in a mental hospital BRIEFLY for observation and treatment. Unfortunately, once they stop wanting to kill themselves they get released. We can offer services but it is difficult to impossible to make that person stay in treatment for any length of time.

Additionally, in far too many places there is a shortage of resources for these people and often waiting times to access services.

Just because the person is suicidal does not make this an easy situation for first responders. The suicidal person may harm a bystander in their efforts to end their life, especially if authorities try to stop this attempt. There is also the risk that they will threaten law enforcement, resulting in the increasingly more common “suicide-by-cop.”

2. They are doing something illegal or causing someone a problem.

Police encounter the mentally ill in all sorts of situations. They try to sleep in people’s yards and use their water. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of mentally ill that have ended up homeless. Add together the distortions in thinking that come from their disorder and the life skills homeless people need to develop to get by and they come into conflict with authority a lot.

When the mentally ill get too loud, don’t move along when told to do so, or act hostile and scare someone, the police get called. Usually, after a confrontation, the only alternative is to take them in.

Even if the police would prefer to not keep this person many communities just have no other place to house them. So minor lawbreakers, vagrants, petty shoplifters, and the like, with mental illnesses, end up in jail for a period of time.

Sheriffs from two of our larger American cities have been quoted recently as saying they are now the largest residential housing facility for the mentally ill in their state. There just is no place to put many of these folks.

3. They are under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Anyone who does drugs and alcohol to excess can have a problem. The mentally ill are at high risk to abuse substances. In our American culture, those without a diagnosed mental illness are also at high risk to abuse substances.

There is a huge overlap between mental illness and substance abuse. Some mentally ill use alcohol or drugs to mask their symptoms while others started out drinking and drugging and now have developed symptoms of a mental health disorder as a result of their substance abuse.

It is also worth noting that a whole lot of people are in jail for drug and alcohol-related offenses. Those who are fortunate enough to end up in rehab programs are often found to have a mental or emotional disorder.

Incarcerating people in jails has not been working to reduce either mental illness or substance abuse. More treatment options are desperately needed.

Shockingly the most common response from the politicians and the general public is to get tough on all these people and lock them up. The proponents of more incarceration hold that view until they or someone in their family ends up in jail or prison and then they ask why there were not more treatment options available earlier.

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Are Wiccans Schizoid? Are African-Americans?

Posted on by
Reply

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Who is Schizoid?

These kinds of search questions come up periodically. Sometimes I feel like these questions need to be answered even at the risk of making some people mad. I think we need to look at Schizoid personality disorder and other psychosis and its relationship to religious and racial minorities even at the risk of making a whole lot of people angry.

Wow, religion and race in one post, guaranteed to piss someone off!

Particular religious groups have been connected with various mental illnesses from time to time. In fact, even in professional trainings, Wiccans, members of a particular recognized religion, get connected with mental illness especially Schizoid personality disorder or Schizotypal disorder frequently. There was a time that minority races were mostly considered to suffer from mental illnesses also.

So first let’s look at what is Schizoid personality disorder and then why races and religions get connected to particular disorders.

At this point, before the hate mail starts arriving, I would like to point out, for better or worse, that I do indeed know people; some yes are even friends, of both the Wiccan and the African-American persuasions. As an aside I have also made the acquaintance of a few assorted Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Israelis, Palestinians, an Icelander, and one person who might be described as a genetic Republican. Most of whom I consider more or less friends through no fault of theirs. I have left a few others out of this post because I could not spell their race or religion.

This issue of who or what is Schizoid is somewhat clouded by the way in which classification of personality disorders will change when the DSM-5 comes out in May. Some disorders stay, some go and then we reenter the whole question of are any diagnosis real? This is the old Categories versus dimensions controversy. Some people clearly have enough symptoms to get a diagnosis but what about people with only a few symptoms are they normal? Do they have a slight disorder? Or will we need to create a billion or so individual symptom severities to fit each and every one? I will leave that one to the authors of the DSM-5.

DSM-5 update.

Mostly they left the personality disorders alone.

What we currently think of as Schizoid personality characteristics is a person who:

Is detached from social relationships and has a restricted range of expressing emotions in interpersonal situations, and this has been going on since they reached adulthood. (I am crudely paraphrasing from the DSM-4-TR here) and they have 4 or 7 characteristics listed below and they do not have another mental illness that explains their symptoms.

You math majors out there will note that 4 of 7 symptoms allows for 840 possible combinations of symptoms. We clinician types also get to interpret whether you have or do not have any one of these symptoms which can result in a lot of disagreement between clinicians.

The seven symptoms to choose from are:

1. Does not enjoy or want close relationships including being part of a family

In addition to schizoid personality disorder this might fit people who have faced abuse or discrimination and as a result, avoid close relationships.

2. Almost always chooses solitary activities

These criteria could also fit gamers and those who are addicted to the internet.

3. Has little interest in having sex.

This could be the result of past aversive experiences.

4. Takes pleasure in few if any activities

This sounds a bit like depression so does the lack of interest in sex above, this will make it harder but not impossible for gamers to get this diagnosis.

5. Lacks friends other than first-degree family members.

Lots of victims of discrimination and immigrants could fit this criterion.

6. Appears indifferent to praise or criticism of others.

This fits lots of people with learned helplessness and those who live in non-affirming environments. Why seek praise or affirmation if when you expose your emotional self you will not be liked for who you are.

7. Shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affect.

People who face discrimination may hide their true selves and restrict their emotions in public situations. If you get abused for your differentness you may keep your feelings inside even at home.

Now someone with a true personality disorder has these symptoms, most or all of them all the time and not just when in social settings. But can you see how someone who has faced discrimination or is a member of a religion with unusual beliefs could try to avoid expressing those feelings around others who might attack or punish you for being who you are?

Can you see how mental health could be used to punish people who were different racially or religiously and then when they try to keep who they are a secret to avoid that discrimination they could be labeled withdrawn and uninterested in others?

Sure some people with certain mental illnesses could be attracted to certain religious or political causes, but to move over into thinking that people of any one religion or race are probably suffering from any one mental illness is wrong and potentially dangerous.

Besides, I think the people who wrote these search terms probably had Schizoid personality disorder and Schizotypal personality disorder confused. Schizotypal probably fits some rock and rollers and celebrities better than it fits Wiccan and African-Americans but it also gets thrown on anyone who is different way too often.

Schizotypal people wear funny clothing like straw hats and suspenders – or are those farmers? See how easy it is to think that people who are different from you must be sick in some way?

Before we start thinking that people who are different must somehow be mentally ill, think back to those basic criteria. Does this person’s problem or behavior interfere with their ability to work, have friends and family or does it upset them? If not they shouldn’t get a mental health diagnosis just because they are different.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Which presidents get a birthday party?

Posted on by
Reply

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

It is Presidents Day in the U. S. but why?

Today is the day we here in the United States celebrate “Presidents Day.” We are not the only country to celebrate the birthday of a president, patriot or king. Every day of the year appears to be a holiday to celebrate something somewhere.

This day could also be a Presidents day of sorts in Mexico where on this day in 1913 – Pedro Lascuráin became President of Mexico for 45 minutes; this is the shortest term to date of any person as president of any country. (See Wikipedia for that one.)

As a side note, this is also the date in history when the Chicago Seven were found not guilty. Anyone want to celebrate Chicago and 1968 again?

Today is also the birthday of Queen Mary I of England, Sri Ramakrishna, and a gazillion other famous people. Too many famous people died on this date to begin to list.

February 18th is women’s day in Iran which probably ties in nicely with including the great emancipator Lincoln in with the guests of honor for this birthday celebration.

Why is today, February 18th, 2013, and not some other day, Presidents Day here in the U. S.?

Originally this started as two separate celebrations, Washington’s Birthday which falls on February 22, and Lincoln’s Birthday which falls on February 12th.

For the record, George Washington was born on February 11, 1731, but the calendar was changed in 1752 and his new birthday became February 22, 1732. All this happened before we became an independent country and began to muck-around with holidays and things.

This part is very confusing if you let accuracy influence you.

In 1971 the Uniform Mondays Holidays Act moved Washington’s Birthday to the Monday between February 15th and February 22. Thank goodness he was not around then to have to learn a new birthday. This results in his birthday never being celebrated on his original birthday and only very rarely falling on his second revised birthday. Leave it to the government to muddy up even the Founding Fathers’ birthday.

So far the U. S. has had 44 presidents. Surely some of them deserve a day also? Historians repeatedly have ranked Franklin Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson among the top U. S. presidents. It hardly seems fair that neither of them gets a birthday party.

Will Rogers was known to remark that this country’s greatest president was Calvin Coolidge because, while he didn’t do anything, no one wanted him to do anything either. Some of our current politicians should take a page from old Calvin’s

Some of our current politicians should take a page from old Calvin’s playbook. Why doesn’t he get a birthday holiday?

But then I suppose that if we were to start adding holidays willy-nilly every time some great event happens eventually we would all be off work every day and no one would ever work at all unless they were getting double time for working on a holiday.

This holiday should be set aside to remember all 44 of those guys who did the job of president. While we are remembering them consider also the thousands of people who started out to run for those 44 top spots and the millions who have said they could do a better job if they got the chance.

But then President Kennedy is reported as saying that no one should be too harsh in their judgment of a president if they had not sat behind that desk and make those decisions.

While I am not sure completely which presidents we should be honoring today I am quite sure this day should be about a whole lot more than a used car sale or some new furniture.

Regardless of who your country’s leader is just now let’s all think today about what it means to lead a people and to want better for them than what they have.

The great ones, like Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and the others, get remembered for what they did for their country not what they got out of the gig for themselves.

You may not be president or prime minister, but what could you be doing today to help someone else? Helping others, being of service, and remembering those who served is what this day should be about.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Lincoln visits Mardi Gras

Posted on by
Reply

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Why these holidays are getting me confused.

My calendar shows that this year Lincoln’s Birthday and Mardi Gras fall on the same day. The juxtaposition has me wondering more than ever about holidays, what they mean anymore, and why they keep changing.

This getting old has its disadvantages, one of which is that I am in a perpetual state of confusion. I might get even more confused if I keep trying to make sense of all this instead of just observing and reflecting on this occurrence.

Do Lincoln’s birthday and Mardi Gras have any connection? Why are they together and the president’s birthday a full seven days later?

One connection clearly is the occurrence of hallucinations. In that way, the two days have something in common. They both also remind us that the modern idea of hallucinations and delusions and the ancient belief in spirits and demons are not all that far apart.

There has been some debate over the years about the state of President Lincoln’s mental health. Clearly, he presided over our country at a very perilous and traumatic time. No war in our history from the colonial days till now has resulted in such universal military service and such horrific loss of life as that war which was fought to keep the union of states together despite unresolvable, for the times, differences.

Lincoln has been described as Melancholy, an old name for what we now call Major Depressive Disorder. Some accounts report he would stay up late at night and believed he saw spirits. Having to make the sort of decisions he did that resulted in such massive suffering, no doubt could drive most any man insane.

So a reasonable case could be made that this President whose policy’s made such profound changes in so many aspects of American life, could easily have suffered from depression with psychotic features, or Bipolar disorder, some have even suggested a more pronounced psychosis. Still, with or without a mental illness, this president was in touch with massive sadness and the mental images of the spirits of those who died in that war.

Personally, from this distance of 150 years, I can tell you that the number of family members on my tree who fought in that great war is too many to count. I also know, though in a more fragmentary manner that many of those ancestors and their offspring developed an addiction to drugs, alcoholism, and a wide variety of serious mental illnesses in the years following that war.

I am not sure we can blame all the insanity in the family tree on that one war, like all families we had black sheep and bizarre behavior before and after that war. But the connections are too specific and close in time for me to not take notice that the effects a horrific war play on the psyche of individuals, families, and countries for a long time after a war officially ends.

As for Mardi Gras, the costumes involved look to me like a tangible representation of a Jungian dream analysis on Hallucinogenic drugs.

My understanding of Mardi Gras is of course imperfect. The most vivid description of this day I recall must have come from a person who had consumed several bottles of high-proof liquor. It is hard sometimes to tell the descriptive part from the current hallucinations.

I am told that his Mardi Gras falls on “Fat Tuesday.” This is the last Tuesday before Lent. Those of the Catholic Influence seem particularly inclined towards lent. I am told that the objective is to get as much sinning done on Fat Tuesday as possible so that you have the pleasure to carry you through the deprivations of Lent.

This did not sound right to me but my highly intoxicated source swears that this is true. He also swears that extraterrestrial aliens have taken over the bodies of our Congress and are passing pro-alien laws.

I found the part about congressmen being possessed by extraterrestrials easier to believe than his account of Mardi Gras, so much for drunken sources.

Participants in Mari Gras wear odd costumes that make them look like, demons, spirits, and assorted creatures. Creecy as quoted in Wikipedia, a customarily sober if not totally reliable source, describes the Mardi Gras costumes as:

grotesque, quizzical, diabolic, horrible, strange masks, and disguises. Human bodies are seen with heads of beasts and birds, beasts and birds with human heads; demi-beasts, demi-fishes, snakes’ heads and bodies with arms of apes; man-bats from the moon; mermaids; satyrs, beggars, monks, and robbers parade and march on foot, on horseback, in wagons, carts, coaches, cars, &c., in rich confusion, up and down the streets, wildly shouting, singing, laughing, drumming, fiddling, fifeing, and all throwing flour broadcast as they wend their reckless way.

Somehow this time of year seems perfect for the strange, bizarre, and the supernatural. Only a short time ago we were watching a groundhog for our weather predictions. Now we are all hoping to get in one last round of sinning before we try giving up our old ways for another brief hiatus. This only days after discarding our New Year’s resolutions.

Which raises the question, “Can you still see the bare breasts, bizarre behavior, and debauchery if you are sober?”

As to the connection between Mardi Gras and Lincoln?

I am inclined to think that Lincoln would have preferred to see this menagerie traipsing through the white house over the specter of the war dead and wounded he had to view in his melancholy nights.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel