Probing Questions To Ask A Mental Health Professional to See If They Are A Good Match For You – Vol. 511, August 22, 2019

I really believe that one can tell if the relationship will work, more by the interaction that you have and the gut feeling that you have as a result of that interaction. It is a relationship after all.

Listen to the manner in which the therapist is speaking to you. Is it warm and supportive or cold and distant?

Is the therapist talking ‘to’ you or ‘at’ you?

Is the therapist respectful of you and your insights into your own situation?

Is the therapist jumping to all sorts of conclusions that have no basis in your reality?

If your gut is telling you that it isn’t a good match, look for someone else. Remember that it is you who are employing this person, so you have the right to stop therapy – they can’t keep you going to them.

This is not to say that a therapist may not challenge you to grow, which may piss you off. In fact, I tell my potential clients before they sign on to work with me, that they very well may get pissed off with me, and that this is a very important part of the work. If they can get through it with me, they can better handle the people in their lives.

I also tell my clients that if necessary I may kick them in the butt to do those things that they need to do (based on what comes out of their subconscious mind) holding them accountable. My clients want that from me, those who can’t understand why that would be important, are definitely not suited for the manner in which I work.

I share this with you so you can have an idea of how different people work. I am a hypnotist and NLP master practitioner (actually a trainer of both) because I am utterly uninterested in hearing my clients repeatedly whine over stupid issues. My clients are ready to stop telling their sad stories and get down to doing the change work. Others may be more inclined to see a therapist for the rest of their lives whining about the lives they are living, looking for endless sympathy. I am into helping my clients heal as fast as possible so they can finally get onto to living a life worth living.

Why Is There Such A Huge Increase In Those With Mental Health Issues? – Vol. 510, August 15, 2019

This is a very important question that you ask and I am learning much about it through my research for my master’s in medical sociology.

I believe the most helpful answer comes from the kids themselves. They feel totally stressed out with all the pressures on them to succeed in school and every extra-curricular activity to gain entry to the best university possible.

They see the warnings all over the newscast regarding war, specifically that we Americans will always be at war someplace as it is all they have experienced.

They hear how the government is doing nothing about climate control with many scientists claiming that we are killing the earth.

And that doesn’t even touch the GMO and irradiated food here in the US, none of it labeled. The 6- fold increase in prescribed psych pharmaceuticals to kids with their gray matter being decreased as a result causing impulse control issues and lack of ability to have emotional control. We have 10,000 toddlers on psychotropic medications, so we are poisoning them and the list goes on.

However, the issue for high school and college-bound is how to go to college with heavy debt realizing that the income once graduated (if they can find a job) will be less then what a person their parent’s age would have earned on their graduation into the workforce. Inflation is killing us and low paying jobs make it worse. How are they to pay tremendously high college debt, ridiculously high rents at least on the coasts and raise a family?

After listening to the work of Dr. Gabor Mate, a psychiatrist who has worked with the poor dealing with serious mental health problems, drug addictions, and HIV, we need to consider the role of parents. He states that parents are so stressed out, they are not emotionally available to their children. What this does is stunt the growth of the hippocampus of the brain, which is responsible for the memories, emotional regulation and learning. He is very clear that he is not blaming parents for the society in which we live. He is just pointing out the importance of parents being present for their kids especially during the first seven or eight years of life when the brain is developing the most. Kids need loving interested parents to care for them.

These are real issues that these kids are confronting which need to be dealt with in a realistic manner by the various governmental agencies involved.

It’s a naive person who believes that this is all about diagnosis, as we are a label happy society, especially in the USA. Check out all the questions on Quora where people are asking about psychiatric labels trying to label themselves or worse someone else without the basic understanding of how convoluted the DSM 5 is, especially with every normal emotion being pathologized to match some prescription to it, instead of focusing on teaching these folks emotional regulation and coping skills.

The Mental health system is a travesty, and so are many other areas of life here in the USA.

I was born here in the USA in 1961, to a father who was a dentist, now long passed away. So, I was raised believing in conventional medical services, however, my eyes have been open after being in the field since 1993 and dealing with psychiatrists who had zero ability to listen to their patients’ concerns especially regarding over medication. Sad, but true.