Parents Archives | Page 21 of 107

Identifying Suicide Risk in Adolescents: The Role of the Primary Care Physician

Can the Family Doctor Help Identify Suicide Risk and Prevent Teen Suicide? Teen mental health is on the mind of every parent in the country right now. And if it’s not, it’s our position that it should be. We say that not only as professionals working in adolescent mental health, but also as concerned parents, uncles, aunts, and members of our various communities, all of which include teens we know

March 3, 2022

Family & Home Life

Adolescent Behavioral Health: The Current State of Teen Mental Health after Two Years of Pandemic Mitigation Measures

The Impact of Virtual School, Social Distancing, and Decreased Peer Interaction on Youth and Teens When the pandemic arrived in the U.S. in late February, 2020, no one knew what to expect. The first places to enact real public health mitigation measures were the Bay Area in California and the Seattle are in Washington State. That was the first time most of us heard the terms shelter-in-place, social distancing, essential travel, essential workers, and virtual

March 1, 2022

Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Therapy and Medication Better than Medication Alone in Treating Bipolar Disorder

Family Participation Improves Outcomes Bipolar disorder (BD) is a mental health condition characterized by alternating cycles of mania/hypomania and depression/depressive mood that have a significant impact on typical daily function and impair overall emotional and psychological wellbeing. Bipolar disorder can be debilitating. It can prevent adolescents from participating in family life, school life, social life, and the extracurricular activities popular among adolescents. The most common evidence-based treatment for bipolar disorder

February 27, 2022

Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Finding the Top Adolescent Residential Treatment Centers

A Checklist for Parents Seeking Residential Treatment for Teens When your child crossed the threshold from pre-teen to full-fledged teenager, you probably braced yourself for the changes you knew were coming. You expected a range of physical, emotional, social, and psychological growth known as differentiation. The experts told you your teen would develop their own personal identity and their own sexual identity. They told you to expect changes in appearance,

February 15, 2022

Family & Home Life

How Teens Learn to Beat Stress During Treatment

Daily Stress Management Reduces Risk of Symptom Relapse We all get stressed. Everyone. That includes adults, teenagers, and children: it’s part of being human. Most of the time, stress is a negative experience for the person experiencing it. But we should all understand that not all stress is bad. Sometimes, it helps – but not always. Experts identify two types of stress. First, there’s acute stress. Acute stress can be

February 14, 2022

Parents

How Does Mindfulness-Based Cognitive (MBCBT) Therapy Help Teens With Addiction?

Mindfulness and Addiction Recovery Teens diagnosed with alcohol use disorder (AUD) or substance use disorder (SUD) often need professional treatment and support to achieve sobriety and maintain long-term abstinence. If a full psychiatric evaluation administered by a mental health professional indicates the presence of AUD or SUD, the assessing therapist may recommend treatment at one of the following levels of care: Outpatient Treatment Outpatient treatment typically involves office visits of

February 10, 2022

Family & Home Life

Delaying Gender-Affirming Treatments in Teens During Covid: What to Consider

Gender-Affirming Treatment for Transgender Teens When the coronavirus pandemic arrived in the U.S. in March 2020, we all quickly became aware of a variety of new phrases. We couldn’t avoid them. Print, TV, mobile, and online media repeated them daily, over and over, in all our public discourse regarding COVID-19. We learned about: Shelter-in-place orders Social distancing Hand hygiene on a new level Masks Vulnerable populations Essential and non-essential services

February 9, 2022

Anxiety & Mood Disorders

San Diego Teens and Mental Health

Does the San Diego Area Have Enough Mental Health Programs for Teens? Last summer, Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego shared a startling statistic with reporters from local radio station kpbs. At the midpoint of 2021, they’d seen a 25 percent increase in emergency room visits for acute mental health emergencies. As mental health professionals, this caught our attention: we’re both alarmed and concerned. However, if we’re being completely honest,

February 8, 2022

Parents

Profiles of Adolescents at Higher Risk for Suicide Risk

What Combination of Factors Makes Teen Suicide More Likely? In December 2021, the Surgeon General of the United States released an advisory that every parent of teenagers should be aware of. He warned that teenagers in the U.S. are in what can only be described as a mental health crisis. Here’s a short list of notable excerpts from the advisory: Mental health challenges in children, adolescents, and young adults are

February 7, 2022

Anxiety & Mood Disorders

When Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Requires Residential Treatment

Severe OCD: Obsessions and Compulsions Take Up Significant Time Every Day Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Volume Five (DSM-V) as a neurological disorder that’s part of a larger group of mental health disorders known as anxiety disorders. Common anxiety disorders include generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), separation anxiety, social anxiety disorder (SAD), panic disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder, among others. Anxiety disorders

January 26, 2022