Blog posts with the tag "Self Care"

Staff Perspective: An App for Providers, Helping Us in Sustaining Self-Care and Resiliency

It seems like everyone is carrying a smartphone these days. Some of the attributes that make these devices an asset to therapy include they’re portable, acceptable, always on (this benefit is probably up for discussion), low cost, programmable, audio and video output, user-friendliness, and ease of use (Boschen, 2008). More and more we are able to recommend and guide our patients through various evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs) with the help of evidence-based mobile health applications or so-called “apps”. For providers, we now have the same accessibility of a tool that can help us implement self-care practices in our day. 

Staff Perspective: Overthinking - We Are All Mad Here

Have you ever said “I tend to overthink everything?” Most of us fall victim to some degree of overthinking.  We search for more and more information, we focus on the details while losing sight of the big picture or we “choke” under pressure even when we are engaged in doing something we know we are good at.

Staff Perspective: “Gifts of the Heart” Review

Provider sustainment is a challenge facing many military mental health and other health care providers. The book, “Gifts of the Heart,” written by Dr. Hassan A. Tettah, is a tale of how a Navy surgeon sustains himself through and after his arduous deployment in the Helmand Valley of Afghanistan. While this story is not an autobiography, it was influenced by real life events. The author was a Navy surgeon who first deployed to the Persian Gulf in 2005 and then later deployed to Afghanistan in 2011. 

CDP News: Jan. 24, 2014

Welcome to the latest edition of CDP News! We like to spend this time each week reviewing recent happenings in and around the Center for Deployment Psychology, while also looking ahead to upcoming events. Like many places around the country, the wintery weather this week combined with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday on Monday, took a large bite out of our work this past week. We’ve got several items on the horizon to more than make up for it however!

Staff Voices: Sometimes Routine Self-Care Isn’t Enough

Working in an active duty Department of Defense (DoD) Behavioral Health Clinic can be challenging, with busy patient loads, complex cases, limited administrative time, and frequent short notice tasks. It can be a recipe for burnout, and those of us working there are often encouraged to engage in “provider self-care.” Such self-care is intended to be a daily ritual with the hope that doing so will prevent burnout and keep the caregivers healthy and productive. I’m a fan of the daily self-care model. I have an active social life, I regularly engage in my hobbies, I read, I exercise, I have a healthy diet, and even go to yoga. Even with all this text book self-care sometimes tragedy and adversity can crash into the personal lives of the caregiver.

Pages