The function of mental health service is to improve the welfare of clients and, by extension, the general population. Evidence indicates that such benefits exist, but also that some individuals are negatively affected by certain interventions, programs, diagnoses, “preventive” measures, and public education campaigns. One way to improve overall outcomes is to sharpen the positive effects of what we do; another - often neglected - is to examine the failures in mental health history and determine how to avoid making such errors in future. Presentation for the Clinical Psychology program of the Department of Psychology at University of British Columbia.

FREE. A monthly journal club for mental health professionals. The gap between dependent adolescence and independent adulthood seems to be getting wider - and more and more clients in mental health settings seem to be stuck at the transition. This online one-hour journal club selects and discusses a single short-ish article from the online open-access published literature on the subject of failure to launch, NEET (Not in Education Employment or Training), and hikikomori, with the aim of expanding awareness of the nature and therapy for this increasingly common life challenge. There is no need to attend regularly. Email me for the zoom link. Time is 11 am Pacific (Vancouver) time, 2 pm Eastern.

This time: Lebowitz, Eli R (2016). “Failure to Launch”: Shaping intervention for highly dependent adult children. Journal of the American Adademy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 55, 89-90. Lebowitz provides a rationale for focusing treatment on parental accommodation rather than on the young adult. Direct link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4895190/pdf/nihms790681.pdf

FREE. A monthly journal club for mental health professionals. The gap between dependent adolescence and independent adulthood seems to be getting wider - and more and more clients in mental health settings seem to be stuck at the transition. This online one-hour journal club selects and discusses a single short-ish article from the online open-access published literature on the subject of failure to launch, NEET (Not in Education Employment or Training), and hikikomori, with the aim of expanding awareness of the nature and therapy for this increasingly common life challenge. There is no need to attend regularly. Email me for the zoom link. Time is 11 am Pacific (Vancouver) time, 2 pm Eastern.

This time: Population Europe (2014). Failure to Launch: Economic crisis leads to demographic crisis for the young. Population & Policy Compact, 6. https://population-europe.eu/files/documents/pb_youth_vulnerability_final_web.pdf

FREE. A monthly journal club for mental health professionals. The gap between dependent adolescence and independent adulthood seems to be getting wider - and more and more clients in mental health settings seem to be stuck at the transition. This online one-hour journal club selects and discusses a single short-ish article from the online open-access published literature on the subject of failure to launch, NEET (Not in Education Employment or Training), and hikikomori, with the aim of expanding awareness of the nature and therapy for this increasingly common life challenge. There is no need to attend regularly. Email me for the zoom link. Time is 11 am Pacific (Vancouver) time, 2 pm Eastern.

This time: Nonaka, S, & Sakai, M (2021). Psychological factors associated with social withdrawal (hikikomori). Investigation Psychiatry, 18, 463-470. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8169334/pdf/pi-2021-0050.pdf

Free discussion session.

“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” - Santayana.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, widespread concern erupted in the mental health system about Satanic ritual abuse (SRA) as a cause for relatively common symptoms of psychological distress. It subsequently emerged that this was a mass delusion at work - but unusually, among treating professionals rather than (or prior to) those seeking care. Thousands of people were “treated” for this illusory problem until the evidence against the practice became overwhelming, at which point the mental health field moved on but largely failed to take responsibility for damage done, nor investigate how it had so readily fallen prey to a transparently false narrative. In this discussion session, clinicians are invited to share their memories from this neglected period, and consider whether the field has developed measures to temper irrational enthusiasms before putting them into practice. Newer clinicians very welcome. Time is 5 pm Pacific (Vancouver) time, 8 pm Eastern.

First meeting: A monthly journal club for mental health professionals. JOIN US! Now, or later. FREE.

The gap between dependent adolescence and independent adulthood seems to be getting wider - and more and more clients in mental health settings seem to be stuck at the transition. This online one-hour journal club selects and discusses a single short-ish article from the online open-access published literature on the subject of failure to launch, NEET (Not in Education Employment or Training), and hikikomori, with the aim of expanding awareness of the nature and therapy for this increasingly common life challenge. There is no need to attend regularly. Email me for the zoom link. Time is 11 am Pacific (Vancouver) time, 2 pm Eastern.

This time: Kato, TA, Kanba, S, and Teo, AR (2020). Defining pathological social withdrawal: Proposed diagnostic criteria for hikikomori. World Psychiatry, 19, 116-117. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wps.20705