Posts Tagged ‘counseling’
ICE agent killed in shootout — with other ICE agents!
Streets closed around the federal building after the shootout
A dispute between federal immigration agents that left one of them dead and another injured in southern California prompted the head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to travel to the scene on Friday.
Federal officials said the incident occurred during a counseling session regarding performance…
“The situation began … as an incidence of workplace violence involving two federal agents in their office space,” said Steven Martinez, assistant director of the FBI office in Los Angeles. “When the incident escalated, one agent fired several rounds at the other agent, wounding him.”
A third colleague intervened and fired at the shooter, killing him, Martinez said.
Kevin Kozak, 51, a deputy special agent in the Los Angeles area, suffered multiple injuries and is undergoing treatment at a hospital. He is in stable condition.
Federal agent Ezequiel Garcia, 45, was killed during the incident…
Must have been a helluva counseling session. Job evaluations can be a trying time.
Facebook launches tool to aid suicide prevention
Facebook launched a new suicide prevention tool on Tuesday, giving users a direct link to an online chat with counselors who can help, the company said.
Friends are able to report suicidal behavior by clicking a report option next to any piece of content on the site and choosing suicidal content under the harmful behavior option, Facebook spokesman Frederic Wolens said. Facebook will then email the user in distress a direct link for a private online chat with a crisis representative from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline as well as the group’s phone number.
The new tool gives people who may not be comfortable picking up the phone a direct avenue to seek help…
Users also have the ability to report suicidal behavior by going to the site’s Help Center or search for suicide reporting forms. They can also use reporting links around the site.
Worried friends who reported the behavior will also receive a message to say it is being addressed, Wolens said…
The new suicide reporting tool will be made available to people who use Facebook in the United States and Canada…All reporting on the site is done anonymously and so a distressed user will not know who reported the suicidal content.
Right idea, good idea. Too late for a young guy I worked with.
I didn’t know enough about what to do or where to point him for help – when he asked my opinion of suicide. If anything, I was rather abrupt. A habit, a style you regulars will recognize. 
He killed himself a week later – disconsolate over a failed relationship.
Psychotherapists are starting to ‘see’ their patients online
The event reminder on Melissa Weinblatt’s iPhone buzzed: 15 minutes till her shrink appointment.
She mixed herself a mojito, added a sprig of mint, put on her sunglasses and headed outside to her friend’s pool. Settling into a lounge chair, she tapped the Skype app on her phone. Hundreds of miles away, her face popped up on her therapist’s computer monitor; he smiled back on her phone’s screen.
She took a sip of her cocktail. The session began.
Ms. Weinblatt, a 30-year-old high school teacher in Oregon, used to be in treatment the conventional way — with face-to-face office appointments. Now, with her new doctor, she said: “I can have a Skype therapy session with my morning coffee or before a night on the town with the girls. I can take a break from shopping for a session. I took my doctor with me through three states this summer..!”
Since telepsychiatry was introduced decades ago, video conferencing has been an increasingly accepted way to reach patients in hospitals, prisons, veterans’ health care facilities and rural clinics — all supervised sites.
But today Skype, and encrypted digital software through third-party sites like CaliforniaLiveVisit.com, have made online private practice accessible for a broader swath of patients, including those who shun office treatment or who simply like the convenience of therapy on the fly…
Still, opportunities for exploitation, especially by those with sketchy credentials, are rife. Solo providers who hang out virtual shingles are a growing phenomenon…
Other questions abound. How should insurance reimburse online therapy? Is the therapist complying with licensing laws that govern practice in different states? Are videoconferencing sessions recorded? Hack-proof?
Another draw and danger of online therapy: anonymity. Many people avoid treatment for reasons of shame or privacy. Some online therapists do not require patients to fully identify themselves. What if those patients have breakdowns? How can the therapist get emergency help to an anonymous patient? “A lot of patients start therapy and feel worse before they feel better,” noted Marlene M. Maheu, founder of the TeleMental Health Institute, which trains providers and who has served on task forces to address these questions. “It’s more complex than people imagine. A provider’s Web site may say, ‘I won’t deal with patients who are feeling suicidal.’ But it’s our job to assess patients, not to ask them to self-diagnose.” She practices online therapy, but advocates consumer protections and rigorous training of therapists.
RTFA. Some of it is hilarious. Yes, I realize we’re discussing mostly legitimate needs and mostly legitimate practices designed to sort them.
I have a clear picture of the range of phonies and hustlers practicing therapeutic crafts — and how most states are easy as pie to tippy-toe around what passes for regulation and oversight. Cripes, I live in Santa Fe. I know people who channel stock tips!
Aside from the seriously disturbed, oftimes those with chemical and biological factors affecting their ability to function in society at all – a great deal of what people really need is conversation with someone who cares about listening. Maybe provide a tad of redirection towards solving problems on their own.
If I didn’t have so much fun blogging I might wander into the shrink-wrapped Skype therapy trade. Though I’d hate the record-keeping required to keep the IRS and insurance companies happy.
Police raid on children who picked daffodils in the park
Sienna Marengo, four, was seen picking flowers with six-year-old stepsister Olivia in Poole, Dorset. A member of the public reported them to police and two constables attended and advised the girls’ mother, Jane Errington, that she and her partner, Marc Marengo, could be arrested for criminal damage…
The family had been enjoying the spring sunshine with a walk through Whitecliff Park on Sunday when the girls broke off and started to pick daffodils.
Errington, who owns a property maintenance business, said: “The little ones had been riding their bikes but after a while they got bored and went to play in the daffodils.
“I didn’t see them pick any flowers, but the next thing we knew a police patrol car pulled up and the officers in it started watching us.
“We didn’t know what was going on and after about 20 minutes my partner started feeling very uncomfortable.
“Two male police officers then came up to us, saying they’d had a report of flowers being ripped up. They said we had committed a crime.
“The little ones were really upset and started crying. It was quite frightening for them. They did have daffodils in their hands – I’d say about 20 between them – and they had been picking them up and sorting them out like children do.
“If we’d seen it, we would have stopped them, but all it needed was for whoever complained to have approached us and made us aware.
“I had to explain to them that the police are friendly and it was just a mistake. I explained to them that the flowers were there for everybody and that in the future we will leave them there.
“I just felt it was unnecessary and upsetting. Surely the police have better ways to spend their time and taxpayers’ money?”
When I was a kid, the first police officer I knew was “Uncle Jimmy” who guided schoolchildren across the street at the one major intersection we had to cross on the way to elementary school.
Of course that changed over the years, Eventually I got to the day when I was beaten by seven coppers for demanding access to a federal courtroom where a trial was in progress. Forty-plus years later, I still have the scars across on my skull from their clubs.
Somewhere in between, the line between police as a force for directed repression and community aides blurred and disappeared. Over time, I’ve known coppers who joined the force for access to free drugs – and coppers who were inspired by TV shows like Quincy to study forensics to aide in determining guilt or innocence.
I doubt the change originated with Brother Blue. Like so much in our lives, change comes from the political hacks in charge, the small number of people they actually represent – and the willingness, the readiness of citizens to obey.
Hairdressers training to tackle Japan’s suicidal housewives
Officials in Toyama, a city 186 miles northwest of Tokyo, have launched the nation’s first scheme in which hairdressers are used as mediators between suicidal customers and professional counsellors.
The move taps into the renowned universal skill of hairdressers to lend a sympathetic ear to customers who often feel comfortable confiding in them about their problems.
More than 650 hairdressers in the city are involved in the new project, which involves taking part in training lectures with clinical psychologists to help them identify those in need of specialist help.
The hairdressers are also being given guidebooks to hand out to customers who they believe may be suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts and are able to put them in touch with professional psychological counselors…
As part of the new scheme, hairdressers will be taking part in training sessions organised by city officials with professional psychologists focusing on problems relating to suicide.
Japan is home to one of the highest suicide rates among industrialised nations, with more than 30,000 people killing themselves every year.
Hairdressers across the city appeared to welcome the initiative, with a growing number of premises displaying government-provided stickers in their window to show they are taking part in the project.
Hey – marketing is marketing. Increased traffic into a retail business is always welcome.
It’s an ill wind that etc…
A Boston psychologist says his profession has seen an upswing in business as the nation’s economic woes have worsened.
Psychologist Jim Grubman said while financial advisers and other wealthy citizens are struggling to make money during the ongoing economic crisis, psychologists are getting requests from more clients than they can handle…
Grubman told the Boston Globe many of his new patients are individuals in the financial sector who are so used to success they cannot cope with sudden economic problems.
“Many are perfectionists and many are feeling very bad because they’re doubting themselves and their skills,” Grubman said. “It’s terrifying … I’ve seen them lose tens of millions of dollars over the course of the last nine months.”
Sudden Loss Syndrome, eh? Consider that most of the money these parasites have been losing belonged to people who actually earned it working for a living.
