Josh Andrews

I usually try to find resources that I can learn from and hopefully pass out to my clients. Anytime I find free resources, especially mental health and substance abuse, I feel like a kid in a candy store. I want my colleagues to share in my little pot of gold. The site I have been recently searching most often is Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMHSA.gov.

Most of my clients do not know of a time without a cell phone in one hand and an iPod in the other. They tell me all the time that they “NEED” their lifeline and without it they will just give up the ghost. Of course we all know that is completely false but how hard it is to communicate reality with delusional thinking! I recently had a client who complained that his mother was using a free cell phone provided by the universal service fund for low income families. This client had a personal cell phone and is complaining that it does not have a QWERTY keyboard for faster texting. Frustration over the lack of immediate gratification is a major issue I am dealing with in my counseling experiences.

Mental Health agencies all over the nation are hearing financial distress in fiscal year 2012. What are we as mental health professionals to do when we do not get support from our leaders when we need it the most? When people are in hard times financially, emotionally, medically, spiritually, etc… why is it that funding for the helping professions is the first to be cut? Let’s process this troubling situation together, shall we?

A graduate professor of mine, Dr. Reuschling, said in class all the time, “I got stuff, you got stuff, we all got stuff”…but most of humanity is able to handle their “stuff” in an appropriate manner. When someone is unable to handle their own stuff then they become our client, either voluntarily or by force. Children usually do not have a choice to come and talk with a counselor so all who interact with children, including myself, have one more obstacle to hurdle. It is a challenge to win over a child who is displaying crazy behavior but not impossible.

I saw a client for a diagnostic assessment. Both parents were actively involved with the assessment and were genuinely concerned about getting the best help possible. The mother of the client was extremely prepared: wrote down notes that she wanted me to know, took online tests and provided me with the copies, and brought a whole bunch of questions for me to answer. I love it when parents are this involved because they show that they care about the mental health of their child.