Our Latest Blogs

RtoR Mental Health Awareness Month: Long Distance Crisis Management

long distance call

There are few things worse than watching a loved one’s mental health steadily decline because he is too sick to recognize he has a problem.  The feeling is even worse when the loved one lives halfway across the country: you know he’s in trouble, but can’t be there to help and have no idea of […]

Help, Not Handcuffs: 8 Tips for Using Mental Health Crisis Services

handcuffs

  A few weeks ago I received a call from a distraught mother, concerned about her 43-year-old son with bipolar disorder. He was in the manic phase of his bipolar disorder and displaying worrisome behavior. The last time she called emergency services, the police tasered him in her home, arrested him and dragged him away in handcuffs. […]

New Government Report on Patient Dumping: Why Hospital Emergency Rooms are Not the Best Places to Treat Mental Health Emergencies

ED ambulance no entry

The United States Commission on Civil Rights has just released its 2014 Statutory Enforcement Report on Patient Dumping, which focuses on the admission and discharge practices of hospitals treating people with psychiatric disabilities.  Buried in this report is the finding that “mental health emergencies present unique challenges that may not be suitable for traditional emergency […]

Where to turn in a mental health crisis?

older couple holding hands

You might think that twenty-five years of experience in the mental health profession would have prepared me for what to do when a mental health crisis strikes at home.  It didn’t. When a member of my own family needed urgent mental health care, I had little idea of where to turn for help.   The process […]