The Mental Health Diagnosis: History, Validity and Implications by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Today’s Diagnosis is Tomorrow’s Joke A former client recently sent me a list of reasons for admittance to a psychiatric hospital between the years of 1864-1889.  The list was being shared on the internet as a joke, highlighting how many mental health diagnoses back then now sound like potential names for heavy metal bands.  I laughed.  Then I found myself thinking about the implications the list of old diagnoses has on today’s formal diagnoses. A Look at the History of the Mental Health Diagnosis These days, mental health professionals are very serious about their diagnostic labels, which makes sense because getting paid by insurance companies hinges on labeling individuals with billable diag...

How the Mind Works: No Need For A Vacation, Your Mind’s Already On One by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. We like to think we are in control, making conscious decisions, and acting of our own free will.  Causes lead to effects, stimuli trigger responses, nature carries on in an orderly fashion.  We are thoughtful, contemplative, questioning beings right?  Wrong.  Much to our chagrin the world makes far less sense than we think, we rarely question ourselves, and the coherence that we experience is mostly a product of how the mind works. Fascinating research findings on how the mind works continue to challenge our understanding of the world and ourselves.  Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman (from whom the content of this article is borrowed without permission) breaks the huma...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Turn New Year's Resolutions into Lasting Change Achieving lasting change can be elusive.  Whether you make resolutions at the dawn of the New Year or at other times in your life, we all make promises to ourselves to change.  However, many times the firm commitments we make to ourselves fade like a sigh within weeks or months.  Those who exercise year-round will attest to the inevitability of their fitness centers becoming more crowded in January than during the other 11 months of the year.  So what gets in the way of adhering to our new year's resolutions and the promises we make to ourselves?  We do. Significant and lasting behavior change is rarely achieved without also looking inward.  Whether you call them your demons, your hang-ups, your vices, your ...

Adapted from Pages 32 and 34 of the SMART Recovery Handbook, 3rd Edition This post has been updated from the original version that first ran in 2015. With so many people on day two of their 2018 New Year’s resolutions, it seems appropriate to offer some basic strategies for coping with urges that tempt us to give into habits. If you're changing habits, such as trying to stop drinking, quit smoking, eat better, spend less, or change any other unwanted behavior, here are 14 basic strategies designed to help you with changing habits so you can cope with the urges in the days, weeks, months (and sometimes even years) ahead! Avoid – Learn what triggers your desire to act on your habit, and avoid the triggers that lead to urges. Escape – If you are presented with a trigger, esca...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. I often hear words of empathy from people struggling with the use of illegal substances offered to individuals struggling with the use of legal substances.  “I feel bad for you,” and “I can’t imagine having my drug of choice available in every store I go to,” are examples of the types of comments I hear.  The election this week brought more dents to the armor of substance prohibition, which raises important considerations for the world of recovery. Recreational cannabis use was legalized in Arizona, California, Maine, and Massachusetts on November 8, 2016, bringing the total number of states to legalize cannabis to eight.  The end of cannabis prohibition across the United States seems to be more a matter of how long it will take, not if it will happen.  ...

by Tom Horvath, Ph.D., ABPP How can the United States improve addiction treatment? The ultimate goal of support for overcoming problematic addictive behavior is to improve individual health and well-being while reducing societal costs associated with the behavior.  Several countries (e.g., Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands) are much more effective than the US in providing this support, which can include professional services (treatment) as well as a variety of non-professional and informal support. Calling for Change in US Addiction Treatment In the US a rational, medical and psychological approach would improve a system that has been overly influenced by the punitive aspects of drug prohibition and the diversity-suppressing dominance of the 12-step spiritual approach (which ha...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. This week’s topic is the fourth installment in a series exploring lies that have permeated the recovery culture.  Thus far, lies about success, failure, and everyone in recovery being the same have been challenged.  This week’s article challenges the lie that shaming people helps them change a problematic pattern of substance use. There is a fundamental logical fallacy to the concept that shaming people helps them change.  The reality is that people change all the time, not just when they feel down on themselves.  In fact, substances are an excellent way to achieve a temporary break from shame!  Helping people feel better about themselves is much more useful than making them feel worse. Beyond the logical fallacy of shaming people to help them change,...

by Tom Horvath, PhD, ABPP Why individual sessions in addiction treatment are important One of the most frequent complaints I hear from clients who have attended other treatment facilities is “I almost never had an individual session.” Why are frequent individual sessions unusual in US addiction treatment, and why are they important? Groups led by drug and alcohol counselors save money A business reason to provide treatment primarily in groups is to lower costs. All businesses want to save on labor costs. In many cases groups are oriented around a well-established curriculum, designed to help clients “get the program.” Getting the program typically involves accepting the perspective that “I have a disease, I need to go to meetings for the rest of my life, I can never drink again, my ...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. This week’s topic is the third installment in a series exploring lies that have permeated the recovery culture.  The first article challenged the lie that perfect abstinence is the only way to succeed in recovery.  Last week’s article challenged the lie that most people in recovery fail.  This week’s article challenges the lie that all addicts are the same, which is often perpetuated by the phrase ‘terminal uniqueness.' Universal statements about any group of humans other than those who struggle with substance use are generally quickly dismissed.  Consider the absurdity of statements like, all mothers are the same, all children are the same, all men are the same, all politicians are the same, all criminals are the same, etc.  To dehumanize is to divest o...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. The Biggest Lies in Recovery, pt. II - Recovery Failure This week’s topic is the second installment in a series exploring lies that have permeated the recovery culture.  Last week’s article challenged the lie that success in recovery is perfect abstinence.  This week’s article challenges the closely related lie of recovery failure, or that most people in recovery fail. I often hear people toss around arbitrary and unfounded statistics in recovery like, “only 10% of people succeed,” and that deviations from perfect abstinence inevitably lead to “jails, institutions, and death.”  The bad news is that “professionals” sometimes contribute to the spread of these unhelpful lies.  The good news is that the lie that most people in recovery fail is unequivocally f...