Good morning! ☀️

And Happy Sunday!

A quick note: Given that most of the content we share is more broadly related to mental health and social services, not necessarily just social work, we will be rebranding The Social Work Newsletter. The content and distribution won’t change: Instead, we will be renaming the newsletter and redesigning it to make it more readable and relevant.

Question: Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most powerful federal appeals court in the Western United States, issued a significant ruling that will have a widespread impact on homelessness. What did the court rule?

New mental health research

In a recent clinical study, scientists tried to figure out what parts of cognitive-behavioral therapy actually led to reduced symptoms. Was it self-compassion training, thought challenging, relaxation, or something else responsible for the improvement in symptoms?

The study found that only the absorption component of cognitive behavioral therapy had a significant effect on depressive symptoms. What is absorption? We had a hard time wrapping our heads around this term, so we reached out to the author of the study. This was his response:

”If activity scheduling is about increasing the number of positive activities that people do to reduce their depression, absorption is about trying to increase the direct contact and experience people have when they do those positive activities. We often find that patients with depression might do something they previously found enjoyable but not get much benefit from it – and when this is explored further, the patients might be having a running commentary on what they are doing like “this is much harder than before” and “why can’t I do this as well?”, and be somewhat detached from the activity.

The goal of absorption is thus to help patients be more directly immersed in what they are doing. This has quite a few parallels with the literature on flow states. Practically, this means that in therapy, we don’t only ask people to schedule positive activities but positive activities they find absorbing and can get immersed in, we also try and plan scheduling to maximize the likelihood of being absorbed (e.g., not doing when in a rush or when lots of distractions around). It’s also important that we practice detailed holistic imagery of re-experiencing times when the person was absorbed in a positive activity, both as a mental warm-up to make it easier to get absorbed in the activity or task they are going to do, and to help identify what circumstances help and hinder absorption for that person.

This allows people to be “in the experience” of doing positive activities and not “thinking about” what they are doing, and thus maximizes the benefit for mood and reduces rumination.”

Other social work-related news

• Mount Sinai Health System, in what is the “largest private investment in behavioral health services,” opened its $140-million behavioral health facility in New York City. Along similar lines, in New Hampshire, SolutionHealth and Acadia Healthcare are building a 144-bed mental health hospital. This is good news. A federal report from earlier in the year highlighted that there are simply not enough beds for mental health care in our communities

• On the international stage: In Australia, psychiatrists will be able to prescribe psilocybin 🍄 for treatment-resistant depression and MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder. In Japan, gender inequality is contributing to a mental health crisis

• Mental health respite facilities such as Rhonda’s House, “a rural peer respite program that offers a short-term, homelike, nurturing environment for people who are experiencing a mental health crisis but don’t need immediate medical attention are filling care gaps in over a dozen states

• A federal judge fined Washington state officials $100 million for failing to provide adequate mental health services to individuals with severe mental illnesses in the state’s jails.

Reads on research

• A groundbreaking, large-scale research study of over 6 million Dutch people, published on May 2023, found an association between mental illness and cannabis use disorder. More specifically, the study found that Cannabis Use Disorder, a disorder where a person is unable to stop using marijuana despite health and social problems, was associated with an increased risk of various types of depression and bipolar disorder. Here are some mixed reactions from scientists in the field

• Among the world’s high-income countries, the U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate. A new research study found that things have gotten worse. Maternal death rates are highest among Black women, with these rates doubling over the last 20 years

Reads on policy

• The Oregon legislature passed laws and proposals that will expand access to opioid overdose reversal medication and create a 40-cent monthly phone tax to pay for a new crisis hotline. The legislature also formed a task force to look into raising a beer and wine tax to pay for recovery programs

• Medicare will now cover Leqembi, the first drug on the market that slowed cognitive decline in people who are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s

Tech, mental health, and resources 😎

• 2023 may be a transformative year for autism treatment providers. The big providers in the space were The Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) and Invo Healthcare, but CARD filed for bankruptcy last month and Invo Healthcare has closed its in-office and in-home applied behavioral analysis branches

• Twenty-seven global investors managing $2.1 trillion are collaborating to help companies reduce the potential negative impacts of technology on the mental health of their customers. The goal is to develop " action plans to protect the mental health well-being of consumers”

• Gaggle, a company that creates software to monitor student activity on school-provided devices for concerning content, launched a new 24/7 Student Crisis Line

Answer: The 9th Circuit Court ruled that cities and towns cannot force homeless people off the streets unless communities can provide shelter for them. Cities across the west coast had tried, and failed, to overturn the ruling for years

If you enjoyed this newsletter, consider sharing it with a friend or colleague. You can directly forward the newsletter, or use the button below to get rewards for referrals. The goal is to be able to hire support staff to run and sustain the newsletter. Thank you for your support 🙏

Refer a friend