Franklin Cook's blog

Yesterday in a post on her blog -- "The Singing Pen of Dr. Jen" -- Jennifer Middleton points readers to a free webinar series on physician suicide from the American Medical Association. Middleton writes, "I wish that I didn't have a reason to participate in this webinar, but a few years ago I lost a friend and physician colleague to suicide."

She was asked to participate in one of the AMA webinars because of an essay she wrote for Annals of Family Medicine, "Today I'm Grieving a Physician Suicide," in which she addresses her colleague directly:

Why didn’t you ask your physician colleagues for help? Why did you hide your depression from us? Did I, as your colleague and friend, fail you? These questions circle relentlessly through my mind. I need to understand, need somehow for this all to make sense.

Caregivers regularly use the term empowerment to describe an outcome they'd like to see realized by people whom they are assisting. Because usage of the term is widespread -- even as the word itself may mean different things to different people -- we are outlining, for the consideration and comment of our readers, key points from two articles on empowerment from two different perspectives.

• One is from a scholarly article by Mann Hyung Hur from the Journal of Community Psychology and titled "Empowerment in Terms of Theoretical Perspectives: Exploring a Typology of the Process and Components across Disciplines."
• The other is from a longtime mental-health consumer advocate, the late Judi Chamberlin, whose essay "A Working Definition of Empowerment" is available from the National Empowerment Center.

In an audio presentation for Psychiatric Times, Katherine Shear, an expert on complicated grief, delivers a talk on the topic that provides listeners with a concise and comprehensive primer. She gives -- in about 15 minutes -- a complete overview of the malady, noting that it affects as many as 10% of bereaved people. Shear begins by characterizing grief -- and even intense grief reactions -- as a normal response to the death of someone with whom the bereaved person has a close relationship, then differentiates complicated grief by clearly summarizing its causes, symptoms, assessment, and treatment.

• How much are they having trouble accepting the death of this person?
• How much does grief still interfere with their life?
• How much are they having images or thoughts about the person who died? These thoughts are often intrusive kinds of thoughts.
• Are there things they used to do when this person was alive that they don't feel comfortable doing anymore, that they avoid? [Or are they] avoiding looking at pictures of the person or talking about the person?
• How much are they feeling cut off or distant from other people, even people they generally feel close to, like family or friends? Do they have intense feelings of loneliness even when they're with  people who they're close to?

Grief is the normal human reaction to loss (grief is not a mental illness), yet helping people who have experienced a traumatic loss -- such as occurs when someone dies by suicide -- can be informed by the principles that guide mental health practice. One excellent example is the booklet "Practice Guidelines: Core Elements for Responding to Mental Health Crises," which focuses on "individuals with serious mental or emotional problems" and also outlines ...

... values, principles and strategies ... applicable to all individuals with mental healthcare needs, across populations and service settings.

A new website, A Child in Grief (achildingrief.com), has been launched as a resource to help people who wish to support bereaved children.

“Through our research and support of childhood bereavement programs, we saw an urgent need for this site. Many adults don’t know where to turn to help children on their grief journey, and we hope they will use this Web site to become educated or get connected to the additional resources they need,” said Chris Park, president, New York Life Foundation [the publisher of the website).