Insights & Articles

Dear Community Member,

As we focus collectively on the threat of the COVID-19 coronavirus, I want to assure you that the Brattleboro Retreat is taking numerous steps to safeguard the health of our patients, staff, and community.

At the same time, we are remaining focused on our core mission to provide quality mental health and addiction services. With the few exceptions listed below, we are continuing to accept admissions across many of our programs.

1. Put your own oxygen mask on first! Make sure your fears are in check and that you get the help you need to cope during these unprecedented times. Talk to your friends and other supports about this privately, out of earshot from children. With young children around turn off the radio and television when Covid 19 broadcasts are on. With older children limit it; there is only so much any of us can take without feeling anxious.
    

As CEO of Vermont’s largest psychiatric facility, my day-to-day thoughts tend to center on the mental health and addiction issues that impact people in Vermont and neighboring states.  Each year, thousands of adults, adolescents, and children from across the region turn to the Brattleboro Retreat in times of need, and our mission to serve them has never been more critical.

It's hard to turn on the radio or visit your favorite online news source these days without coming across a feature story or in-depth series about the state of mental health treatment here in Vermont and nationwide.

More often than not, the media pays a good deal of attention to system inadequacies, regulatory and/or clinical missteps, perceived waste, and poorly coordinated care. Fair enough.

Meet Colleen E. Carney, PhD, Director of the Sleep and Depression Laboratory at Ryerson University in Toronto. In this interview with host, Gay Maxwell, Dr. Carney describes why cognitive behavioral therapy is the best treatment for insomnia.

With suicide rates on the increase locally and around the world, Naomi Rather, LMHC and Deborah Curtis, LICSW both certified Emotionally Focused Couples Therapists and founders of Seacoast-eft.com, seek the expertise of Brattleboro Retreat's Chief Clinical Officer Kirk Woodring to help understand this tragic phenomenon. In this episode of The Couch, the discussion identifies connection is a protective factor against suicide.

In the past few decades our society has witnessed unprecedented change in almost every area of life. This includes our professional experiences. The work we do and the ways we carry it out bear little resemblance to what most people took for granted at the start of the new millennium.
 
In the field of healthcare sweeping change has taken place at lightning speed and continues to be the “new normal.”
 

In the past week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its most recent data on suicide rates in the U.S. Sadly, this announcement was book-ended by the deaths of two celebrities, designer Kate Spade and chef/television personality Anthony Bourdain.

The following piece published on the the website of the Vermont Department of Mental Health offers valuable insight that can help us resist the urge to entertain one-dimensional solutions to the increase in violent and antisocial behaviors across our country.

Introduction