330 likes | 416 Views
Nancy S Buck, PhD www.peacefulparenting.com Developmental Psychologist parentdr@gmail.com Senior Faculty for WGI 401-662-5788. Teaching Good Emotional and Mental Health to All. Who am I?. Dr. William Glasser.
E N D
Nancy S Buck, PhD www.peacefulparenting.com Developmental Psychologist parentdr@gmail.com Senior Faculty for WGI 401-662-5788 Teaching Good Emotional and Mental Health to All
Dr. William Glasser The trouble with using external control in schools is that it is illegal for teachers to bring guns to school . I fear that one of these days a student will bring a gun into school and take revenge for the external control that was exerted on him during all his school years. A few years later the first school shooting occurred in Columbine, CO
School Violence December 14, 2012 Changed Everything Sandy Hook Elementary School -- Newtown, CT 27 people were shot and killed, including 20 children
HEALTHPhysical Physical health is all that is addressed in the dictionary under “health” Dictionary: 1a: being sound in body, mind and spirit b: freedom from physical disease or pain Physical Health is understood by most to indicate vigor, strength, fitness and endurance. Physical health is taught in schools. Most people in the USA over the age of 6-years old know what to do to get into and improve physical health. Health and fitness clubs abound.
Mental Health • Dictionary: No words or definition can be found under this title • Wikipedia: Mental Health describes a level of psychological well-being, or an absence of a mental disorder • For most people, mental health means the lack of mental illness
Mental Health • Dr William Glasser You are mentally healthy if you enjoy being with most of the people you know, especially with the important people in your life such as family and friends. Generally, you are happy and are more than willing to help an unhappy family member, friend, or colleague to feel better. You lead a mostly tension-free life, laugh a lot, and rarely suffer from the aches and pains that so many people accept as an unavoidable part of living. You enjoy life and have no trouble accepting that other people are different from you. The last thing that comes to your mind is to criticize or try to change anyone. You are creative in what you attempt and may enjoy more of your potential than you ever thought possible. Finally, even in difficult situations when you are unhappy – no one can be happy all the time – you’ll know why you are unhappy and attempt to do something about it. You may even be physically handicapped as was Christopher Reeve, and still fit the criteria above.
Mental Health The ability to meet your needs for: • Safety • Love & Belonging • Power • Fun • Freedom responsibly and respectfully.
Good Mental & EmotionalHEALTH is a Public Health Issue • We need Mental HEALTH professionals to teach everyone: • What is good mental and emotional health? • How do you get it? • How do you improve it? • How do you maintain it?
Professional Educators • Teachers are professional educators, excellent at helping all students learn as long as students are ready to learn. • Are we expecting too much to ask teachers to become professional gunmen or professional mental health professionals?
Mental Health Professionals • In every school across USA there are the designated troubled students. People in the school, including the children, know who these children are. • Our present system asks the counselors, psychologists, social workers to help these students. • Who helps all of the other people in school with their mental health?
Good Mental & EmotionalHEALTHis a Public Health Issue • What if we started teaching good mental and emotional health to all students, adults and parents in our schools? • What if the students who are now designated as needing extra help are also supported by their classmates who understand good mental and emotional health and help their fellow students who are struggling to meet their needs responsibly and respectfully?
Good Mental & EmotionalHEALTHis a Public Health Issue • Anti-bullying programs, behavior managements systems such as detention, and other externally controlling system would no longer be necessary. • Please note this does not mean abandoning rules, boundaries or expectations for all in the community.
Good Mental & Emotional HEALTHis a Public Health Issue Where will YOU begin?
Sign Up and Join the Action • parentdr@gmail.com • Subject line: count me in • Share your plan and subsequent results or • Share your name, email address to be added to the action list for good mental & emotional health as a pubic health issue
Bibliography • Glasser, William, Treating Mental Health as a Public Health Problem; A New Leadership Role for the Helping Professions. Booklet published by William Glasser Inc. • Thanks also to Kenneth Larsen, DDS, certified in choice theory/reality therapy and faculty of WGI-US for public health implementation ideas.
Bibliography Peter Breggin (1991) Toxic Psychiatry, St. Martin’s Press. New York Peter Breggin and David Cohen (1999) Your Drug May Be Your Problem,Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA Richard Gasden (2001) Punishing the Patient, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, Australia Joseph Glenmullen (2001) Prozac Backlash, Simon and Schuster, New York, NY Lucy Johnstone (1989) Users and Abusers of Psychiatry, Routledge Publishers, London, UK Terry Lynch (2004) Beyond Prozac, Bath Press, Bath, UK Robert Whitaker, (2002) Mad In America, Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA