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Sharing Goals for Resiliency and Social Media as a Tool for Suicide Prevention
In this podcast, taken from a live Q&A session at the Psych Congress Regionals virtual meeting, Saundra Jain, MA, PsyD, LPC, Adjunct Clinical Affiliate, University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing, Austin, Texas, and Jill Harkavy-Friedman, PhD, Vice President of Research, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Columbia University, New York, New York, discuss resiliency and connection to others to aide in suicide prevention.
Dr Harkavy-Friedman stayed connected with patients via TwitterTM throughout the COVID-19 pandemic by sharing 4 daily goals for resiliency.
Read the Transcript:
Dr Saundra Jain: Here's a question, and this one is of huge interest to me, because, Jill, you know that you and I are very interested in resiliency and social connectedness.
This clinician is asking, "When it comes to protective factors, which you talked about in your presentation, I've read some about resiliency and connection with others. Dr Jill, do you think it's possible to teach patients how to build their resiliency? If you do, how do we go about doing that?"
Dr Jill Harkavy-Friedman: Yes, I do think it's possible to teach people resiliency. We also can teach them to maintain their resilience reservoir, so it doesn't get so depleted that they don't have access to it.
AFSP funded the development of a wonderful website that was based on the DBT principles. It's called nowmattersnow.org. All one word, nowmattersnow.org. There are videos and tools based on, as I said, the DBT principles that people can sign on so you can send your patients to as an adjunct.
There are people with lived experience talking about ways to build resilience, build mindfulness, decrease that reactivity that happens. Absolutely. It takes practice, like anything else, but I do think that we can build it.
I also think we have access to it more or less at various points. I personally think that most people have resilience, but we have to help them access it and build it.
Dr Jain: Tap into it. Jill, I know in a previous conversation, you were telling me that during COVID, I think it was Twitter that you send out a daily tweet...
Dr Harkavy-Friedman: I do.
Dr Jain: Can you tell us a little bit about that? I think it's creative, it's beneficial, and you've got good feedback from people.
Dr Harkavy-Friedman: It's funny, I started this early in COVID as a way if it reaches one person. Just about how to structure your day and things that you do. I don't know why I chose 4 daily goals, but every day, I tweet out daily goals.
Often, the first goal is to set goals for the day, but then I try to add things that we, and I myself, might forget about when we're in the throes of COVID, including washing my mask, seeing my doctor, sharing information about suicide and different aspects of suicide, tips about how to develop and maintain resilience.
I tweet it once a day, Friday as my Friday look-back, look-forward, and set 3 goals for the day. On the weekends, I don't share technical material that I do share during the week. I share mostly AFSP materials that are relevant to what's going on.
On the weekend, I just share my photographs, [laughs] because you have to take the weekend off. I'm always surprised that I think, "Hmm, maybe I should stop doing this and somebody will like it or ask me a question." So, I'm still doing it. If it helps one person, I'm happy to do that.
I find those goals, stretch, take a breath, go outside, those basic goals that are so easy to forget, and that's what I tweet.
Dr Jain: Perfect. I love it and I'm so glad I remembered that so I could invite you to share that with our colleagues today. Jill, we're down to maybe a minute left. I will say there's never enough time.
Between your conversation, our conversation, and then the one that we're about to have with Manish, we could extend this to 2 hours. There's so much information you've commented and shared with us, so many different resources that I believe are going to be hugely valuable to our Psych Congress family and all of their patients that they're taking care of.
One last question, what are you most excited about for the future when it comes to suicide prevention?
Dr Harkavy-Friedman: I'm excited for all of us embracing each other, checking in, and learning and knowing warning signs, and having a starter conversation about, how are you doing and how can I help? Having that stigma removed so that we can all help each other.
And, 988 is another exciting moment. 988 is going to be the three-digit National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number. With that, we're going to be building out a crisis system on a national level. Of course, I could go on forever, because I am excited about most things.
When I started, people didn't talk about this. People captured me on the way to the ladies' room and asked me, but never in public. Now, people are talking about it, and that's how we're going to help save lives.
Dr Jain: I love it. In a nutshell, Jill, as I was listening, two things bubbled up, conversation and connection. What I love is in this ask-the-expert time that we have together today, that's what we're doing. We're connecting, we're having conversations.
I want to thank you, Dr. Jill, for spending time with us today. It is always a pleasure. We take care of so many patients and this is an opportunity to share our wisdom, our experience, and we're very grateful to you. Again, glad you could be with us.
Dr Harkavy-Friedman: Thank you so much. It's a great opportunity, because we're all in it together and we have to have these conversations.
Saundra Jain, MA, PsyD, LPC, is an Adjunct Clinical Affiliate at the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing in Austin, Texas in addition to serving as the executive director of the Mental Aerobics Project, which focuses on wellness and psychology. She provides service for mental heath issues through her private practice of psychotherapy. Dr Jain received her masters degree from the University of Houston-Cedar Lake and her doctoral degree from Southern California University for Professional Studies.
Jill Harkavy-Friedman, PhD, is the Vice President of Research and leader of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s research grant program at Columbia University in New York, New York. Her work aims to advance the field of suicide prevention. In addition to her clinical practice in Manhattan, Dr Harkavy-Friedman has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and works with multiple research organizations across the globe. Dr Harkavy-Friedman received her BA in Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and her PhD in Clinical Psychology from he University of Florida.
