Vulvodynia expert Dr. Caroline Pukall rejoins the CPA podcast Mind Full for a special episode on Provoked Vestibulodynia and a major study happening in Sweden.
We speak with members of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity section about issues facing the LGBTQ+ community during the pandemic, the history of the fight for marriage equality and the more recent effort to ban conversion therapy. We also learn a new term: ‘Femmephobia’.
Dr. Steve Joordens gave his first-year psychology class a group project – bust some myths around homelessness by collaborating with a local organization. Zaynab Azeem was inspired to work with Blankets for TO, and has turned that inspiration into a podcast of her own!
Dr. Meghan McMurtry joins Mind Full to talk about needle fears, needle pain, and coping strategies for all of us who experience one or the other. This includes advice about vaccinating infants and very young children.
Dr. Houyuan Luo joins Mind Full to talk about his own struggles during the pandemic, and how he tries to avoid burnout. We also discuss options for people who are able to access therapy, and for those who can not.
Dr. Stryker Calvez and Dr. David Danto talk Truth, Reconciliation, and the role of Psychology from the perspective of an Indigenous psychologist and an ally. We discuss Indigenous ways of knowing and how the apply to psychology, as well as the genocide perpetrated by Canadians against our Indigenous people.
Dr. Jesse Bosse is a gender-queer psychologist in Ottawa who works primarily with trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse people. Aida is a young trans person who is currently undergoing Hormone Replacement Therapy. We spoke to them both about the issues confronting gender diverse people, human rights issues, and the effects of the pandemic on this population.”
Dr. Ada Sinacore is an expert in human rights issues surrounding gender diversity. Dr. Keira Stockdale is an expert in the psychology of criminal justice. They are part of a group working to put out a statement on gender diversity amid an increase in violence and legislation targeted at the gender diverse community. We discuss LGBTQ2s+ rights in relation to education, the criminal justice system, and the discipline of psychology itself.
Canadian Indigenous Artist Betty Albert has created a design for a T-shirt that the CPA sold at the 83rd annual convention in Calgary. All proceeds went to an Indigenous charity working towards healing for Indigenous communities in Canada. We discuss art, residential schools, and the remarkable capabilities of Photoshop!
Gina Ko is a psychologist in Alberta who has been working in anti-racism for a while. She realized many of her colleagues in that space had great stories to share, so she started the podcast Against The Tides Of Racism. You can find her podcast on Spotify, or at the website here:
www.againstracismpodcast.com/
Glenn Brimacombe is the director of Policy and Public Affairs at the Canadian Psychological Association, and has just created an advocacy guide for the CPA’s member psychologists to help them in their efforts to speak with MPPs and get their message out. He joins Eric (who just created a companion Working-With-The-Media guide for members) to discuss advocacy and the role of psychologists in public policy making.
Vulvodynia is a condition that affects between 8-28% of all women – but it’s still a relatively unknown term. Dr. Caroline Pukall, one of Canada’s leading experts in vulvodynia, joins Mind Full to explain it to Eric and Kathryn.
Charlotte Smith spent years as a youth experiencing homelessness on and off again. Avery has also recently experienced homelessness and abuse in the foster care system. They join Mind Full with Dr. Nick Kerman, a psychologist who has spent his career studying homelessness and housing interventions.
Dr. Melissa Tiessen and Dr. Karen Dyck created the Intentional Therapist network to help female mental health professionals (themselves included!) stay healthy and happy through intentional and playful self-care.
Dr. Mari Swingle wrote the book ‘i-Minds: How and Why Constant Connectivity is Rewiring Our Brains and What to Do About it’. We discuss the revelations from Facebook research that shows Instagram’s negative effect on young girls, in particular – something Dr. Swingle has been writing about for years.
Dr. Krishana Sankar returns to Mind Full to talk about the science and data around vaccines and COVID-19. Dr. Sankar and the other experts at Science Up First are continuing to combat online disinformation, which is ever-changing and doesn’t show signs of slowing down.
Dr. Tyler Black is a psychiatrist who specializes in suicidology. When, early in the pandemic, wild claims were being made about the spike in suicide we were sure to see as a result of lockdowns, he pushed back with his expertise in the field (spoiler alert – he was right, and suicide actually decreased). He became one of the experts at Science Up First, combatting disinformation online.
Zuraida Dada is a psychologist in Alberta who grew up under the apartheid system in South Africa. She was an activist despite the danger, a scholar despite the odds, and was part of the intelligentsia that rebuilt the country as it became a democracy.
Dr. Adrienne Leslie-Toogood and University of Manitoba psychology student (and Olympic swimming medallist) Chantal Van Landeghem discuss the mental health of elite athletes in the wake of Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from Wimbledon.
Students at the University of Calgary created podcasts for their final project in Jim Cresswell’s History of Psychology course. Listen here to learn more about Cognitive Dissonance Theory with one group, and the Bystander Effect with another.”
Dr. David Goldbloom’s new book We Can Do Better: Urgent Innovations to Improve Mental Health Access and Care lays out 8 different innovations that can improve access and care right now in Canada. The CPA’s director of policy and public affairs, Glenn Brimacombe, speaks to Dr. Goldbloom about his book and the future of mental health care in this country.
Psychology Month has focused on dozens of aspects of the pandemic, a global catastrophe that is deeply tragic. To close out Psychology Month 2021, we focus on a few positives that have come about as a result of COVID-19.
Introducing The Coping Toolbox: A Child Psych Podcast. Dr. Jenn Vriend, Dr. Laila Din Osmun, and Dr. Mary Simmering McDonald are three child psychologists from Ottawa.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-coping-toolbox-a-child-psych-podcast/id1553993639
Some of the psychologists doing interesting things during the pandemic
Meet some of the psychologists who have been profiled in this Psychology Month. We speak with Dr. Adrienne Leslie-Toogood, Dr. Christine Chambers, Courtney Gosselin and Dr. Mélanie Joanisse about their work during the pandemic.
Dr. Maya Yampolsky spoke to us about the intersection of the pandemic and both structural and overt racism. It was too much to put into just one profile, so we are sharing the whole conversation on Mind Full.
Dr. Steven Taylor of UBC was the first person to identify a need for a comprehensive look at the psychology surrounding pandemics. His book, “The Psychology of Pandemics: Preparing for the next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease” was published presciently in October of 2019, a month before the first COVID-19 case appeared in Wuhan.
TK Manyimo will be hosting a workshop over two days, November 5th and 6th, for the CPA. Having A Courageous Conversation is all about equity, diversity, and inclusion in Canadian workplaces. Details on the workshop to come, in the meantime here is a sneak preview.
October 8 is the Carleton University Department of Psychology’s Psychology Mental Health Day. The keynote speaker this year is former CPA President Dr. Keith Dobson. We spoke with Dr. Dobson on the CPA Podcast, so his upcoming appearance (and his upcoming conference call with the World Health Organization) wouldn’t seem so daunting by comparison.
Dr. Marnin Heisel co-wrote the CPA Fact Sheet on suicide, and also co-wrote the Canadian media guidelines for the reporting on suicide. He joins us to talk pandemic, advocacy, and moving forward with a National Suicide Prevention Strategy.
Dr. Monnica Williams, Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities and Associate Professor in the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Ottawa, joins us to talk about the effects of racial trauma, the path of racial justice, and why we need to stop sharing the George Floyd video.
Dr. Anusha Kassan is an Associate Professor at UBC. She helped launch an innovative program to increase diversity in the counselling psychology program when she was at the University of Calgary, and is carrying it over to her new location. We discuss the lack of diversity in mental health professionals, and what psychologists can do to be prepared to help people dealing with racial trauma.
Dr. Judi Malone, CEO of the Psychologists Association of Alberta, and Dr. Ray Bollman, Rural and Small Town specialist with Statistics Canada, join us to talk about rural and northern communities in the time of COVID-19.
Connected North from TakingITGlobal was the recipient of the CPA’s 2020 Humanitarian award for their work connecting youth in remote northern Canadian communities to educational programs, activism, and mentors through 2-way video technology. We spoke to Waukomaun Pawis at Connected North about their programs, indigenous role models, and coping with COVID.
Dr. Helen Ofosu is a Work and Business Psychologist who runs I/O Advisory Services, a HR Consulting, Career and Executive Coaching firm. She has spent a lot of time solving problems in the workplace and joins us to discuss the dual crises of COVID-19 and anti-Black racism. The blog articles referred to can be found on https://ioadvisory.com/
Dr. Heather Prime and two colleagues collaborated on a paper called “Risk and Resilience in Family Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic”. They turned to previous crises (natural disasters, economic crashes, etc) to better understand where families are at and may be headed during COVID-19. You can find their paper here: psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2020-34995-001.html
E.L. Adams II is a psychologist based in Kingston who has started a podcast to connect music with mental health. To listen to his podcast Mental Health, Mood, and Music, click here: https://vimeo.com/elapsychology
Dr. Wendy Wood is a clinical psychologist in Montreal, the epicentre of Canada’s COVID-19 crisis. She is launching the #NotAlone campaign to get free mental health assistance to as many Canadians as possible.
How has the change in our work environment due to COVID-19 affected us? And when we eventually all go back to work, what will that environment look like? Dr. Lindsay McCunn, chair of the CPA’s Environmental Psychology section, elaborates.
Dr. Amy Tan is an MD in Calgary, and recently became the CPA’s 5,000th Twitter follower. We spoke to her about this tremendous achievement (and also about Advanced Care Planning and being an MD during COVID).
Dr. Khush Amaria and her colleagues at Mind Beacon have launched a free online mental health resource for the time of the COVID pandemic. Stronger Minds has many videos and interactive features designed to support mental health and assist those who need help.
For a long time, Dr. Khush Amaria has been working with technology to provide remote psychological services. As her group Mind Beacon launches the free online platform Stronger Minds, she joins us to discuss the unique challenges and opportunities of online therapy.
Quick chat with Dr. Brent MacDonald of MacDonald Psychology Group in Calgary. Dr. MacDonald discusses coping strategies we can all use during the pandemic, and remaining hopeful about the good things that can eventually arise as a result.
Quick chat with Dr. Kimberly Sogge of Ottawa River Psychology Group. Is the current response to the COVID pandemic an opportunity for us to take on climate change next?
Newly elected Chair of the CPA’s Traumatic Stress Section talks about the Nova Scotia shooting, and the power of social media to engender a sense of community in the wake of such a tragedy.
Quick chat with Dr. Brent MacDonald of MacDonald Psychology Group in Calgary. Dr. MacDonald sees several interesting opportunities arising from COVID-19 and the way we’re all adapting to isolation.
Quick chat with Dr. Brent MacDonald of MacDonald Psychology Group in Calgary, who discusses the rise in anxiety thanks to COVID-19.
Daily Audio Update: Dr. Heather MacIntosh on ‘Big T’ vs. ‘little t’ trauma
It’s something of a colloquialism, but the distinction between ‘Big T’ and ‘little t’ trauma is one that matters in the current context of COVID-19. Dr. Heather MacIntosh joins us to discuss that distinction.
Heather MacIntosh ‘Big T’ vs. ‘little t’ trauma
In your blog post you make the distinction between ‘Big T’ and ‘little t’. What is that distinction?
It’s a very generic term, it’s a big of a colloquialism, but the idea is that there are things that happen to us in life that are difficult, and can at the time feel traumatic. But they don’t knock us off our socks. So a ‘little t’ trauma would be something like a major life event – the loss of a partner, a big breakup.
But a ‘Big T’ trauma is something that really knocks your socks off. It’s something that causes you to have to stop in your tracks, regroup, and kind of figure out the meaning of life again. Those traumas are things like sexual abuse or sexual violence, domestic violence in the home. Things where your life is put at threat, or you’re witnessing someone else’s life at threat. Where there’s a lot of terror and helplessness.
And so the impacts of those different events are very different long term. And that’s not to say that what is a ‘Big T’ trauma to one person might not be a ‘little t’ trauma to someone else. So much is about where we come from, our own experiences growing up and how secure we feel in ourselves, and the age and stage we are at when those things happen.
Would you say that in the current situation with the added stress, the added fear, and the added anxiety, that more often what would have been a small t trauma can turn into a big t trauma?
Part of what is unique about this situation is the sense of helplessness that people have about being unable to do much about it. So there’s a global thing that’s happening. This pandemic has a very particular trajectory. On the one hand we’re being told stay home, that’s the thing you can do to help. On the other hand we’re being told that it could get out of control and everyone’s health could be at risk.
For people who are in first responder situations it’s very difficult at some level – I’m not an epidemiologist so I can’t really speak to this – there is a concern that infection rates among first responders are really high. So for the people who feel like there’s something they’re actively doing out in the world to mitigate by providing various services, those people’s lives are at risk by doing the thing they do. So that fits into one category.
Then there are the people who are staying at home and providing (like myself) mental health services. We’re watching people on the front lines as we provide services, and the CPA has come up with a list of psychologists who are willing to do some pro-bono services, I’m also on that list. We’re a little bit feeling helpless about how to be most of service. That can really feed into a sense of the heightening of the fight-flight-and-freeze response.
Some of us feel – and again this is very much about where we come from in terms of our own lives and our own traumas – being in our homes can feel very traumatizing, so something that might be a stressor like worrying about a family member being sick, having a parent in a retirement home.
In the past you might have gone to the gym, gone for a run, gone out with a friend. You might have had a number of strategies you would use that would help you manage that fight-flight-freeze response. Now we’re being asked to stay at home and so the fight-flight-freeze has nowhere to go.
Thankfully there are a lot of really amazing people putting meditations online, putting yogas online, putting various resources including psychotherapy into online spaces. And I would really encourage people to use those resources, because being able to connect with someone outside of your family unit, to be able to be as honest as you need to be about how distressed you are, may make a real difference in how people come out of this.
Daily Audio Update: Dr. Heather MacIntosh, 7 tips for coping with trauma
Daily Audio Update: Dr. Karen Cohen on advocacy during COVID-19
Quick chat with CPA CEO Dr. Karen Cohen about advocacy during COVID-19. Calling for insurers to cover tele-psychology, and drop the requirements for a physician referral for psychological services.
Dr. Karen Cohen on telehealth advocacy
What is on the docket for the CPA in terms of advocacy for psychologists doing tele-psychology?
Advocacy for access to funded psychological services has been on the docket for us for some time. I think there are some exciting things happening now. The Canadian Alliance for Mental Illness and Mental Health (CAMIMH), for example, is putting together a policy position calling for parity – so, requiring our governments and funders to provide coverage equivalently for mental and physical disorders.
HEAL, which is organizations for Health Action, all the national health care organizations, also has access to mental health services as one of it’s advocacy priorities. And the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) has put together a network on which CPA sits, looking at access to psychotherapies for Canadians. So that work will continue.
In the current situation, we’ve been in touch with the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) and we’ve been calling on them to reach out to all their members, who are all the individual insurers, to cover services delivered virtually by psychologists. Every plan differs and that’s one of the challenges when it comes to doing advocacy when it comes to access, particularly in the private sector. There’s not one funder and there’s not one plan and there’s not one plan sponsor. They all have oversight individually over what those plans look like, so you can imagine how many conversations have to be had to make the change we’re looking for.
This is why it’s helpful to have an organization like CLHIA, because they have a conduit to their insurance members. The other thing we’ve been asking them is that some policies have a requirement for a physician referral. So to access a psychologist, the plan will cover it IF you’re referred by a physician. We’ve been calling on them for some time to waive this requirement, and especially now.
Our health providers – family doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners – are working hard to address the needs of patients and particularly the needs of patients who might have concerns about COVID. Having them make a referral to a psychologist who is someone you could otherwise see without the referral, doesn’t make a lot of sense. So we’re working hard to try to advocate for that as well.
Quick chat with CPA CEO Dr. Karen Cohen about the fact sheet Psychological Practice and the Coronavirus, as well as the future of psychological tele-health services.
Dr. Karen Cohen on the Psychology Practice Fact Sheet & Tele-Health
On the fact sheet you wrote, Psychological Practice and the Coronavirus, you mention growing evidence that psychological services can be delivered effectively through tele-health. What is that evidence?
I would encourage folks who want to learn more about the delivery of psychological services through electronic media to read some of the work that’s being done now by psychologist members – Dr. Heather Hadjistavropoulous, Dr. Stephane Bouchard, Dr. Peter Cornish. There really is mounting evidence that internet-delivered CBT is effective in the treatment of depression and anxiety.
I think there are things you need to know if you’re going to adapt your service to deliver it virtually. We have some excellent materials on the COVID page of our website and resources for folks who want to inform themselves, and some of the things they need to know when delivering services in that way.
Assuming you’re a practitioner who has a private and secure platform to do tele-psychology, what are a few of the things they need to know?
Obviously, you need to talk to your clients about their comfort using that technology, you need to be sure that whatever mechanism you choose is safe and secure. You need to know you’re always talking to your client, you need to use passwords to confirm their identity when that’s necessary.
BMS, who’s the broker of our professional liability insurance program, and our preferred legal provider Gowlings, have a series of fact sheets, also on our COVID website, that talk about things you need to be aware of when you deliver tele-psychology. You want to be aware whether your client’s insurance is going to pay for a session delivered by tele-psychology. Or you can have your client find that out before you begin, don’t assume it will necessarily be the case.
It’s always a good idea to put on a receipt the type of service that was delivered and in what format. Inform yourself on the things that impact the delivery of psychological service differently when you’re delivering it virtually.
I saw a few health insurers come out and say they’ll be covering tele-psychology in what appears to be a blanket way. Sun Life I think was one. If you saw your health insurance provider come out and say that, can you assume that you’re covered and you’re good to go with virtual therapy sessions?
Not necessarily. I think the issue is that although the insurer may decide that given COVID or for any other reason they’re going to cover tele-psychology, it’s important to understand that everyone’s plan isn’t necessarily the same. If two people had different policies, which they would if they had two different employers, they would still need to confirm that that particular policy will cover it.
You’ve said there are skills and competencies unique to tele-psychology. What are some of those?
It’s probably best for our membership to consult those who are more expert than I. Dr. Christine Korol, for example, has some resources on her website that would be very useful. In broad strokes, it’s about your comfort with technology, that you go seek out training from folks who have made a practice of delivering psychological services virtually so you know what those are and are aware of any differences that method of service delivery can present.
You’ll want to know how to prepare your clients for working in this way, make sure they’re comfortable with it and you understand their comfort with it. The important thing to keep in mind is that all other professional standards still apply. Everything you would need to do in terms of competencies and skills and informed consent and continuity of care when you’re delivering care face to face would still apply when you’re delivering care virtually.
I’ve been talking to Dr. Korol, and she suggested getting a white noise machine to put outside your home office so as not to be interrupted and ensure privacy.
Those are things that would apply in any setting, of course. In a busy clinic you might need a white noise machine outside any room to ensure privacy as well. So some of the things are very transferrable, and some are more particular to that kind of service delivery.
I think it’s worth underscoring that there are some populations for whom telepsychology might work even better. If you’re in a rural or remote location, or up north in a province where there aren’t a lot of psychologists in that area, being able to talk to one virtually could be wonderful. If you have any kind of mobility issues, or you’re a senior, it may be easier for you to talk to someone from your own home rather than travelling a physical distance to meet them.
One of the things we’ve been talking about as health professional organizations, and we’ve been meeting regularly and sharing resources around COVID, is “will COVID change the way we deliver health care?” Psychology is one of those professions that lends itself a little more easily to tele-health than other professions. You know dentists, for example, would have a lot of trouble doing their work virtually.
Maybe we’re ramping up a little quicker now with COVID, and those practitioners who maybe weren’t using tele-psychology much are now doing more so now. But are these changes that are going to be permanent in the fabric of health care and tele-health care?
It may be a learning curve right now in terms of delivering and receiving these services, but in the future it might become a whole new business model – do you think that’s likely?
I think so! I think once people become familiar, and see how these services can be best delivered within the context of their scope of practice, I do think we’ll see it more and more. I know that as an association we’ve been working very hard with a practice management platform to bring an offering to our members. Hopefully we’re just on the verge of being able to announce that. It’s one that really has the psychologist-practitioner at the centre, and features a whole suite of services to help you manage your practice.
I think that one of the things individual practitioners run up against is that when you’re a salaried practitioner at a hospital or a school you have an institution to rely on who does some of that diligence around providing a secure and private platform. But when you’re in private practice and you don’t have that institutional resource, there’s more pressure on you to make the best choice. That it’s a practice management offering that meets your needs, that’s secure, that’s private.
So, as an association we hope to be able to do some of that diligence for our members and we hope to be able to announce this offering very shortly.
Alright, now I want to talk about remote dentistry.