Day 3 Recap of the 2024 Mental Health America Conference Mental Health America wrapped up the third and final day of its annual conference with robust programming that explored new approaches to substance use disorder, lived experience research, student approaches to improving mental health on college campuses and the vital role of spirituality in one’s well-being. It started with a keynote speech by Dr. Nzinga Harrison, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer at Eleanor Health.
Dr. Harrison, a psychiatrist, addiction medicine specialist, author, speaker and activist, emphasized a “cultural” approach to mental health in addition to the traditional biopsychosocial model. Specifically, she discussed the importance of racism-informed care, which recognizes the role that race-based trauma plays in a person’s life.
Dr. Harrison noted that therapy can involve uncomfortable conversations.
“In the same way that we want to show compassion to people seeking to begin their journey of recovery from addiction, we want to show compassion to people seeking to begin their recovery from racism,” he said.
Following the morning keynote, three breakout sessions explored cutting-edge approaches to youth mental health, substance use disorder treatment, and mental health research.
During a discussion titled “Lift the Mask Club: A Student-Led Approach to Normalizing and Improving Mental Health on College Campuses,” three young mental health leaders, Emily A. Abbott, Ashley Panzino, and Allie Rosenberg, discussed how mental health resources need to change along with the minds of young people as they leave high school for college. Sponsored by the Quell Foundation, the Lift the Mask Club initiative is a program created by students for students, helping them navigate difficult conversations and support each other.
In a session titled “Breaking Barriers: Addressing Dual Diagnosis with Ketamine and New Treatment Approaches,” Dr. Abid Nazeer, founder and chief medical officer of Hopemark Health, described ketamine’s promise to help treat both psychiatric symptoms and of the underlying substance. use.
“When we talk about dual diagnosis, one principle is more important: Address both,” said Dr. Nazeer. “You face just one and the results drop. If you tackle both, you’ll have the best chance of success.”
The MHA research team held a session entitled ‘Your Voice Matters: Integrating Lived Experience in MHA Research’, which explored how lived experience is integrated into both research and the development of new technologies, such as the digital peer bridger tool for substance use.
“With people where I used to be, I was thinking what I was thinking, ‘There’s no way out,'” said Patricia Franklin, MHA board member and peer support specialist. “Telling someone my story, seeing where I’ve come from and what I’ve been through, could help someone else and that’s what excites me.”
The final keynote featured a much-anticipated conversation with Dr. Lisa Miller, New York Times best-selling author and professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Miller is also the founder and director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program and research institute in spirituality and psychology, and has held over a decade of joint appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University School of Medicine.
Dr. Miller shared highlights of her groundbreaking work that has shown the protective effects of spirituality on brain well-being.
“Depression and the spiritual life are inextricably linked,” he said. “Despair is a gateway to awakening. Each of us has this opportunity.”
“This is your birthright. No one can ever take that away from you,” he added.
In closing the conference, MHA President and CEO Schroeder Stribling expressed his gratitude to all who attended, including speakers, board members and staff, for making it such a moving conference.
“At Mental Health America, together we envision a future where everyone has a fair chance at health, healing and whole-person flourishing,” Stribling said. “And that’s what you do.”
