My article for this week is called “Poverty and Mental Health Practice: Within and Beyond the 50-Minute Hour” by Lisa Goodman, Meghan Pugach, Avy Skolnik, and Laura Smith. It is suggested that there are several dimensions to the issue of poverty and mental health practice that need to be addressed in order to get impoverished mentally ill people the help that they need and keep them on said treatment or program. These include exclusion and isolation of poor people, limited access and use of mental health services by low-income adults, and the structure of practice and accommodation for poor people that is currently in place. The article first discusses the relationship between mental health problems and poverty. Prolonged living in stress leads to anger, fear, hopelessness, and isolation. The stressful living situation and isolation leads to feelings of powerlessness and low levels of feeling that they are in control or have a sense of autonomy. These states of being and the mindsets acquired as a result indicate high risk for developing mental illnesses. Lack of insurance, cost of treatment, service hours, transportation, and limited accommodations for low-income individuals act as barriers to accessing mental health services and treatment. If a low-income client is able to make it to a service in the first place they may be met by unwilling clinicians, which research shows causes low-income adults to give up seeking treatment. Low-income clients who make it to a therapy session may also be unwilling to fully disclose important information to their therapist out of the concern that someone from a different class than them would not be able to understand or help them. The article lists suggestions to combat these issues. The solutions include “transportation to and from therapy, home visits, childcare, and flexible scheduling, as well as case management that involves assessing clients’ external stressors and instrumental needs and developing intervention to address them” (Goodman, 2012). It is also important to train mental health professionals to overcome any discomfort they might have in regards to their low-income clients, because it can lead to the professional avoiding certain topics. The article suggests this can be combated through “increasing self-awareness of own class, awareness of assumptions about poverty, knowledge of poverty’s psycho-social impact, and knowledge of the effective interventions for addressing the negative psycho-social consequences of poverty” (Goodman, 2012). This is important to my topic because several contributing factors to the issue of mental health service access and poverty are discussed (+how this facilitates mental illness) and possible solutions are suggested, giving me more perspectives to explore when it comes to formulating my final research proposal.

Goodman, L., Pugach, M., Skolnik, A., Smith, L. (2012). Poverty and Mental Health Practice: Within and Beyond the 50-Minute Hour. Journal of Clinical Psychology. (Vol. 69, Iss. 2). doi: https://doi-org.ezproxy.redlands.edu/10.1002/jclp.21957