What are your attachments and your difficulties in letting go? What benefit does your attachment serve you?
Inner Door Center® Volunteer Feature: Jessica Jodoin
Meet Jessica Jodoin! She volunteered with us at Inner Door Center® from May to August 2010.
What did you do during your volunteer experience at Inner Door Center®?: I helped organize medical charts, researched and put together a PowerPoint presentation pertaining to anorexia nervosa and Diabetes. Assisted Beverly on researching for numerous research papers. Helped prepare lunches and snacks for patients. Put together flyers for the treatment center.
What was something that stood out to you about your experience at Inner Door Center®?: I loved it when I got the chance to participate in the classes and have one-on-one time with the patients.
What are you doing now?: Just graduated from college and will be starting my dietetic internship at Michigan State University in the fall!
What was your favorite class in college?: My favorite class out of my whole college career is definitely Human Anatomy, we had the opportunity to work with cadavers.
How did your volunteer experience at Inner Door Center® help you to get where you are now?: Helped me enrich my knowledge of eating disorders, as well as see what goes into owning your own business.
What are your career goals – short term, long term, etc.?: Short term goals include continuing to gain experience in the field and specialty of eating disorders. My long term goals include getting my LPC, or Wellness Coach Certification along with passing my RD exam.
How does your future career relate to what you did at Inner Door Center®?: Working alongside Beverly Price allowed me to interact with the environment that I someday hope to work in.
Why would you recommend volunteering at Inner Door Center® to other students?: I would definitely recommend volunteering at the Inner Door Center to other students! My experience there was great and I would do it again.
Boundaries in Eating Disorder Treatment
Almost everyone is familiar with the traditional ethical boundaries in therapy between clients and their therapists. The relationship between a client and their therapist is supposed to remain professional – they don’t associate with each other outside of their professional relationship, and aspects of a personal relationship are never brought into the therapy sessions.
What about relationships between clients in therapy together? We often have small to large groups of women and men together in the eating disorder recovery programs offered at Inner Door Center®. Because their struggles are similar, clients often form bonds with each other during treatment. This is important for their recovery, but when do these bonds break boundaries that can interfere with their treatment?
Clients seeing each other outside of treatment while in recovery may cause issues that disrupt treatment. Although this might seem like a good idea – to have clients come together and bond beyond just the treatment center walls – it can be detrimental while clients are still in the throes of an eating disorder. Bonds outside of program can multiply the issues that are happening during treatment. Clients spending a lot of time together outside of program may start to feed off each other’s disorders and behaviors, find issues within the program that become multiplied by discussing it with each other, etc. Certainly the focus can become less about recovery and treatment and more about sabotage.
After clients have become more seeded in their recovery, it is important for them to connect with other program participants in their everyday lives, if they should choose to do so. Their common bond and the tools that they have learned during program will help them to stay in check outside of treatment. We offer a free monthly program (Reconnect with Recovery) at Inner Door Center® for this very reason – for our clients to reconnect with their recovery and with their peers that shared in their recovery experience at Inner Door Center®.
The next Reconnect with Recovery (a FREE program!) is June 16th, 2012 from 11am-1pm at Inner Door Center®. Visit the website to learn more and to register for this event.
Don’t forget about our upcoming fundraising event Stereotype Event. This event will take place at the Detroit Opera House on Thursday June 14th, 2012 from 6:30pm-11:00pm. You can learn more about the event by visiting www.stereotype-event.com. Tickets may also be purchased at the website.
Reflective Question: How do you define yourself?
Do you consider yourself strong or weak? Do you define yourself in relation to your eating disorder/addiction?
When recovering from an addiction or an eating disorder, you may at times feel that you are strong for tackling the recovery process. At other times you may feel weak for needing to get help. Perhaps you are afraid of recovery because you have never taken care of or nurtured yourself.
Inner Door Center® Supports the 7th Annual MOM 5K Run/Walk
On May 5th, 2012 staff and advisory board members of Inner Door Center® participated in the 7th Annual MOM (Mind Over Matter) 5k Run/Walk for Mental Health Awareness and Suicide Prevention.
Here we are in our bright green neon shirts promoting our own mental health awareness event – Stereotype Event.
As you read in our last blog article, May is Mental Health month and the MOM 5k Run/Walk is just one event that promotes mental health awareness in Michigan. According to the MOM website, “over 30,000 Americans die each year from suicide and an attempt at suicide is made every minute. Approximately 90% of people who die from suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder. An estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 & older suffer from depression, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, and other mental health disorders. This translates to over 58 million adults, not to mention the growing number of conditions being identified in children. Just like physical conditions, mental disorders can be serious and even fatal.”
So on Cinco de Mayo, we joined other survivors, victims, advocates, friends and families for the MOM (Mind Over Matter) 5k Run/Walk. The race is held every year on the Saturday before Mother’s Day. MOM was started by a family who tragically lost their mother to suicide after a long struggle with schizophrenia. They wanted to promote mental health awareness and suicide prevention so that other families may not have to go through the terrible loss that they had experienced.
Two participants from Inner Door Center® starting the race among many others running and walking for mental health awareness and suicide prevention.
For us, this event had a dual purpose. At Inner Door Center® we support any organization or event that promotes mental health awareness and well-being. We work hard every single day to provide excellent, comprehensive mental health treatment to all of our clients. We also participated in this event to promote eating disorder awareness among the other runners and walkers. Our bright neon green t-shirts promoted our upcoming event – Stereotype Event – and brought us together as a team. People were curious about the shirts, and it gave us a chance to advocate for our cause – eating disorder awareness and prevention. We were happy to support this cause and honored that others were interested in ours.
Stereotype Event is coming soon! Please join us on June 14th, 2012 at the Detroit Opera House for a night of entertainment and education. We hope to break the stereotypes of eating disorders and promote awareness and prevention through this event. Proceeds from the event will help us to create a far-reaching network for others struggling with eating disorders and searching for help. Please visit the event website to learn more and join this event.
Inner Door Center® offers outpatient mental health treatment for a wide range of disorders, as well as comprehensive treatment programs for eating disorders and substance abuse. If you or someone you know needs help, please contact us at (248) 336-2868 or visit our website: www.innerdoorcenter.com
May is Mental Health Month
May was established as Mental Health Month in 1949 to increase the public’s awareness of mental health conditions and the prevention and treatment of mental health disorders. Last year, 45.9 million adult Americans had a mental illness, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Chances are that you know someone that has experienced mental illness, or maybe you have suffered yourself. Mental Health Month is meant to celebrate recovery and to promote prevention and treatment. According to SAMHSA, “We know that mental health is essential for a person’s overall health; prevention works; treatment is effective; and people can recover from mental disorders and live full and productive lives.”
National Prevention Week is May 20-26, 2012. The purpose of this awareness week is to recognize the efforts of groups and individuals who work to prevent substance abuse and promote mental, emotional and behavioral well being throughout the year. The timing of this event is perfect – the end of May usually coincides with the end of the school year and the beginning of many celebrations for people young and old (prom, graduation parties, family gatherings, weddings, camping excursions, boating, etc.) that sometimes include mind-altering substances such as drugs and alcohol. Per the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) website “The percentages of marijuana, cigarette and alcohol initiates among youth increase between spring (April and May) and summer (June and July), and the timing of National Prevention Week 2012 will help to raise awareness in youth at this crucial time of year.”
At Inner Door Center® we are constantly reaching out to the community to promote mental health awareness especially related to eating disorders and substance abuse. We have found that many people are misinformed about these conditions, or have very little experience with them. Currently Inner Door Center® is planning an outreach event called Stereotype Event to raise awareness in our community about eating disorder prevention and treatment. Visit the Stereotype Event website for more information.
Also, look for our blog article tomorrow featuring how Inner Door Center® helped raise mental health awareness in our own community on Cinco de Mayo!
If you or someone you know is dealing with substance abuse problems or has an eating disorder, please visit our website at www.innerdoorcenter.com to learn more about our unique treatment programs.
Reflective Question: We are sensual people
Having a good relationship with your sensual side makes you a healthier person. What are ways in which you express your sensuality? Keep it PG-13 everyone! 
Inner Door Center® Staff Feature: Tawana Jackson, RMA
Meet Tawana Jackson, RMA and Utilization Review Specialist at Inner Door Center®!
What do you do at Inner Door Center®?: As the RMA, I assist clinicians in the facility to make sure that every aspect of patient care is addressed. I offer my support to clinicians in the facility.
Where did you/do you go to school and for what?: My RMA program was at Sanford Brown College in Dearborn, MI. My class was the 2nd group to graduate from the program. I am currently going to Wayne County Community College for my ADN (Associates Degree in Nursing).
What are your career goals/aspirations?: Currently working on becoming a RN with the ultimate goal of becoming a Nurse Practitioner specializing in either anesthesiology or psychiatry.
What does a day at work look like for you?: A typical Friday, for example, starts with 8am case consultation where we discuss our current program patients and the plan of care. Then I usually take vitals for patients in the programs. I remind patients to take their medications if they are on any. Throughout the day I work with clinicians on treatment plans for our patients and request for authorization from insurance companies. Sometimes I may have orientations for new program clients or new interns coming to the program. And I am always learning with the clinicians!
What are your favorite hobbies?: I love shopping for clothes and shoes. I love talking to other women about clothes, shoes and hair. I love to read. I love listening to music.
Who inspires you the most?: Jackie Meyers (the program director for all eating disorder treatment programs at Inner Door Center®) inspires me most. I don’t know how she is able to listen to every patient every day, over and over again, and not let it affect her. That really inspires me.
What is your favorite book?: I love Shakespeare. My favorite work from Shakespeare is Much Ado About Nothing. I also love to indulge in a cheesy romance novel from time to time. The last one I read was by Brenda Jackson.
What kind of music do you listen to?: I love jazz, especially the electric cello. I also love orchestral music.
An interesting/unusual fact about you that you’d like to share: I love Yo-Yo-Ma. My son and I met Yo-Yo-Ma. My son had the opportunity as a cello player to meet and play with Yo-Yo-Ma at Orchestra Hall. He was one of three kids that were chosen from Michigan to meet and play with him. Currently my son is going to college to produce music and he plays five different instruments.
Reflective Question: Responsibility
The way that we are brought up affects the way we act as adults. Some of us are forced to grow up too fast and have to take on a lot of responsibility at a young age – sometimes raising our siblings or taking care of our parents. On the other hand some of us are never given any responsibilities, and may never truly be grown up until we accept what we need to be responsible for.
That being said… Are you afraid of responsibility? Or, do you feel responsible for everything and everyone?
Inner Door Center® Staff Feature: Brandy Louks
Meet Brandy Louks – Office Correspondent for Inner Door Center®!
What do you do as Office Correspondent for Inner Door Center®?: I greet people as they come in for their appointments, I answer the phones, file paperwork for therapists, and process co-pays for clients.
What are your career goals?: I am currently enrolled at Oakland University where I am doing the Masters program in Counseling to become a LLPC (Limited Licensed Professional Counselor).
What is your favorite part of your job?: My favorite part of my job is interacting with the program clients and outpatient clients. I love when I can make them smile.
What made you interested in working with patients with eating disorders?: I battled anorexia when I was in high school and college. I overcame the disorder and wanted to help others to do the same.
What are your favorite hobbies?: I love to go camping at Birch Pine Park in Ontario with my family and friends. We go every weekend in the summer.
If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be?: Marilyn Monroe because secretly she was smarter than others thought she was, and I’d like to rack her brain. She also wasn’t as confident as she appeared. She was a real woman.
What kind of music do you listen to?: I listen to everything except opera for the most part. The last concert I went to was Bright Eyes in Grand Rapids.
An interesting/unusual fact about you that you’d like to share: I love to dance. One time, while I was dancing, I spun around and smashed my foot into my dresser – I fell down instantly in tremendous pain! I later found out that I had broken my toe. Now, every time it rains, my toe hurts!
