Mental Health Archives - Heather Hayes & Associates https://heatherhayes.com/category/mental-health/ Interventions & Treatment Consulting Sat, 12 Sep 2026 13:40:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 https://heatherhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-HH_logo-32x32.png Mental Health Archives - Heather Hayes & Associates https://heatherhayes.com/category/mental-health/ 32 32 The Lens We Choose: Who Decides What “Healthy” Looks Like? A Decolonization Lens on Behavioral Health https://heatherhayes.com/the-lens-we-choose-who-decides-what-healthy-looks-like-a-decolonization-lens-on-behavioral-health/ Sat, 12 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7817 Part Three of Three Across the first two parts of this series, I have focused on the idea that behavior means something. In Part One, we considered what changes when we stop reading behavior as defiance and begin reading it as communication. In Part Two, Internal Family Systems took us further inside the person, where […]

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]]> The Lens We Choose: When Behavior is a Part Trying to Protect – An Internal Family Systems Perspective https://heatherhayes.com/the-lens-we-choose-when-behavior-is-a-part-trying-to-protect-an-internal-family-systems-perspective/ Fri, 04 Sep 2026 18:29:14 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7811 Part Two of Three In the first part of this series, I wrote about the importance of reframing behavior as communication rather than as defiance. That reframe changes a great deal for a family, but it leaves a further question unanswered. If behavior is communication, then who or what is doing the communicating? Richard Schwartz’s […]

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]]> The Lens We Choose: Reframing Behavior as Communication, Not Defiance https://heatherhayes.com/the-lens-we-choose-reframing-behavior-as-communication-not-defiance/ Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:03:09 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7805 Part One of Three In clinical work with families and their loved ones, one of the most important decisions we make is often invisible. It is the lens through which we choose to see. Before intervention strategies, before diagnoses, before treatment recommendations, there is perception. And perception shapes everything that follows. A loved one who […]

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]]> Presence Is the Intervention: What Gestalt Therapy Still Has to Teach Us About Trauma, Awareness, and the Nervous System https://heatherhayes.com/presence-is-the-intervention/ Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:30:00 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7791 A client sits down and begins to tell you what happened to her. Her voice is even. Her hands are folded. Three minutes in, her breathing shortens, and her shoulders begin their slow climb toward her ears. She does not notice this, but you do.  What you do in the next thirty seconds is, in […]

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]]> Traumatic Invalidation: The Hidden Harm that Deepens Trauma and the Healing Power of Being Seen https://heatherhayes.com/traumatic-invalidation-the-hidden-harm-that-deepens-trauma-and-the-healing-power-of-being-seen/ Fri, 31 Jul 2026 07:00:00 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7784 There is a form of harm that is often invisible, frequently minimized, and yet profoundly damaging. It does not always involve physical danger, does not require overt abuse, and happens in conversations, in families, in treatment settings, and in moments when someone reaches out for help and is met with dismissal instead of understanding. This […]

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]]> From Silos to Synergy: Building Trauma Responsive Ecosystems in the Age of AI https://heatherhayes.com/from-silos-to-synergy-building-trauma-responsive-ecosystems-in-the-age-of-ai/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 18:03:07 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7772 Behavioral health clinicians are practicing in a moment of extraordinary complexity. Severe mental illness is rising, and substance use disorders continue to evolve in potency and presentation. Families are overwhelmed. Providers are burned out, and social determinants of health widen disparities. Artificial intelligence is entering care faster than ethical frameworks are solidifying. Yet our systems […]

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]]> Before They Leave: What Every Student, and Every Parent, Needs to Know Before College https://heatherhayes.com/before-they-leave-what-every-student-and-every-parent-needs-to-know-before-college/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:00:18 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7761 Every August, millions of parents load up SUVs with comforters, mini refrigerators, laundry baskets, and enough snacks to survive a natural disaster. We make one last trip to Target. We hang pictures on dorm walls. We hug our children goodbye and tell them how excited we are. Then we get back into the car. Some […]

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]]> Parenting Through the Pressure: Supporting Young People in a World Obsessed with Image and Achievement https://heatherhayes.com/parenting-through-the-pressure-supporting-young-people-in-a-world-obsessed-with-image-and-achievement/ Fri, 17 Jul 2026 07:00:00 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7753 We are raising young people in a world that never turns off. It is a world of curated perfection, constant comparison, performance metrics, public identities, artificial intelligence, viral success stories, academic, social, and athletic pressure, unreasonable beauty standards, achievement and productivity culture, and social media algorithms that quietly reinforce the belief that worth is earned […]

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]]> Why Families Often Miss the Early Signs of Psychosis https://heatherhayes.com/why-families-often-miss-the-early-signs-of-psychosis/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 07:00:00 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7748 Understanding the Quiet Changes that Come Before a Crisis Psychosis rarely begins with hallucinations or delusions. By the time someone is hearing voices, convinced others are watching them, or unable to distinguish reality from imagination, the brain has already been struggling for some time. What most families do not realize is that psychosis usually develops […]

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]]> When Addiction Enters the Relationship: How Substance Use and Mental Health Issues Impact Couples, Families, Parenting, and Repair https://heatherhayes.com/when-addiction-enters-the-relationship-how-substance-use-and-mental-health-issues-impact-couples-families-parenting-and-repair/ Fri, 03 Jul 2026 19:00:00 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7735 Addiction does not happen only inside one person. It happens inside a relationship, inside a family system, inside routines, parenting patterns, finances, communication, trust, intimacy, and emotional safety. Substance use disorders and mental health disorders are clinically and relationally complex. They change how couples talk, how they avoid issues, how they argue, how they protect […]

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]]> The Questions Families Ask AI in the Middle of the Night https://heatherhayes.com/the-questions-families-ask-ai-in-the-middle-of-the-night/ Fri, 26 Jun 2026 07:00:00 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7725 There is a moment that many families never talk about publicly. It usually happens late at night. The house is quiet. Everyone else may be asleep. A parent or spouse sits alone with a phone or laptop and begins searching the internet. Today those searches increasingly go to AI assistants rather than traditional search engines. […]

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]]> The Power of “Yes”: How Milton Erickson’s Yes-Set Builds Hope, Movement, and Change in Families https://heatherhayes.com/the-power-of-yes-how-milton-ericksons-yes-set-builds-hope-movement-and-change-in-families/ Fri, 19 Jun 2026 07:00:00 +0000 https://heatherhayes.com/?p=7720 There are moments in clinical work, intervention, parenting, and family systems care when pushing harder only deepens resistance. Families become polarized, and communication collapses into defensiveness. The more fear rises, the more people retreat into rigid positions. In these moments, many clinicians instinctively try to persuade harder, confront more directly, or increase pressure. Yet some […]

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