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Suicide Awareness Month: Turning Awareness into Action

Suicide Awareness Month: Turning Awareness into Action

Sep 28, 2023
By: Kaethe Weingarten
September is Suicide Awareness Month and many organizations and lifelines have come together to emphasize that awareness is a first and important step in suicide prevention. There are many places…
The Connection Between Apologies and Kindness

The Connection Between Apologies and Kindness

Apr 4, 2023
By: Kaethe Weingarten
I have been interested in apologies and kindness for quite a while but today is the first day it occurred to me to ask if they are related. I am glad I did. My answer is a pretty simple one: if a…
Relationship and Connection Aren’t Just for Lovers. Consider Co-Regulation with Pets and Nature

Relationship and Connection Aren’t Just for Lovers. Consider Co-Regulation with Pets and Nature

Feb 14, 2023
By: Kaethe Weingarten
In the United States, stores have been filled with heart-shaped chocolate boxes, red plastic roses, and teddy bears since the first week in January – signals that Valentine’s Day, celebrated on…
Some Tips to Handle Watching or Listening to Disturbing Material

Some Tips to Handle Watching or Listening to Disturbing Material

Jan 28, 2023
By: Kaethe Weingarten
We are all very often in the position of witnessing terrible events. Sometimes we have control of whether we listen or watch something disturbing, and sometimes witnessing is thrust upon us. In…
Take Down the Old and Ring In the New

Take Down the Old and Ring in the New

Jan 5, 2023
By: Kaethe Weingarten
For many people, the winter holidays are a time when they put up special decorations – like a tree adorned with lights, sparkly tinsel, and ornaments; or lighted manger scenes on their mantels or…
Holiday Survival Guide: How to Respond to Illness, Loneliness, Division, & Grief

Holiday Survival Guide: How to Respond to Illness, Loneliness, Division, & Grief

Dec 8, 2022
By: Kaethe Weingarten
Thanksgiving has come and gone, and across the US, people had very different holiday experiences. Some had a lovely, large dinner with relatives and friends; others' dinners were disrupted by…
Can We Befriend Nature After An Extreme Weather Event?

Can We Befriend Nature After An Extreme Weather Event?

Nov 17, 2022
By: Kaethe Weingarten
Recently, after climate-fueled hurricanes Fiona and Ian hit Puerto Rico and the southeastern United States, I was thinking about the conundrum of how to befriend “nature” and all its wonders when…
World Kindness Day: Practicing Kindness Whenever Possible

World Kindness Day: Practicing Kindness Whenever Possible

Nov 13, 2022
By: Kaethe Weingarten
World Kindness Day, November 13, is an international holiday first introduced in 1998 by the World Kindness Movement. “The holiday is devoted to promoting kindness throughout the world and…
New Comic, Helping the Helpers, Gives Clinicians Strategies for Self-Care

New Comic, Helping the Helpers, Gives Clinicians Strategies for Self-Care

Oct 12, 2022
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
Clinicians focused on migrant, immigrant, and other underserved patients must balance personal and professional stressors for their entire careers – but the pandemic added new weight and complexity…
The Latest in Suicide Prevention: Resources, Risk Factors, Warning Signs, and a New Stage Theory

The Latest in Suicide Prevention: Resources, Risk Factors, Warning Signs, and a New Stage Theory

Aug 18, 2022
By: Kaethe Weingarten
It is a sign of significant progress that we now have a dedicated number to call in case of mental health crises. People experiencing a mental health crisis can call or text the numbers 9-8-8.…
Some Ideas For Offering Comfort When A Person Is Ill Or Grieving

Some Ideas For Offering Comfort When A Person Is Ill Or Grieving

Jun 23, 2022
By: Kaethe Weingarten
When I was a freshman in college, the father of a friend with whom I had gone to elementary school died. My mother wrote me a letter – parents wrote letters to their children when they lived away…
Chronic Sorrow: The Case for Turning Individual Grief to Collective Caring

Chronic Sorrow: The Case for Turning Individual Grief to Collective Caring

May 26, 2022
By: Kaethe Weingarten
The impact of the pandemic on so many people in so many different communities has been immense. I wrote about grief in a blog in May 2021 and, a year later, the need to attend to the subject…
Clinicians standing together

When A Helper Needs Help: Caring for Health Care Workers During COVID

Apr 27, 2022
By: Kaethe Weingarten
The last few months have seen a flurry, almost a blizzard, of articles on the pandemic’s toll on health care workers, in the form of research, newspaper articles, TV coverage, social media…
People pushing a van out of a rut

I’m in a Rut. What Can I do About It?

Mar 17, 2022
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
What exactly is a rut? A rut is a pattern of behavior or of the fabric of one’s life that is so familiar that it feels boring and unproductive. Many people have started to feel – or have been…
A clinician wearing ppe in the hospital

We Hear You: Opening Ourselves to What Health Care Workers Are Feeling Now

Feb 17, 2022
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
At the end of last year, Dr. Nirav Shah, the Director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, mentioned a cartoon he had seen of a patient in a hospital bed being kept afloat by a…
A parent and child

How to Prioritize Fun during Tough Times

Feb 8, 2022
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
In the last few months, Omicron has disrupted the holidays, work, school, events – practically every aspect of life. For most of us, this disruption has been hard to tolerate, after two long…
Two people wearing masks

How to Help Someone through the Uncertainty of Waiting

Jan 20, 2022
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
For most of us, this has been a year of uncertainty. Whether in our roles as a family member, friend, or clinician, we can take steps to be helpful to others who are living through the…
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Clinicians Are Traumatized Because of COVID-19. Witness to Witness Helps.

Dec 20, 2021
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
By Kaethe Weingarten, PhD, MCN’s Director of Witness to Witness, Pamela Secada, MCN’s Witness to Witness Program Manager, and Jessica Calderón, Witness to Witness Program Associate Dr. Madaras…
Cranky During the Holidays? Battling Unrealistic Expectations? How to Get Through the Holidays in One Piece, with Tips from Kaethe Weingarten

Cranky During the Holidays? Battling Unrealistic Expectations? How to Get Through the Holidays in One Piece, with Tips from Kaethe Weingarten

Dec 2, 2021
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
Most of us have grown up with the idea that holidays are supposed to be joyous occasions and yet for many people that has not always been the case. And that was before COVID-19 changed so many…
Clinicians Standing together

How to De-Escalate a Tense Interaction

Nov 18, 2021
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
Recently, at a shopping mall in an urban city, three community outreach workers were standing near a table that had a colorful tri-fold with helpful, local information about how to get a vaccine…
People walking with signs

Eleven Tips for Sustainable Activism Without Getting Overwhelmed

Oct 20, 2021
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
Albert Einstein said, “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” I hope I am not being presumptuous to add a corollary: “Not…
A young girl looks at the ocean

Six Practical Steps to Prevent Child Suicide

Sep 23, 2021
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
In the last few months, I have been shaken over the unprecedent tragic increase in child attempted and completed suicides among youth, even in cohorts of five- to 12-year-olds, one facet of a…
A person in a mask looks toward camera

Empathy Can Be Debilitating. Here’s How to Move Empathy into Action.

Aug 26, 2021
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
I have always been haunted by certain kinds of injustices. Since the founding of Witness to Witness (W2W), there have been many issues that I cannot shake. In July 2019, I heard Columbia Law…
A woman looks to the sky

It is Never Too Late to Soften Grief

Jul 21, 2021
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
By Kaethe Weingarten, PhD This month marks the 45th anniversary of my mother’s death and, finally, it feels different. I am carrying a piece of what pained me more lightly, which is making this…
A photo of a woman in a face mask

A Deep Dive into COVID-19’s Unequal Impact on Women

Jun 10, 2021
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
By Kaethe Weingarten, PhD, Director of Witness to Witness We have all read that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been more negative for women’s daily lives than for men’s. But it turns out…
A man in a mask holds his head in grief

"Yes, You ARE Entitled to Your Grief!": Looking at a Year of Many Losses, Many Kinds of Grief

May 12, 2021
By: Migrant Clinicians Network
There is no doubt that this past year has been one of grief for millions of people. I have provided online seminars and met with small groups on the topic of grief and heard hundreds of accounts…