FAQ
Q: What is health psychology?
A: Health psychology is a specialty area that focuses on how biology, psychology, behavior, and social factors influence health and illness. Grounded Behavioral Health integrates concepts from health psychology into programs for provider and patient wellness and to manage burnout. Health psychologists also have expertise in developing behavioral health programs, managing health care teams, and improving processes in health care.
Q: What is burnout?
A: Burnout is a long-term stress reaction marked by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a lack of sense of personal accomplishment. In recent years, the rising prevalence of burnout among clinicians (over 50 percent in some studies) has led to questions on how it affects access to care, patient safety, and care quality. Burned-out doctors are more likely to leave practice, which reduces patients’ access to and continuity of care. Burnout can also threaten patient safety and care quality when depersonalization leads to poor interactions with patients and when burned-out physicians suffer from impaired attention, memory, and executive function. Grounded Behavioral Health can provide consultation on improving processes in health care settings to reduce burnout. We can also provide seminars and workshops and reducing and managing burnout.
Q: What is mindfulness?
A: Mindfulness is the quality of being present and fully engaged with whatever we’re doing at the moment — free from distraction or judgment, and aware of our thoughts and feelings without getting caught up in them. We train in this moment-to-moment awareness through meditation, allowing us to build the skill of mindfulness so that we can then apply it to everyday life.
Q: What is cognitive behavioral therapy?
A: CBT is based on several core principles, including:
Psychological problems are based, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking.
Psychological problems are based, in part, on learned patterns of unhelpful behavior.
People suffering from psychological problems can learn better ways of coping with them, thereby relieving their symptoms and becoming more effective in their lives.
CBT treatment usually involves efforts to change thinking patterns and behaviors to improve mood, sleep, pain, and other challenging symptoms.
Q: What is psychosocial oncology or psycho-oncology?
A: Psychosocial oncology is a cancer specialty that addresses the variety of psychological, behavioral, emotional and social issues that arise for cancer patients and their loved ones. Cancer can cause significant distress for patients and their families. The type of distress varies based on each individual and family experience. It may be influenced by a variety of factors — including the type of cancer, where patients are in their life, and how they tend to cope with challenging situations. In the broadest terms, there are two psychological dimensions of cancer. The first is the emotional response patients and families have to cancer. The second are the emotional, behavioral, and psychosocial difficulties that influence living with cancer. Psychosocial oncology is the specialty that addresses all of these dimensions.
Q: What is continuing education for psychologists or continuing professional development for psychologists:
A: Continuing education (CE) in psychology is an ongoing process consisting of formal learning activities that:
Are relevant to psychological practice, education and science.
Enable psychologists to keep pace with the most current scientific evidence regarding assessment, intervention and education as well as important legal, statutory or regulatory issues.
Allow psychologists to maintain, develop and increase competencies in order to improve services to the public and enhance contributions to the profession.