Our podcast covers why new parents need to have access to information about supporting their infant's mental health through OT. 

I am curious as to how other healthcare professionals might also play a role in mental health intervention for infants, especially as part of an inter-proffesional healthcare team with OTPs.

I really appreciate how you shared your experience engaging in this topic throughout your life, such as learning to ignore unhoused people as a child to understanding the issues of empathy and injustice, and confronting it as an adult.

I appreciate how you framed it as having your basic needs un-met can then impact one's mental health. This really highlights the weight of how ignoring this issue of humanity is only worsening the problem.

The Occupational Therapy Living Room Program for non-medical determinants of health sounds like it really works toward occupational justice through a trauma-informed lens. As an OT-based mental health program, I wonder how first mitigating occupational injustices and engaging in OT services then opens more doors for accessing health/community resources to meet people's higher needs (rather than attempting access to other resources and later encountering OT).

I appreciate the quote you provided about how the infant experiences their environment is more important than what environment. That describes quite well the role of OT in infant mental health.

The key point of insurance coverage for this type of preventative care is so essential to consider as well as the type of research out there to support this work (less quantitative, more qualitative out there).

I love how you said attachment style runs in the family--this really highlights how development and mental health experiences are impactful on family cycles. I wonder about how research on OT and infant mental health can impact the advocacy and promotion for services and coverage in this area of work.

I also thought your discussion about occupational deprivation of play was powerful. Play is one of the most meaningful occupations in childhood, and when kids are deprived of it, the impact goes far beyond just missing out on fun. It can affect their mental health, like social-emotional regulation, creativity, and problem-solving skills, as well as their physical health, such as gross motor delays or container syndrome when children spend too much time in restrictive spaces. I think you made such an important point about how modern challenges, like parents not knowing how to play, being short on time, or worrying too much about safety, can unintentionally limit children’s opportunities for free play. This really shows how the lack of play can create a dual challenge for kids’ development.

Example: Occupational deprivation of play can occur due to parents' or children's use of social media/technology, and many children are often put to watch television at a very young age because it is believed to be a safe thing for the child to do, so that the parent doesn't have to attend to them.

I’d love to hear more about your thoughts surrounding occupational deprivation of play in infancy and what today in the world may be interfering with participation in this occupation.

Jessie, another movie that makes me think of what you were addressing with Split is Shutter Island.

Since the media has such a strong influence on how people understand and view mental health, how do you think OTPs can play a role in addressing or counteracting the stigma that media portrayals might create?

I also really valued the way you both framed the connection between unmet basic needs and mental health. It emphasizes how ignoring these human needs only worsens the cycle and the problem overall. Your discussion made me reflect on how, as future practitioners, we have both the opportunity and responsibility to not only address individual needs but also challenge the systems and attitudes that keep people in these difficult situations.

Becca, my jaw dropped to the floor when you mentioned what that news caster said. If he hasn't been fired or reprimanded just goes to show how little importance many people in the world today see the unhoused population. This is something we as OTPs really need to advocate for.

What are some ways you think occupational therapists can work to reduce stigma and implicit bias toward unhoused people, both within practice and in the community?

I appreciate you sharing those stats about how often mental health in portrayed in the light of violence. This is something we generally might recognize, but those numbers are much greater than I had expected. This really highlights the unconscious bias you mentioned.

I never knew there were programs that helped guide depictions of mental health to reduce stigma, such as the one in Australia you described.

You made such a great point, highlighting how negative mental health experiences are portrayed, such as horror movies like Split. It is so interesting that even Disney, something typically thought of as safe and inclusive for children, can have biases, showing how bias is always present.

I wonder about how OTs can work alongside programs such as the one in Australia to help reduce stigma through media portrayal.

Thanks for your feedback! I think mitigating occupational injustices would be a proactive way to get to the root of many of the issues that individuals in the unhoused community are facing. This is something that OTPs and other health and social professionals can work towards by spreading awareness through implementation of educational programs, support through research, and advocate for policy changes to better support such groups.

I think as OTPs, it’s important to help clients reflect on their social media use and find strategies to engage with it more safely and effectively, especially when considering its impact on mental health. Supporting clients in setting boundaries and building balance into their routines could be a meaningful way to address this.

I love how you bring up the power of mass media in creating collective consciousness. I think, by and large, we as a society have decided that it is no longer "okay" to portray certain stereotypes in mass media. For example, portraying women and/or Black Americans in accordance with harmful stereotypes used to be "funny," "harmless," or even completely unnoteworthy, but now we see how injurious these practices actually are. As you say, we have not quite gotten there with our criticism on the way we portray those with mental illnesses in media. I love how you give a call to action to OTs to begin to make these changes. Clearly these changes can and do happen, so we should be working to make them, you're right!

I really enjoyed your podcast. You were both so vulnerable about your own experiences and feelings, and I think this is so brave.

That number, 900,000, is staggering. It really is like WHAT can we do. I wonder how this crisis can be addressed, even just in Portland.

Thank you for highlighting the potential harm of social media on mental health.

I think a mental health impact that is really worth considering is the impact of seeing "perfect" bodies on social media constantly. I think about how this can impact self-esteem, body image, and even lead to eating disorders, especially in young/adolescent women.

P.S., I love Pinterest too! It is so much less "scroll-able" as you say.

A theme I noticed in multiple podcasts was that a lot of the mental health research seems to be coming out of Australia.

I wonder why this is? I wonder how this emphasis on mental health shapes OT practice in Australia?

I agree with this strategy to support client self-reflection and boundary setting to promote balance in routines. I especially appreciate your reminder about allowing clients to self-reflect on this, because it is important that this is something the client wants to address, not just the OTP. As a client-centered profession, these situations can at times be difficult to balance our bias from personal experiences.

Thank you for your feedback! I completely agree. It is a worldwide issue that needs to be addressed. As Erin had mentioned in her response as well, it seems that preventative measures would be more beneficial to resolve the core problems rather than continuously dealing with the aftermath. We can advocate for policy change to increase supports to folks who are at risk and/or to establish safety nets to catch folks who could end up at risk of becoming unhoused. We can also start with small acts that feel manageable, such as addressing our own biases (as I am still working on) and helping out where and when we can. For example, we can participate in the "make it & take it" service learning events in which we prepare pb&j sandwiches to be handed out to the unhoused community in Portland along with handwritten notes with kind and supportive words.

I wasn't convinced I had a "problem" until I went cold turkey, and had to find another way to spend that time. I'd be curious to hear how you would handle a client who was in a similiar boat, but didn't want to change? Especially with all this information about how bad social media is for our mental health, I hope AOTA comes out with helpful articles around how to handle this.

Self-esteem and body image are major considerations in social media use & management. Especially as social media use is beginning at younger ages, seeing "perfect", "unrealistic", or "fake" can be super impactful during development and beyond.

Pinterest is so fun for finding new ideas like crafts, etc. It seems like I use it with something specific in mind rather than just random scrolling, which maybe plays a factor in mental health impacts.

This study discussed in the podcast was super interesting to read as it takes a very close look at the women's participation in social media use. The author talks about terms like "visibility" which help to assign language to abstract concepts. It's a great read, especially to consider how we understand and look out for others via social media. Signs of unwellness are often hard to decipher.

Here is a link to the article for everyone: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2056305120963832

I really enjoyed the topic that you chose surrounding infant mental health as we don't hear about it as much as we probably should. There were a few points that you mentioned that really stuck with me, the first one being one of the quotes that you mentioned where you stated that it is "more important to consider HOW a child experiences the environment rather than WHAT the child experiences". I think this was a very powerful quote that really got your point across when addressing the fact that we need to address mental health right from the start. Another point I thought was really good to bring up was when you mentioned how difficult it may be to make an argument to an insurance company about why an infant would need mental health services. It can be difficult enough billing for services for an adolescent or an adult, but I can 100% see it being much more of a challenge for OTP's to get insurance companies on board with providing services for a population that is so young.

I LOVED listening to your podcast and really enjoyed how conversational it was opposed to sounding more scripted. Savannah, I loved when you brought up how you were exposed to individuals who were unhoused very early on in life and being a young kid, your immediate reaction was fear. I thought it was really powerful when you mentioned as you grew up, your perception drastically changed and you were able to reflect back stating that it can actually be really harmful for these individuals to walk by them and ignore them as if they are not a human-being like everyone else. Becca, the story that you told about the Fox News host is CRAZY! That was my first time hearing about it, and I completely agree that empathy is lacking more than ever in our world. It is very disheartening to see individuals with such a large platform spreading such unkind and inaccurate information about other individuals. I really enjoyed hearing both of your ideas and opinions on this topic!

I really liked the topic you chose and could definitely see a lot of similarities between both of our podcasts. Something that you mentioned at the beginning of your podcast really got me thinking and it was connected to one of the pros of social media that you mentioned. You talked about how social media increases public knowledge which I think is completely true and a big reason why a great amount of people engage with it. What I thought of immediately after you said this, which I think Erin touched on a little bit during the middle of the podcast, was what happens when people take advantage of their ability to spread public knowledge by twisting certain news topics to portray inaccurate information? This is something that we see a lot on social media platforms, which can cause a huge uproar in society. I think this is such an interesting topic to look at as there are so many pros and cons to using any form of social media at any age and stage of life.

You made a good connection between how we use social media positively to spread information but also how that can lead to uproar. With so many pathways and threads of communication messages are bound to be altered, like in the telephone game. It is interesting how many major issues we face are related to social media communication and portrayal. It makes me wonder how, or if there is, a best way to portray correct messages on a large scale via social media.

You make a really good point about mitigating occupational injustice and how OTPs contribute to this through research. On top of implementing programs like the Occupational Therapy Living Room and advocating for policy changes, like you mentioned, research is essential. We need to demonstrate and publish the importance of these issues and advocate for policy change via evidence.

Just wanted to jump into this conversation!

Jessie, thank you for sharing those observations about screen time in children. The family I nanny for has used screen time in the past and slowly phased it out for the most part. Although I imagine this method is pricey, when their TV is off it displays art which makes it blend into the rest of the room. While I do not know how directly effective this is on decreased screen time, I do think it represents how we must find replacement occupations to help balance and manage screen time as adults and children.

You make a really good point connecting the topics of technology and infant mental health. Technology use may take away attention from subtleties in emotional regulation and cuing between infant and parent. For example, I wonder if a parent's media use can entrap their attention leading to unmet needs of an infant.

In terms of early exposure, I imagine that children are being exposed to content much too mature for their development, despite parental controls or certain settings.

As OTPs we can educate about technology and media in relation to developmental stages. We can also work on coping and regulation skills which may decrease the need for turning on screens in moments of overwhelm.

It is interesting how news channels are also so tied into stigma and bias and contributing to decreased mental health either by spreading misinformation or spreading un-empathetic thoughts and ideas. Seems like a tie with mental health and the unhoused population to social media and media.

I totally agree, social media is all about how you use it, which is why it can be so dangerous for children, teens, and even young adults. These age groups do not have the capacity yet to really make choices about how to use social media in a way that is healthy and safe, making the potential for injury so great.

It is shocking to me that we are going on 60 years of this crises. I've heard people use "the system is broken" in many different contexts, and this is surely one of them. Because this has been such a big problem for some long, it has given society the time to develop their thoughts and opinions and to spread them widely. I believe that the length of time and severity of the problem is reinforcement of societies views of the unhoused population. How do we break that chain of beliefs that has been growing for so long?It unfortunately seems to be the norm to think down on this population and it carries a heavy stigma.

Another point I wanted to touch on (that I believe is a big part of addressing the stigma) is when you guys talked about the assumptions of unhoused people not being safe. If I can be vulnerable for a second, this is an idea that struggle with. It is true that the idea of these individuals being unsafe has driven the stigma that exists. Here's the other side of that thought though... although we need to change that idea because it is not always true, we have also entered times where that statement IS TRUE. From the perspective of OT students and other medical professions, we can understand that often those behaviors are out of desperation, the relation to mental health, and the concept that these individuals do not have their basic needs met (Maslows hierarchy). Regardless of us having deeper knowledge OR the public being driven by the stigma, it is unfortunately true that unsafe attributes do exist and do need to be considered. I have felt guilty when I catch myself shying away from unhoused individuals, but it is also factual that caution should be present, which makes it hard to decipher what is stigma and what is factual. Does that make sense?

In my mind, my next question/thought (which is broad and can be broken down) is, how can OT's work to represent and educate about this population considering that there is a level of caution and understanding to be had? Is spreading this knowledge the job of an OT or do you think it would be more appropriate for another profession such as social work? We can work at a community level to help meet basic needs - but in my opinion, it would require an interprofessional approach. What are your thoughts on that?

I think you guys did a great job of considering both sides of each issue that you introduced. This raised a lot of thoughts and questions for me so I'm going to put them under bullet points.

• Katie, you made a comment about how social media can become addictive which is so important for people to realize. Even though it's not thought of as a 'substance' for many - it truly is addicting. It's a strange feeling when you are aware that you need to stop scrolling but you feel like your sucked in.

• You guys mentioned AI, which I think is an added challenge/influence on the addiction of social media. It has it's pros in some situations, but I personally don't believe that social media is one of them. Even when you think that you control your content, your not entirely in control which is how new info/opinions/theories are introduced. I thought it was interesting that you mentioned the difference in apps, because I don't typically think of pinterest as social media but that is a place where AI would be helpful.

• Social media views: I am sooooo glad you brought this up, as I know that I've personally struggled (mostly in highschool and shortly after) to be viewing peoples seemingly perfect lives. When I got an instagram, it was the cool thing to do, but over time it transformed into only posting the most perfect picture with the most perfect caption. As I went through harder times as a teen, watching everyone else "thrive" had a huge impact on my MH. Where I grew up, there were a lot of families that were viewed as ' the ideal family' and therefor, my jealousy grew fast. When you see so much positive content it is hard to believe that these people actually have bad days that no one knows about. FOMO might sound silly but it's very real and social media allows the disconnect/gap of social media portrayal and reality to grow.

• Hashtags: I hadn't thought much of the impact of hashtags (other than getting views) until I listened to your podcast. Now that I'm thinking about it, hashtags are often where people self diagnose and degrade others. It seems like a way to connect and direct people to your content, but if you really go through and read the lists of them that people add, its wild! Talk about a way to spread #stigma.

• For me personally, social media is a source of connection at this point in my life. When I left home and moved into undergrad and hadn't made many connections, I felt so disconnected from life. Social media brought me back in the loops with friends and family and it still does! That being said - there are plenty of times that my family and I have had to turn everything off and disengage because the world is going through a lot and sometimes we need to stop listening to the heavy things. How do we help clients that use social media for meaningful connections but then fall victim to the cons that come with it?

• Most importantly, I'm glad you guys used the term "occupational imbalance" because although this all connects to OT and mental health I was having a hard time deciding what to classify this challenge with. Great Job!

One point that helped me engage with the discussion was when you started off talking about the camera angles and how they can create fear towards those with mental illness. I hadn't paid specific attention to that before, but once you said it, I could think of a million times i have seen this. It's so interesting that sometimes it's the small details that say the most. This also came to mind when you talked about unconscious bias being the drive behind media and viewers. I do believe that contributes to the creation of this material, but more importantly, I think it affects society and the viewers. If you didn't have an unconscious bias surrounding mental illness and you happen to watch TV, chances are you may develop some thoughts without knowing it!

Ashley I thought it was great that you mentioned how this issue is effecting children, because so many people don't realize what is buried in content. Watching the same content as an adult is wild. Pure example: Toy Story (the awful neighbor kid)!

Regarding the connection to OT, this is not something I would have thought about or considered an OT to have a role in. As I listened, however, it made me realize that watching tv, movies, or any content like youtube (which is huge for little kids nowadays) is such a massive part of who we are as people. Some might even call it a necessity. Here's what i'm wondering...would the OT involvement/intervention be centered about how one occupation is able to negatively affect another occupation? Also, we can't change media content, and it is clear that even slight exposure has a lasting affect on all ages. What do you envision an OT role would look like in this situation?

Thank you so much for the feedback! I completely agree with your comment that addressing our own biases is the first step in being able to advocate for others. I noticed that, like Jessie, you also addressed a bias you had when you were younger during your podcast, which was so great to hear! I think the biggest way to address the biases that we may have is to gain knowledge and experience around communities that we do not know a lot about. Gaining a better understanding for individuals who are different from us is a great way to begin to get rid of any implicit biases we may have.

I have also seen an influx of pushback towards disabled actors playing a role of someone with their same disability. I'll never understand the meaning behind that, although I did learn disability studies in undergrad that a big reason for this is that a movie/show set would then have to accommodate for all of the accessibility needs of the actor instead of having an able-bodied person play a wheel chair role and then return being about to be "normal" when not filming. Personally, that is disgusting to me!!

You both bring up great questions about research pertaining to infant mental health. It is unfortunately true that less information exists on this topic than on others. Due to it's 'newness' as a concept and the minimal research about it, many providers, therapists, OTs, etc don't realize that the lack of resources is a problem. Personally, I beleive that in order to bring these challenges to light, an OT or groups of OTs will have to band together and just go for it, with the goal of gathering basic background data and the feasibility of conduction a study. Hopefully, as more promising results are discovered, there will be more support in doing research studies.

I appreciate your thoughtful response! I also had not thought much about hashtags and the magnitude of their influence until this assignment and reading this article. They are helpful to spread awareness with posts, but can be used in such wrong ways.

I think discussing occupational balance and imbalance is a great spot to start when working with clients who want to use social media for meaningful connection but manage the pros versus cons.