Save the Date!
Recovery Community Listening Session CT - April 20th

This Recovery Community Listening Session hosted by Recovery Advocacy Project - Connecticut will be a guided conversation with people in recovery from all pathways, family members, supporters & allies of recovery. Your voice is important and needed.

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Job Opportunities
Positive Directions is seeking to fill the following positions to provide counseling services in a growing and supportive outpatient environment:

Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Full Time

Outpatient Therapist - Licensed Clinician (LCSW, LADC, LPC, LMFT) 
In the News
Melissa Bernstein, Co-Founder of Connecticut-Based Toy Company, Melissa & Doug, Shares Lifelong Struggle with Mental Illness

From the outside, Melissa Bernstein, co-founder of Melissa & Doug with her husband, looks like the picture of success. She heads a beloved toy company based in Connecticut, has a supportive and loving husband and six children.

At the same time, Bernstein was struggling with her mental health, mostly in secret. In her new memoir, "LifeLines: An Inspirational Journey from Profound Darkness to Radiant Light," she shares her lifelong experiences with “existential depression,” starting therapy and wanting to help others.

“Everybody believed that I had it all in the conventional, societal sense of success and that meant I was perfect. I have spent 50 years trying to live up to that model of perfection and failing,” she told TODAY. “The book was my bid to say this is who I am because I had hidden myself in the shadows for my whole life.”

How COVID-19 Will Change Mental Health Care In The Future

There won’t be a ton of great outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the millions of people who’ve gotten sick and the hundreds of thousands who’ve died, the entire population has been thrust into a mental health crisis that may take years for us to overcome.

That said, the increased mental health awareness that has developed during the COVID-19 pandemic may also propel us into a more positive future when it comes to therapy and how we view emotional struggles — that is, if we recognize what we can gain from this horrific year and fight for the few positive things that are developing as a result.

Here are just a few ways the coronavirus pandemic will transform the way we treat mental health in the future:

Conversations around mental health are becoming more normalized.
We’ve come a long way over the last few years in terms of reducing the stigma around mental health. However, we’re still nowhere close to where we should be. The pandemic has drastically affected our emotional well-being in numerous ways.

The Hub: Behavioral Health Action Organization for Southwestern CT
A division of the Regional Youth Adult Social Action Partnership (RYASAP) 

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