In the Spotlight: Group Therapy by Dr. Alisha Brosse, Sutherland Bipolar Center Director This is the next installment in our series highlighting each of the clinical services that we offer at the Sutherland Bipolar Center. We offered our first session of group therapy in 2005. A lot has changed in the intervening 13 years. We did major overhauls of our curriculum in 2008 and again in 2011. Since then, we have continued to make more minor...

My name is Lisa Shanken, and I call myself a Healthy Lifestyle Mentor. I specialize in working with mental health clients, especially those with poor executive functioning and nutritional imbalances. I am working with some Sutherland Bipolar Center patients to help them improve organization, structure, and healthy habits through lifestyle mentoring techniques. I have certifications in nutrition counseling and personal fitness training, as well...

by Dr. Alisha Brosse, Sutherland Bipolar Center Director Given the dramatic portrayals of bipolar disorder in the media, you would think that bipolar disorder is easy to spot. Sometimes it is. But most of the time, it’s not. That’s why the Sutherland Bipolar Center offers extensive diagnostic interviews to people who wonder if they have bipolar disorder. Why is bipolar disorder difficult to identify? First, many people with bipolar disorder...

By Alisha Brosse, Sutherland Bipolar Center Director Some Sutherland Bipolar Center clients participate in family therapy, either instead of or in addition to individual therapy. Why do we provide therapy not only to individuals with bipolar disorder but also to their families? First, family conflict or stress can trigger or worsen mood symptoms. Second, bipolar symptoms can significantly affect family members. And, third, family members can be...

A University of Colorado Research Study Designing Self-Tracking Tools that Better Communicate, Represent, and Understand Bipolar Disorder What is this study? Recently, there has been a significant increase in personal data tools available for tracking health, productivity, and participation in social networks. The personal data practices enabled by these tools, often referred to as the “Quantified Self” movement, encompass a range of...

by Dr. Alisha Brosse, Sutherland Bipolar Center Director The Sutherland Seminar Series (SSS) is an 8-week educational series open to anyone in the community who wants to learn more about bipolar disorders. We started to offer the SSS in January 2008 and, through 2017, we will have offered it 19 times. So far over 1,100 people have attended a seminar! Participants have included people who have (or suspect they have) a bipolar disorder, family...

This is the final installment of Kristine Smith’s adventure with her sister, Roz, to see Coldplay in concert and meet them in person. People wonder how Kris was able to win this prize, and truthfully, it was her generosity that made it possible because she donated SO MUCH to the Sutherland Center that it greatly increased her chances of winning. With all she gave, we couldn’t have chosen a more deserving winner than Kristine...

by Dr. Alisha Brosse, Director, Sutherland Bipolar Center In individual therapy, patients meet one-on-one with a therapist, usually weekly. Good treatment always starts with thorough assessment, so the first few sessions are usually devoted to learning as much as we can about what has brought the person into treatment. We want to know about their history with bipolar disorder, what symptoms they currently are experiencing, whether they also have...

Last year, in November, our very dedicated donor and tireless advocate, Frank Barrett, helped us piece together the Ultimate Coldplay Experience contest. After seven months of promotions and fundraising, the winner of that contest, Kristine Smith of Australia, enjoyed the experience of a lifetime! She shares her story below…. My sister Roz is my best friend, and we started our Coldplay adventure in Perth, Western Australia back in 2009. I...

  As you might have heard, the British super band Coldplay generously offered to help The Sutherland Bipolar Center raise money to help treat individuals with bipolar disorder. As we come closer to the final drawing, we’re taking the Grand Prize, a Fender guitar signed by the band, on tour to several local businesses. We’ll show off the guitar, play a few riffs and answer questions about our incredible once-in-a-lifetime...

by Rachel Cruz, RDS Foundation Executive Director We reached many milestones in 2016, accomplishments we only hoped we could achieve when the year began. And yet here we are now in 2017, strong in our convictions, stable in our focus that we will continue to be here to serve this community, and hopefully move beyond our own borders to help a wider world! Let’s take a look at what happened last year that brought us to this point…. Our...

By Dr. Alisha Brosse Sutherland Center Associate Director Two newsletters ago I wrote about our Sutherland Seminar Series, an 8-week program to better educate people about bipolar disorder. Now you are hearing us talk about our recently launched “on demand” format of the seminar series. You may be wondering:  Why all this focus on psychoeducation? We use the term “psychoeducation” to describe education offered to individuals with a...

The Robert D. Sutherland Memorial Foundation offers information meetings free to the public once a month. Join us for a 30-min introductory evening where you’ll learn who we are, the services that we offer and how to access them, and how we change people’s lives for the better with research-based bipolar therapy. (This meeting is not a presentation about the illness.) For comprehensive information about bipolar disorder, join us on...

by Dr. Alisha Brosse, Sutherland Center Associate Director If you are at all familiar with the Sutherland Center, then you probably know that our mission is to provide clinical services to people who can’t afford them in the community. You may be less familiar with our other commitment: to train clinicians in research-supported psychotherapy for bipolar disorders. We are passionate about this! Through this training we have a much broader...

by Dr. Alisha Brosse, Sutherland Center Associate Director The Sutherland Seminar Series (SSS) is an 8-week educational series open to anyone in the community who wants to learn more about bipolar disorders. The SSS covers topics such as: What is bipolar disorder? How is it diagnosed? What is the relationship between bipolar disorder and other disorders, like anxiety, ADHD, and substance use disorders? If you have bipolar disorder, what are...

Our long-time funder/supporter, The Colorado Grand, gave us a challenge. They have generously given us $573,000 through the years, but in order for us to continue receiving our annual gift from them, we have to raise $80,000 in funding commitments by the end of 2016. This challenge has actually given us renewed purpose. Not only has it become an opportunity to build on our solid mission of improving the lives of people with bipolar disorder...

On a rainy June afternoon, RDSF Board Secretary, Rachel Cruz, sat down with one of Sutherland Center’s most dedicated psychiatrists, Dr. Gregg Olsen, who has been doing pro bono work as a Board Member and with the Center’s clients for over a decade.   Rachel: How did you get involved with the Sutherland Center? Gregg: I got involved through Will Van Derveer. Will is a longstanding friend and colleague of mine, and he knew Bob...

Friends: The Robert Sutherland Foundation, is among several non-profits that have been nominated to receive $20,000-worth of marketing services by BizWest magazine, and we’d like to ask you to vote for the Foundation on the magazine’s Facebook site. The BizWest Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/bizwestmedia. Simply click on the Partners in Philanthropy app, accessible on the lower left side, or via the “More” dropdown...

Following Robin Williams’s tragic death, the media exploded with opinion pieces on why people commit suicide, the stigma that keeps people from talking about it, and what might have driven someone as talented as Mr. Williams to take his own life. I was (and still am) a big admirer of Mr. Williams, and reading about him was painful. I was particularly struck by an incident on the set of “Mork and Mindy” in 1978, where, on a break between...