Columnist Kim Palchikoff’s enlightens about an important topic

By Tim Welch, Henderson

Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016 | 2 a.m.

As a retired mental health professional who was actively engaged in the delivery or supervision of mental health services over a 45-year career, I have been consistently impressed with the views that Kim Palchikoff expresses in her Las Vegas Sun columns. Her “insider” perspectives — shared from the deeply personal experience she has had with her own mental health struggles and successes — have been informative, enlightening and inspiring.

As a practitioner, I always held strongly to the view that people with mental health issues were best served if the professionals with whom they were working helped them to focus on their strengths, abilities and personal assets. Accurate empathic understanding was also a quality that I underscored in the professionals I supervised as a necessary personality requirement for successful treatment. It is clear, from the columns I have read, that Kim embodies these important qualities unreservedly.

The Sun is fortunate to have Palchikoff as a regular contributor, and any patients who have the good fortune to see her when she finishes her Master of Social Work program will be blessed as a result of who she is as a person, what she stands for as a professional and what she believes in as a fellow human being.