This index provides an overview of the posts that appear as part of major recurring theme on the Mental Health @ Home blog. The weekly MH@H blog schedule includes:
- Guest blogs may show up Mondays & Wednesdays from the Emerging blogger series and Tuesdays & Thursdays from the Wounded Healers interview series.
- Wednesdays are book reviews
- Fridays are the What is… series, which looks deeper into the meaning of a variety of psychology-related terms
- Saturdays are weekend wrap-ups, a look at what’s going on in my world that week
- Sundays are for blogging about blogging – there’s a directory of these posts on the Blogging & Writing Tips page.
Psychiatric medications
My book Psych Meds Made Simple has plenty of info about psych meds all in one place.
These posts draw on my training and experience as a mental health nurse and former pharmacist.
Psych meds 101 series – this is a great place to go for the basics on common types of psychiatric medications: - Antidepressants and Suicide Risk – a look at what the research evidence actually shows
- Dead if you do, dead if you don’t? Weighing the risks & benefits of medications – medications can cause some serious side effects, but the effects of untreated mental illness are also significant
- Do antidepressants work? What a new meta-analysis says – some people insist antidepressants just don’t work, but overall, this study shows they do
- Do I look fat in this Seroquel? – psych meds and weight gain
- Do We Know How Psych Meds Work? – some people say psych meds aren’t valid because we don’t know how they work – except that’s not really true
- Do you tend to blame your illness or your meds? – when you’re experiencing something negative, do you tend to think of it as a symptom of your illness or a side effect of your medication?
- Evidence-based treatment of anxiety – treatment guidelines for anxiety
- Evidence-based treatment of bipolar disorder: the CANMAT/ISBD guidelines
- I dream of ketamine – ketamine for treatment-resistant isn’t universally available
- Medication Use in Pregnancy
- Meds that can make you crazy (literally) – medications that can have psychiatric side effects
- My experiences of going off meds – I’ve stopped taking meds a couple of times in the past; this is what it was like for me
- My Version of Being Pro-Medication – the MH@H stance on medication
- Naltrexone – An Opioid Blocker That Gets Around – this medication has a variety of uses, including for dissociation
- Our complicated relationships with medications – psych meds aren’t simply something we take
- Pill popper RN – the psych meds that this nurse takes
- The role of medications in borderline personality disorder – they can help, but only so much
- Treatment resistant depression: When what’s supposed to work doesn’t
- What the STAR*D study means for depression treatment – STAR*D was a large study that looked at antidepressant use in real-world conditions
- Where did our meds go? – dealing with medication shortages
Suicide
Suicide is a huge issue for people dealing with mental illness. It’s important that we talk about it, and that conversation needs to address a range of different experiences with suicide as well as the need for more effective mental illness treatment to mitigate risk.
The MH@H Store has a free Safety Plan resource to guide you through planning ahead of time to cope when thoughts of suicide are getting bad.
- Barriers to help-seeking for suicidal ideation – when help is available, what stops people from reaching out?
- Cognitive deconstruction and the lead up to suicide
- Crisis resources for suicide prevention – has a listing of suicide crisis lines and crisis text/chat services
- Guilt Is Not a Suicide Prevention Strategy – trying to make someone feel guilty for how others would feel if they died is not effective
- How do we prevent suicide?
- How picky should we be about suicide-related language? – is “committed suicide” something worth making an issue out of?
- How Should Social Media Handle Reported Suicidal Posts? – what happens who you report a suicidal tweet to Twitter?
- No regrets? Surviving attempted suicide – not everyone regrets it afterwards
- Privacy and completed suicide – a look at whether it’s ok to share the writings of someone who died by suicide
- Some thoughts on suicide
- Stigma and How the Public Views On Suicide
- TED Talks on depression and suicide
- The way the media talks about suicide matters – media guidelines for suicide reporting
- What goes too far on social media? – is it useful to widely broadcast suicidal messages?
- What if a stranger tells you they’re suicidal? – handling suicidal messages received from people you don’t know
- Will suicide ever be 100% preventable?
- Working On Us mental health prompts on suicide and passive suicidal ideation
- World Suicide Prevention Day – Suicide is not selfish
Therapy
Besides the posts listed here, I’ve also done book reviews that cover acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), and other therapeutic approaches. A therapy mini-ebook collection is also available from the MH@H Store.
- CBT for insomnia
- Cognitive distortions (Cognitive behavioural therapy – CBT))
- Cognitive distortions: Getting personal (CBT)
- Drilling down to core beliefs (CBT)
- Exploring values (Acceptance and commitment therapy – ACT)
- Finding wise mind (Dialectical behaviour therapy – DBT)
- Mental health worksheets galore
- Mental myths that get in our way (based on DBT)
- My therapy journal (a guest post on PanoramicCounseling.com)
- Online mental health workbooks
- Psychotherapy alphabet soup – an overview of different types of therapy
- Setting sail with the ACT life compass (acceptance and commitment therapy)
- Suppression of unwanted thoughts (ACT)
- Thoughts as leaves on a stream (ACT)
- What is… CBT for pain
- What is… Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT)
- What is… a Defense mechanism (from Freudian psychoanalytic theory)
- What is… Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), aka tapping
- What is… Exposure and response prevention (ERP), a type of CBT intervention
- What is… Freudian psychoanalytic theory
- What is… Hypnotherapy
- What is… Motivational interviewing
- What is… Psychodynamic psychotherapy
- What is… Safety behaviour (in cognitive behavioural therapy)
- What is… Transference & countertransference (in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy)
Trauma
The Mental Health @ Home Store has a mini e-book PTSD Treatment Options: An Overview.
- Creating a trauma account (based on cognitive processing therapy)
- EMDR therapy (guest post)
- How trauma-informed practice can improve mental health care
- TED Talks on trauma
- The neurobiology of traumatic fight/flight/freeze
- What is… Stockholm syndrome (trauma bonding)
- What we can learn about trauma from the ACEs study: the Adverse Childhood Events study was pioneering research about the effect of childhood trauma on health in adulthood
- Why is complex PTSD not in the DSM-5?
Work, workplace bullying, and mental health
I’ve faced negative attitudes at work related to my mental illness, and I’ve also experienced workplace bullying. It’s important to talk about these things since they can be so isolating.
- Adapting ambition to circumstances – changing career goals as a result of mental illness
- Disclosing mental illness at work: The good, the bad, and the ugly
- Flush… is that my career going down the toilet? – getting closer to being unable to work due to mental illness
- Learning to name workplace bullying
- Making sense of workplace bullying
- Managing working (or not) with disability
- Mental Illness and Employment Discrimination – what the law says and what actually happens aren’t necessarily the same thing
- Mental illness and the dreaded job interview – mental illness can create some significant challenges when approaching a job interview
- The Effects of Bullying on Mental Health
- The other #metoo: Experiencing workplace bullying