The blog index provides an overview of some of the posts that are part of major recurring themes on Mental Health @ Home, to serve as an easy starting point to explore the site.
The weekly blog schedule is:
- Community features may show up Mon.–Thur.
- Wednesdays are MH book reviews
- Thursdays are often for “about me” type posts
- Fridays are posts from the What is… Insights into Psychology 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 each week
- Sundays are for info and discussions about all things blogging
Explore MH@H
Resource Pages
These pages go into depth on some of the major areas of focus on MH@H, with a mix of information, tools, and links to other resources. You can find these in the menu bar above.
Posts By Diagnosis
Here you can find posts tagged under each of these conditions, including guest posts by emerging bloggers.
- Anxiety disorders, emetophobia
- Bipolar disorder
- Conversion disorder
- Dissociative disorders
- Eating disorders
- Kleptomania
- OCD
- Oppositional defiant disorder
- Pornography addiction
- Personality disorders: antisocial / avoidant / borderline / dependent / histrionic / narcissistic / obsessive-compulsive / paranoid / schizoid & schizotypal
- Premenstrual dysphoric disorder
- PTSD
- Schizoaffective disorder
- Schizophrenia
The Managing the Depression Puzzle page provides an overview of all things depression on MH@H.
The Psych Meds Made Simple page gives an overview of medication-related content on MH@H.
Head over to the Making Sense of Psychiatric Diagnosis page for more on psychiatric diagnoses.
Popular Tags on MH@H
About Me Addiction Anxiety Bipolar Disorder Blogging Blogging Tps Books Brain CBT Cognition Depression Disability Discrimination Emotions Health Identity Major Depressive Disorder Medication Mental Health Mental Health Care Mental Illness Mindfulness Mood Disorder Personality Personality Traits Prejudice Pseudoscience Psychiatric Diagnosis Psychiatric Medication Psychiatric Treatment Psychiatry Psychology Psychosis PTSD Recovery Relationships Side Effects Social Interaction Social Justice Society Stigma Suicide Therapy Trauma Wellbeing & Wellness
Find Posts by Category
Conceptualizing Chronic Mental Illness
The way that we conceptualize our illnesses influences how we relate to them. The following posts discuss this issue:
- Getting spoonie with it:
- Applying Spoon Theory to Mental Illness
- Fork Theory: How the Anti-Spoons Affect Mental Illness
- The Mental Illness Cutlery Drawer: Spoons, Forks, Knives, and More
- Rainbow Model of Mental Illness Functioning: a way of conceptualizing the complexity of mental illness symptoms and functional domains
- “Chemical Imbalance:” A Useful Simplification of Mental Illness?: It isn’t really accurate, but is it still helpful?
- A psychiatric view:
- The Role of Heredity in Mental Illness
- The social factors in mental illness shape our individual experiences
Mental Illness Life
There are a lot of mental processes and issues to navigate around identity that have a lot in common across different mental illness diagnoses. Mental illness life definitely isn’t simple!
- Are You Your Mental Illness?: looks at the extent to which you’ve incorporated your mental illness identity into your core self
- Does Mental Illness Make You Hard to Love?: you’re just as worthy of love, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy
- How Big a Role Has Fear Played in Your Decisions?
- How Do You Feel About Feeling Good?: when you’re used to feeling bad, feeling good can be a strange beast
- How Hard Do You Push Yourself Against Mental Illness?: mental illness can have its limitations, but how hard do you try to resist them?
- How Much Control Do You Have Over Your Mind?: we can change how we react to our initial thoughts and emotions, but can we actually control those initial reactions?
- Is Mental Illness More of a Reason or an Excuse?: if mental illness stops you from doing things, is that a reason or an excuse?
- Let’s Talk About Sex (& Mental Illness)
- Mental Illness Goes Grocery Shopping: it’s harder than it might seem
- Non-Acceptance, Suffering, and Mental Illness: can acceptance help to reduce mental illness-related suffering?
- What Speed Does Your Mental Illness Mind Move At?: does your mental illness give you fast or slow brain?
- What’s Your Mental Illness Decision-Making Style?: depending on how mental illness affects your thinking pattern, it can have different effects on your decision-making
- When “Okay” Is Not Okay: looks at some of the things we say to hide being not okay
Negativity & Toxic Positivity
Mental illness can be really hard, and expecting that we should just “choose happiness” is ludicrous.
- Are you an unsafe person?: maybe we shouldn’t be labelling people as good or bad
- Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich – book review
- Happiness is not a choice: it can’t be a choice if mental illness takes it off the menu entirely
- It gets better… or does it?: some things do get better, but some just don’t
- Pessimism vs. realism: is negativity pessimistic if it’s actually realistic?
- Positive psychology: is it a good fit for mental illness?
- “Should” you avoid negative people?: the internet says yes, but what if mental illness makes you a negative person?
- The “toxic person” label: this kind of overgeneralization probably isn’t useful
- You don’t need to be positive: other emotions are just as valid
Recovery & Wellbeing
What is recovery?
- Finding Recovery in Spite of Mental Illness: recovery doesn’t have to mean absence of symptoms
- Is Mental Illness Recovery a Choice?: internet memes say yes, but I disagree
- The Moving Target of Recovery
- What Is… Recovery?
- What Would Recovery Look Like?
What can support wellbeing?
- Contemplative Practices
- Emotional support animals
- Happiness as actions rather than a fleeting emotion
- Music
- Painting
- Peer support
- The pillars of joy (from The Book of Joy)
- Therapeutic writing/blogging
Treatment Toolbox
- Medications: the Psych Meds Made Simple page has an overview of all things medications on MH@H
- Therapy: see below; as well, the COVID-19/Mental Health Coping Toolkit has links to a broad range of sites that offer free therapy-based workbooks and worksheets
- Brain stimulation for depression (e.g. ECT, TMS)
- Alternatives
- Hospitalization: this is sometimes necessary, but it can be problematic when it’s involuntary; you can read about my own experiences in Postcards from the Loony Bin
- Cell Phones on Psych Wards: Yea or Nay?
- Community treatment: Open Dialogue is a novel approach to managing psychosis
Besides illness treatment strategies, it’s important to have wellness promotion to take care of your whole self.
Therapy
- Psychotherapy alphabet soup provides an overview of several types of therapy
- The Psychology Corner has links to posts forms of therapy in addition to the ones listed below
- Therapy Tools for Mental Health has some of my favourite ideas from different therapy approaches
- Understanding Mental Health Provider Credentials tells you what the letters after mental health professionals’ names mean
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- ACT metaphors
- Dead people goals
- Life compass
- Suppression of unwanted thoughts – hint: it doesn’t work
- Thoughts as leaves on a stream: a metaphor for de-fusing from thoughts
- Values and their importance in ACT
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
- Behavioural experiments
- CBT for insomnia and for chronic pain
- Cognitive distortions – and on a related note, Albert Ellis’s 12 irrational beliefs
- Core beliefs
- Exposure and response prevention (used for OCD)
- Safety behaviours: you think they make you safer, but they actually just reinforce anxiety
- The should monster and shoulding ourselves to death
- What, You Don’t Do Mind-Reading?
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
- Book review: Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook
- Emotion myths
- Wise mind: represents the overlap between rational mind and emotion mind.
- Wise Words from DBT Creator Marsha Linehan
Psychoanalysis/Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
The Therapy Mini-Ebook Collection is also available from the MH@H Download Centre. It includes:
- ACT Fundamentals
- CBT Fundamentals
- DBT Skills for Mood Disorders
- PTSD Treatment Options: An Overview
I have a strong educational background in science and utilizing research, combined with a finely tuned BS-detector. Debunking pseudoscience and public health misinformation makes my mind do a happy dance, and I like to write about it!
- Science: “until you prove it, it doesn’t exist” / Pseudoscience: “it exists because I say so until you can prove it doesn’t”
- Broad statements about what something does, but the “how” is magic wand-waving
- Quantum physics talk from non-physicists
- Energies and energy flows are described without any actual evidence of their existence
Critical Thinking, Media & Research Literacy
- Can you believe statistics?: We’re presented with statistics all the time, but often more information is needed to actually evaluate what they mean
- Conspiracy Theory Psychology
- Critical thinking matters!
- How Do You Search for Information?: tips on using Google and Wikipedia
- Separating Reality from Fake Health News: There’s a lot of wrong information floating around about the COVID-19 pandemic, so how can you spot it?
- The importance of what we don’t know we don’t know
- What Political Polls Mean (and what they don’t)
- Why research literacy matters: a basic understanding of research makes it easier to separate the science from the BS
Debunking Pseudoscience
- Adrenal Fatigue
- Astrology
- Chakras
- Chiropractic
- Colon Cleanses
- Crystals
- Detoxes/Cleanses
- Dopamine Fasting
- Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
- Essential oils
- Homeopathy:
- “Natural” health products
- Placebo effect: what exactly is it?
- Psychic surgery
- Reiki
- Vitamins to “cure” mental illness?
Law of attraction is an extremely popular pseudoscience phenomenon. There’s something to be said for the idea that wanting something will make the universe send it your way. Except the law of attraction says don’t act, just vibrate out to the universe. The idea that thoughts vibrate is pseudoscientific nonsense, though, and unless you can Manifest a Purple People Eater, manifestation is nonsense, too.
Trauma
- Creating a Trauma Account
- EMDR Therapy (guest post)
- How Trauma-Informed Practice can Improve Mental Health Care
- PTSD Treatment Options: a mini-ebook available from the MH@H Download Centre
- SKIDS: Traumatized Kids and the School System
- TED Talks on Trauma
- The Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences
- The Neurobiology of Traumatic Fight/Flight/Freeze
- Trigger Warnings: are they useful?
- Why isn’t Complex PTSD in the DSM-5?
Visit the Psychology Corner to find trauma-related posts in the What Is… (Insights into Psychology) series.
Work, Disability, and Workplace Bullying
- Adventures Applying for Disability
- An Identity Milestone: No Longer a Nurse
- Disclosing Mental Illness at Work
- Facing Job Interviews with Mental Illness
- Flush… Is That My Career Going Down the Toilet?
- How to Manage Working with a Mental Illness Disability
- Looking For Forgiveness – And Finding it in an Unexpected Way
- Making Sense of Workplace Bullying
- Mental Illness Disability & Identity Shifts
- Mental Illness and Employment Discrimination
- The Effects of Bullying on Mental Health
- The Other #metoo
