The wounded healer interview series features people who’ve dealt with significant mental health challenges, and who also work in a helping role to support the mental health of others. This interview is with Maria Teresa Pratico Swanson of Emotional Musings. 1) Tell us a bit about you, the helping field you’re in, and the mental […]
Wounded Healer Interviews: Maria (Emotional Musings) Read More »
The Ups and Downs – A Bipolar Picture Book by Kat Owens is an adult-oriented picture book, although there’s no “adult” content and it would be very appropriate to help younger people understand bipolar disorder. The author aims to show the ups and downs of everyday life with bipolar. She herself lives with bipolar II.
Book Review: The Ups and Downs: A Bipolar Picture Book Read More »
In this emerging blogger post, Shanon of Surviving Childhood Trauma writes about living with PTSD as a result of childhood sexual abuse. I always struggle with how to begin my story, what parts to share and how exactly to word it. My abuses were so severe, my trauma so impactful that my memories are broken
A Childhood of Abuse, an Adulthood of PTSD (Guest Post) Read More »
The term adrenal fatigue was first used by chiropractor James Wilson in 1998, and it became popular with a book he published in 2001. I’ve written before about some of the quacky dabbling of chiropractors outside the neck and back pain issues we commonly associate them with. You can probably guess from that alone where
Does Adrenal Fatigue Actually Exist? Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is the dark triad/dark tetrad. The dark triad was first described in a 2002 paper by psychologists Paulhus and Williams, who happen to be researchers at my alma mater. They studied the three most common “offensive yet non-pathological
What is… the Dark Triad/Tetrad Read More »
Shame Ate My Soul is Susan Walz’s personal story of rising above stigma, suicide attempts, addiction, and misdiagnosis, and eventually finding recovery. I’ve known Sue since the beginning of my blogging journey. The book opens with a heartbreaking conversation with 2 of her 3 children, as they tried to persuade her to accept help in
Book Review: Shame Ate My Soul Read More »
Lately, white privilege has been a hot topic. The people I’ve come across who take a stance against the idea of white privilege seem to have in common the line of thinking that they haven’t been handed anything, so how can they have social privilege? Wikipedia describes social privilege as: “a special, unearned advantage or
Social Privileges as a Counterpoint to Social Burdens Read More »
Black Lives Matter has been leading the charge in calling for defunding the police. While that may initially sound like a very bad idea, taking money away from the police is only half of the picture. The money that would be spent on police is instead shifted to community programs and supports to handle the
Defunding the Police: What It Could Mean for Mental Illness Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is intergenerational trauma. Trauma that occurs at an individual level is devastating enough, but when it occurs on a collective level, the effects of that trauma may not stop with the people who directly experienced the traumatic events.
What Is… Intergenerational Trauma Read More »
Mental illness recovery can be more of a journey rather than a destination, and if you’re aiming for a destination, that can end up being a moving target. Let’s begin this discussion by looking at what recovery actually entails. An Australian National Standards for Mental Health Services document from 2010 defines recovery as: “… gaining
The Moving Target of Mental Illness Recovery Read More »
