A safe place to talk openly about mental health & illness
Maja at Lampelina wrote quite a while back about the influence of fear on decision-making, and I'm finally getting around to exploring it on my own. Looking back, I don't think fear was a big factor in most of my decisions. If I wanted to do something, I did it, including some perhaps high-ish fear… Continue reading How Big a Role Has Fear Played in Your Decisions?
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week, we'll look at the 12 irrational beliefs and 3 major musts described by Albert Ellis, the founder of rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT). I was vaguely familiar with REBT as the therapeutic approach behind SMART Recovery. Recently, when I… Continue reading What Is… 12 Irrational Beliefs and 3 Major Musts
Most of us are naturally inclined towards being more rational or intuitive in our decision-making. Personally, I tend to be much more on the rational side of the spectrum. But then you layer mental illness on top of that, and it can start to get more complicated. The basic scenario we’ll use for the post… Continue reading What’s Your Mental Illness Decision-Making Style?
I've written before about Shoulding Ourselves to Death, but lately, I've been using the term "should monster", and I wanted to play around with that a little bit. For all of us, there are things we want in life and things we need. Some of those needs might be indirect; we need a source of income not… Continue reading The Should Monster: The Problem with “I Should”
The Anxiety Skills Workbook by Stefan G. Hofmann uses a cognitive behavioural therapy approach to help you better manage your anxiety. One thing I liked was the cautionary note in the introduction that the book wasn't intended to address suicidality, severe depression, or problematic substance abuse, and anyone experiencing those should get in touch with… Continue reading Book Review: The Anxiety Skills Workbook
Show Your Anxiety Who's Boss by Joel Minden provides strategies drawn from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to help manage anxiety. CBT is an evidence-based treatment, so while the strategies won't necessarily for everyone, they are legit, unlike many of the other self-help books floating around. The approach is broken down into three major steps: predictions,… Continue reading Book Review: Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss
When we look in the mirror, I suspect that very few of us see what's objectively there in the reflection. So why is that? Mirror recognition is not as simple as it may seem. The vast majority of animals, including my guinea pig munchkins, lack this ability. When we as humans look at the reflection… Continue reading What Do You See In The Mirror?
I saw a post on the topic of shoulding recently on another blogger's site and wanted to continue the conversation. The word should can have several meanings, but the most relevant here is the one from Google dictionary, which Grounding Growth also referenced. "used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone's actions… Continue reading Shoulding Ourselves to Death
I got thinking about this recently after talking with a blogger friend who has the amazing ability to optimistically see the silver lining in almost any dark cloud, and I very much do not. It makes me wonder, though, whether that makes me a pessimist, or am I just a realist? To start off, it's… Continue reading Are You a Pessimist? Or Maybe Just a Realist?
How To Be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Already Use by psychologist Randy J. Paterson challenges us to make our lives more miserable than they already are. The sneaky bit? He'll make us realize that we're already doing a lot of those things inadvertently. The book consists of 40 lessons. These are divided into four cheekily… Continue reading Book Review: How To Be Miserable