A safe place to talk openly about mental health & illness
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term is melancholic depression, also known as depression with melancholic features. The word melancholia comes from the Greek for black bile, part of the ancient four humours medical belief system. In the 5th century BCE, Hippocrates first identified melancholia as… Continue reading What is… Melancholic Depression
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is paranoid personality disorder. With this post on paranoid personality disorder (PPD), we've now covered all ten personality disorders in the DSM-5 (you can find the rest of them in the Psychology Corner). PPD falls within the DSM-5's… Continue reading What Is… Paranoid Personality Disorder
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is avoidant personality disorder. Avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) falls within the DSM-5's cluster C of anxious/fearful personality disorders. It's characterized by intense feelings of inadequacy and fear of social rejection, and avoidance is relied upon as a coping… Continue reading What Is… Avoidant Personality Disorder
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week we're doing a 2-for-1 looking at schizoid and schizotypal personality disorder. Both schizoid and schizotypal personality disorders fall within the DSM-5's cluster A, which is the odd/eccentric cluster. Despite the similarities in names (it took me a long time… Continue reading What Is… Schizoid & Schizotypal Personality Disorders
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is double depression. This post uses a lot of abbreviations, which are summarized down at the bottom of this post. The term double depression is sometimes used to describe the state when two types of depression (major depressive… Continue reading What Is… Double Depression
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is oppositional defiant disorder. Oppositional defiant disorder in the DSM-5 Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is typically diagnosed by the early elementary school years. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), diagnosis requires at least six… Continue reading What Is… Oppositional Defiant Disorder
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is kleptomania. Yes, kleptomania is actually a legitimate psychiatric condition. It wasn't a condition I had anything more than passing familiarity with, but it came up in a conversation with a fellow blogger, so I wanted to take… Continue reading What Is… Kleptomania
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is shared psychotic disorder, also known as folie à deux. Folie à deux is the more commonly recognized name for what the DSM-5 calls shared psychotic disorder. It's a rare condition that involves shared delusions between two or more… Continue reading What Is… Folie à Deux
Getting a mental illness diagnosis can be hard, but getting the wrong diagnosis or going undiagnosed can be even harder. Unfortunately, that's something that a lot of people struggling with their mental health end up going through at one point or another. Here are a few excerpts from my book Making Sense of Psychiatric Diagnosis… Continue reading What It’s Like to Go Undiagnosed or Misdiagnosed
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week's term is ultra rapid cycling in bipolar disorder. Rapid cycling and the DSM-5 Rapid cycling describes the frequency of switching between mania/hypomania and depression in bipolar disorder. The current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders… Continue reading What Is… Ultra Rapid Cycling in Bipolar Disorder