Challenging stigma by getting loud about mental illness
Not much has happened in my world this week. I'm pretty wiped out from coughing. On a positive note, though, I managed to get a prescription for antibiotics, and those have started coughing. I haven't emerged from my apartment at all in two weeks, and I'm waiting for the cough to stop before I take… Continue reading Weekend Wrap-Up
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is shy bladder syndrome, also known as paruresis. Shy bladder syndrome, or paruresis, involves difficulty urinating in public settings due to fear of perceived scrutiny when others are present or anticipated to be present soon. It actually falls… Continue reading What Is… Paruresis (Shy Bladder Syndrome)
It's been more than a year, and COVID is still going strong. It's made a lot of people sick and it's killed a lot of people. The lockdowns and social distancing have given most people cabin fever, and the ongoing stress has been bad for everyone's mental health. But what about those of us who… Continue reading Has COVID Impacted Your Access to (Mental) Health Care?
Is there a "right" way to talk about illness and disability? The current popular favourite is person-first language. This really got going in the 1990s, with the American Psychological Association leading the charge. Instead of talking about a "disabled person", person-first language literally puts the person first, as in "person with a disability." This has… Continue reading Is Person-First Language All It’s Cracked Up to Be?
You Will Never Be Normal by Catherine Klatzker takes the reader on a journey of discovery with her as she learns that she has dissociative identity disorder and Parts inside of her have been holding trauma she hadn't even been aware that she had experienced. The book opens in 2009 as she's having a talk… Continue reading Book Review: You Will Never Be Normal
Here's what happened in my life over the past week: I'm pretty sure I have the same atypical pneumonia that I've been getting every year for the past several years. I talked to a doctor on Monday, but she was not open to entertaining the idea that it could be anything other than COVID, even… Continue reading Weekend Wrap-Up
Reading Our Minds by Daniel Barron, a psychiatrist and pain management fellow, explores the incorporation of Big Data to improve the practice of psychiatry. The idea of supporting psychiatric assessment with solid data is an appealing one, but many questions come to mind. I was surprised by an apparent blind spot of the author's that… Continue reading Book Review: Reading Our Minds
Winter Dragonflies wrote quite a while back about creating your peace. It made me think about the relationship between non-acceptance and suffering in the context of mental illness, and I started this draft that I've finally gotten around to writing. Mental illness isn't fun, that much is clear. How we relate to illness, wellness, and… Continue reading Non-Acceptance, Suffering, and Mental Illness
Psychology Dr. Marsha Linehan is the creator of dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), which is generally the first-line treatment of choice for borderline personality disorder, a condition which she herself has. It's very skills-based, and many of the skill are more broadly applicable than just for BPD. The focus for this post, though, is some of… Continue reading Wise Words from DBT Creator Marsha Linehan
Here's what happened in my life over the past week: I've been going back through old posts and creating new graphics, and it's been interesting to see the changes over time. I have a bad memory for that kind of thing, so I tend to assume that how I'm doing now is pretty similar to… Continue reading Weekend Wrap-Up
