I recently came across a CBC News article titled Mental Health Experts Say Canada Needs a 3-digit Suicide Crisis Hotline. The US just implemented its own 988 lifeline on July 16. The article had some things that made me go hmmm, so I thought I’d write about them. As a bit of background, the federal …
What a 988 Suicide Hotline Can (and Can’t) Accomplish Read More »
No One Cares About Crazy People is Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author Ron Powers’ exploration of his two sons’ journeys with schizophrenia, combined with a sweeping social history of mental health care and attitudes towards those with mental illness. He skillfully interweaves these separate threads, drawing the reader along from the early …
I consider myself a mental health advocate, but what does that actually mean? It probably means different things to different people, but let’s chat about it. What a mental health advocate is Before we get to my definition, here’s what a couple of other sources have to say. “Mental health advocates are heroes — individuals …
I read the first edition of The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris a number of years ago and really liked it, so I was excited to read the new second edition. The book is based on acceptance commitment therapy (ACT), and the happiness trap refers to the reality that life is difficult, and if you …
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is enhanced cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT-E. I first heard of CBT-E recently in a post by Burnie of Quash Stigma Not Fat; it was a form of therapy she had done to treat her anorexia nervosa. I …
What Is… CBT-E (Enhanced CBT for Eating Disorders) Read More »
What Makes You Stronger by Louise L. Hayes, Joseph V. Ciarrochi, and Ann Bailey uses an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) approach to support greater psychological flexibility. The authors write, “This book offers you a radical premise: Trying to control the wrong things brings loss of control. If you try to control how you think …
How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety by psychologist Ellen Hendriksen offers cognitive behavioural therapy-based strategies to help readers overcome social anxiety. The author herself has experienced social anxiety, and I always like when authors are willing to be vulnerable and add that personal touch. The book is aimed …
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is concept creep. The term concept creep was first described by psychologist Nick Haslam in a 2016 paper. He wrote that there’s been semantic expansion (i.e. expanded definitions) of words representing various phenomena, so those words now encompass …
The Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction, 2nd ed., by Rebecca E. Williams and Julie S. Kraft uses mindfulness strategies to help readers explore the losses and avoidance of feelings that have contributed to addictions. It draws on a variety of concepts from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT). …
Book Review: The Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction Read More »
Anhedonia, which refers to decreased ability to experience pleasure in normally pleasurable things, is a core symptom of depression; in fact, you can get a diagnosis of major depressive disorder without depressed mood if you have anhedonia. Anhedonia is a part of the melancholic features specifier for depression, as opposed to atypical features, which involves …
