I was recently browsing the blog of Pete Earley, the author of the book Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, and I came across a post on a recent Manhattan Institute report criticizing Mental Health First Aid (MHFA). The Manhattan Institute is a conservative think tank, and I’ve previously taken issue with […]
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You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health by Ken Duckworth, NAMI’s medical director, is the first book released by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The book includes excerpts from interviews with 130 people who either self-identify as having a mental illness or have a loved one who does, and the
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I wanted to share with you a new podcast created by my friend Mike Edward called Living with Chronic Mental Illness. It’s about his own journey with chronic schizoaffective disorder. As the host says, “It’s the story of challenging moments, of failures, of successes, of love, of loss, and of hope. This is the story
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For some of us, suicidal thinking and perhaps even a history of attempts are part of the mental illness experience. What I wanted to discuss in this post is how much of that suicidality is focused inward and how much relates to our place in our social world. That’s rather vague, and this post’s title
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Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv explores the different ways in which people try to make sense of mental illness, both on an individual and societal level. The book tells the story of six different people who experienced mental illness, including the sociocultural factors that shaped those
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Everything You Need to Know About OCD by Dr. Lynne M. Drummond with Laura J. Edwards is, as the title suggests, a comprehensive book covering OCD and its treatment. The lead author clearly has considerable clinical expertise working with clients with hard-to-treat OCD. The book looks at the processes involved in OCD, including distressing thoughts
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The Panic Attack Relief Workbook by Mayra Diaz lays out a seven-week plan for people to be able to better manage panic. It incorporates cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and exposure therapy. As the title indicates, it’s a workbook with exercises to fill out. The book begins with background information about
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People are dumb; there’s nothing new about that. Public ignorance about depression in particular was on display recently in a news article I came across, and it annoyed me, so I thought I’d write about it. First, let’s start with some background. The news related to the findings of an article published last month in
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NIMBYism, the idea that certain development projects are okay, but Not In My BackYard, is discrimination with a prettier hat on. NIMBYs don’t come right out and say the actual reasons for their opposition; instead, they offer other reasons, perhaps to reduce their own cognitive dissonance because they don’t want to think of themselves as
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Depression can affect mood in a number of ways, including causing irritability. This is sometimes a feature of my own depression, and it can get pretty ugly. In the DSM-5, adults must have at least one of depressed mood or anhedonia to receive a major depressive disorder or bipolar depression diagnosis, but in children, irritable
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