In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is diathesis-stress model. This week’s term may sound a bit obscure, but bear with me, because it’s actually quite relevant. A diathesis-stress model, also known as stress-vulnerability model, is used to explain the course of a mental disorder […]
What Is… a Diathesis-Stress Model of Mental Illness Read More »
Harm reduction isn’t an approach that was originally developed to help with managing nonsuicidal self-injury (self-harm), but it does offer a way to provide greater support to people who don’t yet have other strategies available to them to be able to go clean from self-harm. Addictions and harm reduction Harm reduction is most often used
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is insanity. Wikipedia is always the first place I turn for this series, but I think this particular Wikipedia page could use some work. It opens with: “Insanity, madness, and craziness are terms that describe a spectrum of
What Is… Insanity in the Criminal Justice System Read More »
Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse is a documentary about a man with schizophrenia who was killed by police in Portland, Oregon. This film was funded by The Mental Health Association of Portland and over 1500 individual supporters, which I thought was pretty impressive. It’s an extremely disturbing example of police brutality against
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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
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“So, what do you do for work?” That’s a pretty standard, run-of-the-mill question if you’re meeting someone for the first time. It’s also one of the reasons why I dislike being around people. In our society, adults are expected to work; if you don’t, that’s considered unusual unless you fall into a certain pre-determined category,
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is psychodynamic psychotherapy. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a type of talk therapy that does a deep dive into the past to help uncover what’s going on in the unconscious mind in order to figure out problems in the person’s life. It’s
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I’ve taken birth control pills for much of my adult life. Sometimes the contraceptive benefit was useful, but much of the time, it was more about keeping estrogen fluctuations associated with PMS at bay. I’ve recently decided to stop taking the pill because there is some indication that oral contraceptives may promote inflammation. The connection
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Bipolar Me by Janet Coburn explores her journey with bipolar II disorder. The book is made up of blog posts, which are divided into chapters based on theme. The chapters cover topics like the symptoms of bipolar disorder, the “med-go-round”, times of struggling, dealing with social situations, and broader societal issues. Each post is pretty
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is anosognosia. I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t heard this term before, so let’s break it down. Agnosia is an inability to recognize people or things. Nosology is the classification of diseases. Throw the two together, and you get
What Is… Anosognosia (Lack of Insight) Read More »
