The Inflamed Mind: A Radical New Approach to Depression by psychiatrist Edward Bullmore presents inflammation as a new frontier in tackling depression. The author’s bio at the beginning of the book reveals that he works at pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. He doesn’t try to be subtle about disclosing this, and I didn’t pick up any overt […]
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I became a nurse in 2004, which was before I became mentally ill. Even then, I wasn’t a fan of using a 1-10 mood rating scale with my patients. It struck me as a bit of a cop-out, and a poor substitute for actually exploring with the person how they were feeling. Adventures in hospital
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When it comes to mental health care, or health care in general for that matter, a simple fact is that the sicker people get, the more it costs to treat them. Sicker people need more acute services, and they need to continue accessing those services for longer amounts of time. Acute care services are extremely
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is mental illness recovery. The word recovery can have various connotations depending on the context. It began to gain popularity in the context of mental health in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it was used by
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Reasons to Stay Alive is by Matt Haig, a popular author with a whopping 243K followers on Twitter (including me). I believe this was his first book that delved into his own mental health; he has since followed up with Notes on a Nervous Planet (affiliate link). He explains that one of his aims with this
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Crazy. Psycho. Schizo. Nutbar. Mad. Retard. Lunatic. Loony tunes. Insane. F***ed in the head. Bonkers. Whack job. Batshit crazy. Certifiable. These are just a few examples, but when it comes to derogatory mental health-related terms, there are many of them and we hear them often. Sometimes, we even use them ourselves. A study by Rose
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is autonomy. While autonomy falls more under the umbrella of philosophy than psychology, it also has significant implications for mental health care. The philosopher Immanuel Kant identified several key elements of autonomy, including both the right and the capacity
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How to Stop Feeling So Damn Depressed: The No BS Guide for Men by psychologist Jonas A. Horwitz is a how-to guide for men to take on depression and win. The author explains that this book is for men with severe depression. I found the use of the term “severe” a bit unclear. It didn’t
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While this may seem like a bit of an odd topic, it’s something I’ve vaguely wondered about for a while. If orgasms get the feel-good chemicals flowing, might that have any sort of benefit for depression? And especially for single folks like myself – could masturbation have any positive effect when it comes to depression?
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This post was inspired by a recent post by a fellow blogger about the psychology behind excuses. I left a comment about distinguishing between reasons and excuses, and I thought the idea was worth some further expansion. Defining reasons & excuses The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines reason as “a statement or fact that explains why something
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