In A Series of Unfortunate Stereotypes: Naming and Shaming Mental Health Stigmas, author Lucy Nichol invites us to join her in breaking down stereotypes until we’re ready to say “Stigma? What a load of old shit!” I loved the no-BS tone, with expletives liberally strewn throughout (any time an f-bomb is dropped by page 7, […]
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This week’s TED Talk picks are focused on trauma and come from a diverse range of experiences. How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime (Nadine Burke Harris) In this talk, Nadine Burke Harris passionately addresses the findings of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study. This study found a significant correlation between number of ACEs
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Like any field, psychiatry has its own collection of terminology. Some of it is self-explanatory, but some of it isn’t. I believe that knowing the jargon helps to narrow the power gap between health care providers and patients, so I put together this glossary of common psychiatric terms. Alexithymia: an inability to identify and describe
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The mental status exam (MSE) is a framework for assessment that’s used widely in the field of psychiatry. Rather than being a one-time assessment, it is used on an ongoing basis to capture how a patient is doing on any given encounter (and I use the term patient to describe the role and not the
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I’m sure many of you are already familiar with cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), but I thought it was still worth taking a look at cognitive distortions, a key ingredient in the CBT soup. Cognitive distortions are common unrealistic patterns of thinking. They’re not delusional, but at the same time, they don’t accurately reflect reality, and
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Here are a few great TED Talks I’ve found on a variety of topics related to mental health and illness. The Voices in My Head (Eleanor Longden) A psychiatrist once told Eleanor Longden that she would be better off having cancer than a psychotic illness, as it would be more curable. Having the voice she
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The first time I ever heard of ayahuasca was when I was travelling to Peru and my brother asked if I was going to use it. After looking it up, I dismissed it as one of his cockamamie ideas (btw I love the word cockamamie). But I’ve heard more about ayahuasca since then, and I’ve
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Here are some great #TEDTalks related to #depression and #preventsuicide
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Talking about mental health is important, and getting conversations going about what mental illness really is requires opening up. Here are some ideas of places where you can share your mental health story on either an unpaid or paid basis. While sharing your story may seem daunting initially, it’s a really important way to work
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Sigh. This again? I’ve written before about documentaries that stigmatize psychiatric medications (A Prescription For Murder and The Age of Anxety). Now Netflix has released Take Your Pills, which looks at the use of stimulant medications for mental performance enhancement. I started watching this documentary and gave up in disgust. But after I read a
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