Investing in mental health care and workplace mental health programs takes money, and in the short term, that can be an obvious deterrent. However, it can really pay off in the longer term. A number of organizations have each put together solid economic cases for investment in mental health, and this post will take a […]
Mental Health: The Economic Case for Investment Read More »
Stigma is a big deal for those of us dealing with mental health issues. I’ve written about it in my latest book, A Brief History of Stigma, but there are a lot of other people talking about it too. Here are some great quotes on mental illness stigma that I’ve come across. “The problem with
Quotes on Mental Illness Stigma Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week, we’ll look at paraphilic disorders. Paraphilias involve atypical patterns of sexual arousal. Paraphilic disorders are a more extreme version of paraphilias, involving arousal patterns that are a) intense and persistent and b) cause significant distress or functional impairment or
What Is… a Paraphilic Disorder Read More »
Losing Our Minds: The Challenge of Defining Mental Illness by psychologist Lucy Foulkes explains why it’s so hard to define what mental illness is and how it happens. The author herself has experienced mental illness, and while this is not a major focus in the book, I thought it was great that she did bring
Book Review: Losing Our Minds Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is melancholic depression, also known as depression with melancholic features. The word melancholia comes from the Greek for black bile, part of the ancient four humours medical belief system. In the 5th century BCE, Hippocrates first identified melancholia as
What is… Melancholic Depression Read More »
Relationship OCD by Sheva Rajaee is written from the perspective of a therapist who herself has dealt with relationship OCD (ROCD). What a perfect combination! I love that more and more mental health professionals are willing to talk about their own mental health challenges. Throughout the book, the author emphasizes the importance of learning to
Book Review: Relationship OCD Read More »
Safe, Wanted, and Loved by Patrick Dylan is a memoir about the author’s wife’s experiences of mental illness, how that affected the family, and the difficult journey in the direction of recovery. The book’s powerful opening line is the author’s wife, Mia, saying “Pat, I am going to prison.” At that point, she was first
Book Review: Safe, Wanted, and Loved Read More »
Complex Borderline Personality Disorder by Daniel J. Fox is aimed at people who have borderline personality disorder along with a co-occurring mental disorder. It describes how these combinations can present and how to manage them. The co-occurring conditions that it addresses are bipolar disorder, depression, psychosis, ADHD, and PTSD/complex PTSD. The author refers to BPD
Book Review: Complex Borderline Personality Disorder Read More »
Stereotypes are a way that we store knowledge about social categories. When a category is considered by society to be deviant, such as the group of people who are mentally ill, members of that category tend to be viewed as a homogeneous group that is accurately represented by stereotypes. There may be a grain of
Inaccurate & Damaging Mental Illness Stereotypes Read More »
Self-stigma, which comes from public stigma that’s been internalized, can have a significant negative impact on those of us living with mental illness. Peer support can help to reduce self-stigma, and I wanted to explore that and some of the other benefits that research has shown. Peer support can happen in a lot of different
The Benefits of Peer Support for Mental Illness Read More »
