There’s a lot of overlap in terms used in psychiatry/psychology-speak, and sometimes that can lead to the mistaken association of words that contain some of the same parts but actually mean very different things (like psychosis and psychopathy). This post will break down some of those words and word roots to hopefully add some clarity. […]
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I Hate You – Don’t Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality by Jerold J. Kreisman and Hal Strauss is the new third edition of a book that was first published in 1989. It’s probably one of the more widely recognized books about borderline personality disorder (BPD). There was a note to readers at the beginning
Book Review: I Hate You – Don’t Leave Me Read More »
A fellow blogger asked this question recently, and it’s taken me a while to pull this post together because there just isn’t a simple answer as to why psych medications stop working out of the blue sometimes. There are various possibilities, but there’s also a hefty dose of science just doesn’t know yet. How the
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is reactive attachment disorder. The DSM-5 classifies reactive attachment disorder (RAD) as a trauma-related disorder that develops in early childhood as a result of severe neglect and maltreament. It’s been observed in children whose parents have an illness
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This post isn’t about saying that suicide is something people should choose, or that it’s a good choice, or that it’s a choice that they want to have on the menu. I’m writing this because, while it’s much more complicated to get into the element of choice, I believe that it’s inaccurate to say that
Is Suicide a Choice? (Regardless, It’s Not Selfish) Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is delusional disorder. Delusional disorder falls within the DSM-5 group of psychotic disorders, which also includes schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. However, it’s different, in that its effects are much more compartmentalized. It’s rare, and the vast majority of
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A while back, a post about choosing to be positive came up in my WordPress Reader feed. The blogger mentioned that “our mind is something we do and can have control over.” While they weren’t making reference to mental illness at all, I don’t think control over one’s own mind is quite so cut and
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I Will Not Be My Mental Illness: Let’s Recover Together by Karina Pommainville-Odell, a fellow blogger, is an invitation for the reader to join the author in working on a better life with mental illness. The book’s tone is friendly and encouraging, and positive in a realistic rather than over the top way. Chapters are
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Probably many of us living with mental illness have wondered at some point where the heck it came from. Nature? Nurture? A hodgepodge of both? Heredity, i.e. what we get from our genes, often seems to play at least some role, but genes aren’t the only game in town. This post looks at what some
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In Braving Bipolar: A Family Journey and Guide, Stephanie Schlosser shares her experiences with bipolar disorder in order to support others who have the disorder, provide education and insights for those who don’t, and challenge stigma. The book is broken into two parts. Part I gives a chronological view of how the author’s illness developed
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