I am mentally ill, and I am also a lot of different things. But do people see all of those things, or mostly just the illness? We all have many different identities associated with all the social roles that we play; not identities as in personalities, but bundles of knowledge, expectations, patterns of behaviour that …
I Am Mentally Ill, and I Am Also… So Many Other Things Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is Internal Family Systems therapy. Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is a type of psychotherapeutic approach that’s based on the idea that the mind is naturally multiple, and we all have a system of parts. It’s often used …
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is self-verification theory. Self-verification theory comes from social psychology, and it says that we want other people to see us the way we see ourselves. That might seem self-obvious, but what’s interesting is that this applies even when …
We all have a variety of different characteristics and things floating around in our heads. But when you dig down deep to the core, what is it that makes you, you? I think a major part of the foundation of who we are is the sum of our entire life experiences. No one else has had …
Failure isn’t fun. There’s just no two ways about that. But what does that failure mean> I think that, particularly when mental illness is involved, it’s easy to leap from “I failed at [X]” to “I’m a failure.” But taking a step back, they’re not really the same thing. Fear of failure Fear of failure …
When You Fail, Are You a Failure at a Task? Or as a Person? Read More »
Sometimes, as part of anti-stigma campaigns, you’ll hear that we shouldn’t say people are bipolar, schizophrenic, etc. The thinking goes that phrasing it this way puts people in a little box in which they’re primarily defined by their illness. Yet at the same time, you’ll find many bloggers referring to themselves as “I am bipolar.” …
