I am very happy to welcome a new writer to the blog. Her name is Lyndsey, and I will be posting her first entry in a couple of hours. I think that you will find that she adds a unique perspective on what it takes to “live creatively with moods.” Here is what she wrote as an introduction – My …
Spring Means Change – MoodSurfing Update
Spring is in full bloom here in Northern California. Great, sunny, warm days followed by spring storms with clean crisp air and the vibrant greens of new grass and leaves.Perhaps because it is Spring, this has been a wonderful time of growth for the website. We have a record number of visitors. We recently moved the site to a much better server that should be …
Update: We’re Back!
Phew, it has been a busy week… I have spent more quality time with tech support for HostGator (the new hosting company) and GoDaddy (the old hosting company) than I have spent with my family… sigh. However, the good news is that (cross fingers) it looks as though we finally have made the transfer and gotten everything working again. Now …
Apps for MoodSurfing
While you are waiting for the official MoodSurfing app, you might want to check out the recently updated “Links and Apps” page on this blog. There I write about other websites with useful information, but also about apps for Android and iPhone that can help you create calm by adding a mindfulness practice, or track your moods, so that you …
Comments and Connections
The “forum” page seems to be generating renewed interest. This has sparked me to reevaluate how we manage all of the ways that you (the readers) interact with this site. I have never been all that happy with the “Comments” function. At the bottom of each post there is a place where you can post comments (I have to approve …
Shame and Self-Disclosure
There is a lively discussion in our forum about self-disclosure. A couple of forum members are pushing the boundaries by talking honestly about their bipolar when the topic comes up in conversation. So far their experiences are largely positive. The interchange on the forum reminded me of a book I bought for my son when he was being teased. The …
A Worthwhile Project
A good friend of this blog, and a wonderful woman who has energy, talent and a commitment to making a difference, recently sent me an update on a project that she is working on to develop a film and website to reduce the stigma of bipolar. She and her team have put up “beta” website announcing the project. And she …
Diagnosis
I just finished updating the “Diagnosis” page under our “Topics” section. Of course, there is much more to be said on this subject, but I hope what I was able to convey was a useful overview of the distinction between unipolar and bipolar depression. I would love to get feedback from you. This topic is one that is especially difficult …
Suzanne Alexandra Black
I am excited to be working with Suzanne Alexandra Black again. Suzanne is a psychologist who is an expert in bipolar moods. She is a brilliant woman who has an active Skype practice with patients on several continents and she divides her time between Paris and New York. Over the course of the next couple of months I hope to have …
Men at Work
I have to apologize for the distribution (to those of you who subscribe to this blog) of several nonsensical posts this morning. Some of you were concerned that somehow this site had been hacked. No worries. What actually happened was much more prosaic. We have hired a couple of programmers to create a better system of indexing our posts so …
An Interview You Don’t Want to Miss!
Dr. Forster recently interviewed with Matt Tierney, a Nurse Practitioner who holds a Master of Science degree in Nursing from UCSF. Matt goes into great detail about the benefits of the 12 step program and what the program is all about. He tells us how the 12 step program can be different for each individual and how each step can …
New Intern
Hello all, My name is Emma Swayze, and I am excited to report that this summer I will be interning for Dr. Forster. I am currently a junior at Boston College as a Psychology B.S. pre-med student. I plan to one day go to medical school in the hopes of becoming a psychiatrist. I have a particular interest in mood …
New Intern!
I am very pleased to announce that we have hired Emma Swayze as our intern to work on enhancing the quality of this blog. Emma is an undergraduate at Boston University who is majoring in psychology and planning on applying to medical school in order to become a psychiatrist. She will be working with me (starting in three weeks) to …
Disclosure
I finally got around to posting the interview with Dr. Cannon Thomas about relationship and communication issues. This interview was a response to the discussions on the forum that suggested that a very important topic for readers of this blog was when and how to talk about having a mood disorder with others. Re-reading the interview I found myself feeling …
Mental Health at the Exploratorium
I was intrigued to see that the newly reopened Exploratorium is hosting a temporary exhibit entitled The Changing Face of Normal devoted to exploring how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) has changed over time and the various implications of psychiatric diagnosis for what we call “normal.” There is an interesting interview in the Mental Health Matters series that is …
Relationship Problems – Get Solutions
I am happy to give readers of this blog an opportunity to get answers to problems they may be having with relationships or, more generally, communication with others. This Monday I’m going to be interviewing Cannon Thomas, a psychologist who is an expert in communication issues, especially as it relates to people with mood disorders. I will of course be …
Forum Technical Problems
For some reason, this week, when I have tried to access the discussion forum, I have been unable to do so, using my Google Chrome web browser. I know that earlier this week, there were a lot of problems with Internet access generally because of an ongoing war between spammers and an anti-spam service, but I am not sure if …
MoodSurfing Forum – Reviews
Thank you to all members of our discussion forum who responded to my request for feedback. It was very helpful. By and large people felt that the new version of Bublaa – which we use to host the forum – was working alright (aside from the awkwardness around setting up a Bublaa account and then requesting membership in the MoodSurfing …
Recruiting Summer Intern
MoodSurfing.com is recruiting for a summer intern to help with – * Creating content for this website * Miscellaneous administrative work * Editing and updating content from this site in order to publish the book version of MoodSurfing by the end of this year, or the beginning of next. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in psychology, a …
Conversations
I am glad to let you know that I just set up the first of what I hope to be a series of interviews with experts of interest to readers of this blog. I am very much indebted to Dr. Descartes Li for his willingness to be the first participant. Please let me know your thoughts (peter@gatewaypsychiatric.com). I am also …