Much has been written about the topic of “self-esteem.” Sometimes the idea almost seems like one of those “buzz” words that doesn’t really mean anything. A significant amount of research points to the development of self-esteem as a key aspect of mental health. Self-esteem builds slowly and its foundation is the sense that we are loved and valued by others. …
The Problem of Denial: How to Help Loved Ones with Substance Use and Other Destructive Habits
“What can we do to help our daughter, who is a young adult, living at home, and who is not compliant with treatment recommendations from mental health professionals and appears to be using substances and behaving in other self destructive ways?” We are often asked what can parents and family of young adults or seriously affected adults with mental illness …
Bipolar Disorders and Exercise: Working Out Can Tone Up Your Neurotransmitters – Arnrow
Neurotransmitters are the chemicals that your brain cells (neurons) use to transmit information, without them we cannot think or act. It is no wonder that too much or too little of any one particular neurotransmitter can have substantial effects on how our body and brain functions. For example, people with mood disorders tend to have low levels of the four major …
Cognitive Therapy versus Medications for Depression
There is often a debate about the effectiveness of cognitive therapy versus medication for depression. Below are the findings from some studies that help us the role of cognitive therapy and medications in the treatment of depression. 1. Robert J. Derubeis in the Archives of General Psychiatry did a study with random assignment of 240 patients to 16 weeks of medications, 16 weeks of cognitive …
Natural Supplements and Insomnia
There are two herbs or supplements that have the best data supporting their effectiveness. Both appear to be safe but have modest effectiveness. Melatonin Valerian (Alone or Combined with Hops or Melissa) Melatonin: Rapid Effect on Sleep The body uses melatonin as part of the way it regulates the sleep-wake cycle. Levels of melatonin increase as light decreases (at …
Let There Be Light
Those who experience depression regularly at certain times of the year (in San Francisco, a winter depression usually begins in late October or early November and, depending on where you live, there may be a summer depression linked to heavy fog in July and August) should definitely know about the importance of light exposure in treating depression. In fact, regular exposure …
Mindfulness and Impermanency: The Practice of Acknowledging the Temporary – Arnrow
After reading this article by TV producer-turned-mindful meditation enthusiast, Mark Koberg, I have been reflecting on how my awareness of permanency, or rather, lack thereof, in my life affects my overall day-to-day experiences. In his account, Koberg shares how a medical diagnosis and a newfound indifference to the career he had been building all of his adulthood ensued a journey …
How Mood Can Influence Events
What I do for a living often involves asking dumb questions. For example, we all know our moods are usually affected by events. In fact, if we happen to notice we’re in a bad mood, the first thing we start to do, often unconsciously, is try to figure out what caused that bad mood. It’s not that it’s a bad …
Mood Disorders and Summer Nutrition – Arnrow
We recently wrote about healthy eating for people with mood disorders (original post can be viewed here). Today, we bring you some delicious and easy ideas to enjoy in this summer weather—well rather, July in San Francisco that so happens to be co-occurring with the hot and sunny climate in other places. Infused water Drinking infused water is a great and …
Be Mindful of Keeping Your Mind Full of Good – Arnrow
Experience-dependent neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to learn, adapt, and evolve to not only our experiences, but also, and perhaps more significantly, our reactions to those experiences. It is almost as if our brains can form habits, and the types of behaviors and patterns that it develops are dependent on how we choose to be. This suggests that the …
Wholeness: Overcoming the War Within – Arnrow
I feel like there is a war within us– an internal battle between the different parts of us, tugging and pulling for control and dominance. On one side is the brain— a soldier of logic and reason, commanded to evaluate all it comes in contact with, and to calculate corresponding plans of actions. It is enemy to, well, the other …
Hello!
Hello! My name is Arnrow and I am very much excited to be the new summer intern at Gateway Psychiatric Services. I am an incoming junior pursuing psychology at the undergraduate level at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York. My first encounter with psychology was almost completely accidental, having just taken a psychology class in high school to simply …
Summer Intern 2014: Arnrow
Long time readers of this blog will recall that last year we had a wonderful contributor, Emma, who helped enliven our forum as well as creating a number of posts on the blog itself. She also set up the topics pages. This summer we have another college intern, Arnrow, who will be helping in the same way that Emma did …
A Healthy Diet
We are glad to have recently added a page to our “Topics” section that discusses a healthy diet and also reviews some information about nutritional supplements. This is a huge topic, and none of us are dietitians, but it is an important issue and so, with the caveat that we approach the topic from the standpoint of what helps people …
Skill Building for Psychosis
One of the very hard things about many psychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, is that they often begin at a time that is critical to the development of many skills and abilities needed for successful adult life. Many years ago we visited a wonderful program in Atlanta developed for young people with schizophrenia called STARS. The program was …
Summer Vacation: Taking a Break from Therapy
Maybe because it’s summer, and everybody’s thinking about vacations, or maybe it’s just a coincidence, but we’ve been spending a lot of time talking with people these past two weeks about taking a break from treatment or drastically cutting back on treatment, etc. All of it has us wondering about how to think sensibly about these types of decisions. After …
Does Psychiatric Treatment Work?
How well do psychiatric treatments work? Aren’t psychiatric medications just placebos? Does psychotherapy really do anything? These are the kind of questions that mental health clinicians run into all the time. Dr. Maximilian Huhn and colleagues from the Munich Technical Institute (Huhn – reference 1) have conducted a major review of the data. They evaluated results from 852 clinical trials involving …
Hypomania and Sensory Experience
More than a decade ago, Dr. Suzanne Black, who occasionally writes posts on this blog, got me interested in the sensory experiences associated with hypomania.In our Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the only reference to these is under the heading of “distractibility.” And, indeed, sometimes people who are experiencing intense and profound sensory experiences everywhere they look and listen, may have trouble …
Seeing the Other – Kelsey
“I see you.” That is one of the many profound concepts in one of my favorite movies, Avatar. “I see you.” For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, “I see you,” is the greeting of the Na’Vi, which expresses a sense of being aware of being seen by another.* Whoa. To be seen by another person. To feel …
App that Predicts Mania
There are smartphone apps for monitoring your diet, your drugs, even your heart. And now a Michigan psychiatrist, Melvin McInnis, is developing an app he hopes doctors will someday use to predict when a manic episode is imminent in patients with bipolar disorder. Manic episodes can come with a dangerous mix of increased energy and impaired judgment. “We want to be able to …