A mental health crisis, once it resolves, can leave people with a sense of overwhelming anxiety that co-workers, distant friends, family, and strangers might find out about what happened. Jayson Blair, however, never really had the opportunity to worry about that… His was an extraordinarily public mental health crisis. In an article in Bipolar Hope he talks about what happened… …
Living Alone and Depression
“I just really want to live in my own home with my own garden and without having to deal with all of those jerks.” A young woman living with several roommates told me that she was thinking of moving to a house in the country. The idea seemed very appealing to both of us, since we know how many hassles there …
It Takes Two to Fight
“I just can’t believe what my mother told me on the phone, she said I was a bad mother, can you believe it? I wasn’t going to put up with that, believe me…” A delightful and pretty feisty mother came in the other day brimming with frustration. We spent the entire session talking about how she got derailed from a …
Mindfulness for Depression -Research Update
Mindfulness has received a lot of attention recently as an approach to improving mental health in a number of conditions. But is it really effective as part of a strategy for treating serious depression? And, if so, how can we best incorporate it into treatment, given the great difficulty that many people with depression have doing even a small amount …
Mindfulness Warnings
A recent visitor to this site sent us this link and some thoughts about mindfulness… This article about the dangers of mindfulness was posted by a friend of mine from smartrecovery. I just thought I would pass it along, definitely going to store this in the back of my mind for later. The cases discussed were relatable to my experience …
Atlas of Emotions
Psychologist Dan Kalb recently posted a link to a wonderful resource for people who are interested in understanding and exploring emotions. In his post, Dan explains a little bit about the background for this site… The Dalai Lama commissioned psychologist Paul Eckman to create a secular interactive map of human emotions. Eckman, in turn, surveyed some 150 researchers with expertise …
Accepting the Loss
One of my patients wrote to me this morning asking if she could get a medication to help with her anxiety. She has been trying to find a good therapist for quite a while and I think she might have found someone who could really help her. But this is making her feel anxious and irritable. Now she has to wrestle …
Staying Up Late
Andy and the Nighttime Child – Staying Up Late In our practice we work with a lot of bright young people in the information technology industry. It often seems as if all of them stay up until all hours of the night certainly many of them do and sometimes to their detriment. We know that sleeping late is one of …
Secrets are Dangerous
A young, attractive, and very successful man who recently got married came in to see me the other day and told me that he was in recovery from sex addiction. That caught my attention and, I have to admit, living as I do in a very mental health oriented world, made me wonder if this was an example of over …
Kevin Briggs and the Golden Gate Bridge
I am away at the annual meeting of the Northern California Psychiatric Society this weekend and while taking a break from the presentations I wanted to try to come up with a quick post that might be relevant to this blog. Probably the most moving part of the weekend was last night’s presentation by Kevin Brigg, who for many years …
Adult ADHD
Adult ADHD May Be Distinct From Childhood ADHD Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children may be distinct from and unrelated to ADHD in adults, according to a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry. It is long been understood that adult ADHD is the natural extension of childhood onset ADHD. In other words that adults with ADHD began as children with …
The Power of a Minute
I got this email from Rick Hanson because I have subscribed to his Foundations of Wellbeing Program. I found it inspirational and thought I would share it. Sometimes we feel too busy to do anything good for ourselves. But maybe just a minute of your time could make a difference. And who doesn’t have a minute… RICK’S REFLECTION: THE POWER …
Breaking Up without Depression
Some people seem to find it much easier to weather the breaking up of a romantic relationship than others. Sure they may feel sad, they may worry about what it means that their relationship ended, but relatively soon they’re able to move on. Others get mired in doubt and find it hard to reenter the dating world. A study from Stanford …
Awe Reduces Inflammation
What if you knew that the experience of awe could measurably improve your health, would you approach the world differently today? At the most recent TEDMED, psychologist Jennifer Stellar presented evidence that the experience of a number of positive emotions (joy, pride, contentment and awe) was associated with reduced levels of interleukin – 6 (IL6) a well validated blood measure …
Thankfulness – A Meditation
On this Thanksgiving 2015 we received a link to the section of Rick Hanson’s Foundations of Wellbeing course that talks about thankfulness and gratitude. Rick talks about how thankfulness and gratitude promote long term well-being, reduces anxiety, and improves mood. He introduces the notion that it is possible to grow this sense and change our own experience, and perhaps change …
Poor Health Predicts Bipolar Outcomes
John has not been doing well. He used to be optimistic about all challenges and, although he had ups and downs, he managed to overcome these shifts in mood and maintain a focus on achieving his life goals. For the last year and a half he seems to be having difficulty focusing on those goals. And he seems discouraged, particularly …
Taking Care of Yourself
Part of the key to self care is finding ways of being nice to yourself that don’t require a huge investment of time. Yes, it would be great to spend the day at one of those fancy spas. I can almost feel the sense of relaxation soothing all of the tension that I carry around in my body… But who …
Sleep Deprivation in Western Society
In February the National Sleep Foundation announced the publication of new guidelines for the amount of sleep that we should be getting based on a rigorous review of the literature. The guidelines suggested that adults should be getting between seven and nine hours of sleep. The results were widely distributed and commented on. It was noted that many people in our …
Controlling Crazy Behavior
A young man came in and wanted to talk about his friend with bipolar, who, when he gets manic, can become uncontrollable. I said that the idea of controlling dangerous behavior can be problematic. The need to control someone else’s recklessness can lead towards confrontation and anger, which often does not work out well. I thought of the often repeated story …
Distress Tolerance
A wonderful young woman we have been seeing for a few months asked for some recommendations for skills to help her deal with her experience of moments of overwhelming negative emotions that often seem to come out of nowhere. This post is a relatively quickly pulled together document derived from Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Think of it as a “draft” …