One of the perennial challenges for anyone with problems with depression or mood swings, and perhaps for anyone in our increasingly busy and frantic world, is how to not get overwhelmed by work and personal tasks.It is a challenge and we have historically relied on two sources of wisdom when we counsel people who are struggling with this:1. David Allen’s …
Medical Model
The medical model is something that many people with depression or mood swings feel frustrated about. The whole doctor-patient relationship with its power dynamics can seem exasperating, and at the same time, having an “illness” can seem as though it must be a source of stigma and shame. I’m not going to talk about the topic of the doctor-patient relationship, …
The Purple Thread – by Lyndsey
Greek philosopher Epictetus compared the masses to the white threads of a toga. He declared himself to be a purple thread among the common white threads, saying “I desire to be the purple thread–that small and shining part which makes the rest seem fair and beautiful.” He went on to ask, when contemplating changing his personhood, “why should I attempt …
Psychiatrists Don’t Care About “Why”
Psychiatrists tend to be surprisingly uninterested in discussions about why people are experiencing mood symptoms or anxiety symptoms or terrible stress. Let me try and explain this stance, which often seems bizarre to my patients. A young man who was recently married and had been living at home, and hadn’t been working for the last six months because of anxiety …
I Can’t Stand It! (ACT)
This week began with me spending three or four hours writing up a summary of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for one of the people I saw two days ago. For those of you who haven’t heard the term, ACT is the “hot” new approach to therapy (although much of it dates back thousands of years to Buddhist practice). I enjoyed the …
Mind Body Dualism
A wonderful woman who has been meeting with me off and on for a couple of years, and who initially came in to see me for some fairly classic symptoms of bipolar type 2, just sent me a “goodbye” e-mail. In it, she noted that she has uncovered the strong likelihood that she has Lupus. Lupus is one of those rare medical conditions that …
Law of Attraction – Creating a Hostile World
The law of attraction is the belief that “like attracts like.” Focusing on positive or negative thoughts can bring about positive or negative results. If you are angry or hostile your world responds with anger or hostility. Wikipedia has this to say about the philosophy that is called the Law of Attraction – “This belief is based upon the idea that people …
Treating Anxiety – An Update by Kelsey
Treating anxiety is an important part of working with people with depression or bipolar. This update focuses on changes that have taken place in the field in the last five years that might be relevant to many people dealing with depression and anxiety. Imagine that you are taking a nice, peaceful walk in the woods. It is a lovely, warm, clear …
Wise Selfishness
Wise Selflessness– The Dalai lama says, “It is important that when pursuing our own self-interest we should be “wise selfish” and not “foolish selfish”. Being foolish selfish means pursuing our own interests in a narrow, shortsighted way. Wise selfishness means taking a broader view and recognizing that our own long-term individual interest lies in the welfare of everyone. Being wise selfish means …
Blowing Things Up: Self-Destructive Responses to Frustration
Why do we sometimes come up with self-destructive responses to the unpleasant feeling of being trapped or the anxiety of an unhappy life situation? I talked about this a little bit in an earlier post that was based on an article in the New York Times. In that article, it was noted that many people may find it so hard to deal with the stress …
Bipolar Benefits: More Social and Verbal Abilities?
Why does bipolar disorder persist at a constant level across generations and around the world if it can be associated with depression, psychosis, despair and even suicide? Are there bipolar benefits associated with the same genes that can lead to the disorder? In August 2014, in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a very careful and detailed research study identified a …
Accepting Uncertainty
We are often trapped more by what we think about how things should be, or “have to be,” than by the reality of the challenges we face. This week I have been noticing how often the phrase “I can’t stand.XX” precedes a statement that is quite obviously not true. Someone who has been living with the uncertainty of multiple sclerosis for …
Being Busy is an Antidote to the Terror of Being Alone
My attention was captured when I read an article that suggested that there was a common human experience that many people in our busy worlds find so disturbing that they voluntarily give themselves electric shocks in order to distract themselves from feeling it. No Time to Think. Nowadays, people can keep negative thoughts at bay with a frenzy of activity. …
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 …
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 …
Longevity and Having a Purpose in Life
Studies in older adults have suggested that having a sense of purpose in life can add years to longevity. Now researchers have taken a look at the question of whether these beneficial effects occur in younger people. The study looked at a group of 6163 people aged 20 to 75 and followed them for 14 years. They found that having …
Irritability and Coming Home from Work
I feel bad about it but at the end of the day I end up in a fight with my husband. It starts with me telling him that I am anxious about the work I am doing… there are lots of things going on and I feel anxious about whether I am doing a good job… but he doesn’t reassure …
Training Your Brain – by Lyndsey
I’m an avid animal lover in general, and dog lover in specific. I take a lot of life’s cues from dogs because they are such happy creatures. They greet every day with joy, rarely obsess and generally live in the moment, which seems to make them content. And I want that. I was listening to the Dog Whisperer give advice …
Why Do We Procrastinate?
Procrastination may be related to impulsive decision making. This somewhat surprising finding is based on a large study of twins. Most modern explanations of procrastination have focused on avoidance and aversion. You put off things because you are afraid of some negative consequence (doing badly, not meeting your standards, etcetera), in other words, you are avoiding a bad outcome. More recent studies have suggested that …