Chronic Insomnia Treatments

A recent study confirms that cognitive behavioral therapy is effective for chronic insomnia and is often more effective than medications. “What surprises us is that there isn’t more awareness of this treatment’s effectiveness and that there haven’t been more attempts to make the treatment more available to patients,” James M. Trauer of the Melbourne Sleep Disorders Centre in Australia told …

Mentalize

Sometimes a word just seems to show up everywhere.  This past week the word “mentalize” has come up in conversation a number of times.   A colleague who is looking for a referral for therapy says that she needs someone who can “mentalize well.”  One of my patients who just completed a DBT-based treatment program says that she is doing better because …

Attentional Bias Modification Prevents Depression

A middle-aged nurse wrestling with depression said she want to do “everything” that she possibly could to improve her mood. She doesn’t have access to therapy through her insurance, and she’s already vigorously pursuing mindfulness practice, but her request reminded me of an article I recently read on Attentional Bias Modification as both a possible treatment of depression and as …

CBT for Insomnia Reduces Suicidal Thoughts

CBT for insomnia (CBTi) is clearly preferable to taking sleeping medications for most people. Studies show that cognitive behavioral therapy is associated with greater improvements in sleep quality than sleeping medications, and that those improvements are more durable, and, particularly in the elderly, sleeping medications are associated with significant adverse effects, including an increase in mortality. But it can be a hard …

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: 2 – Depression Assessment

  …I’m returning to do the test suggested by my therapist in our previous meeting – the Beck Depression Inventory II. Tremendous. Doing a test sounds like something you see in those silly magazines that tell you how good a lover you are are some such other rubbish, but apparently this test is rather serious. So I return that afternoon and Dr Black …

Through the door 1 – Therapy needed

A few years back and I am living in Paris with my Irish wife who works for a large International think-tank based in the city. I work in London and return to Paris on weekends via Eurostar. I have had many ‘episodes’ in the past, but for a while now I’ve been free of them. But I am working hard redesigning a national …

Art Therapy – Lyndsey

When I was in the hospital, one of the activities they provided for patients was art therapy.  I sat in a room, silent and bewildered as I was, and methodically glued tiny pieces of glass mosaic tiles on a black wrought iron trivet frame.  I called it my Crazy Trivet ever after, and it was remarkable only because it was …

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 …

Through the door: initial therapy consultation

By Dr Suzanne A Black and Stuart Jessiman Having passed through the door of the therapist’s lair there I am now seated facing the psychologist. She smiles. I smile.  A simple success I suppose. She sat there dressed in a black dress and pearls, amid an array of beautiful old furniture with one bookshelf towering towards the tall ceiling, and an …

Mental health in the UK

A little flaw in the UK’s ‘socialist’ medical service is poor provision for mental health. We have some of the leading surgeons in the world, some of our A&E departments are regarded as world-beaters too. To my knowledge hardly any of the staff were trained in Cuba or Russia and none of them is related to Che Guevara. But don’t you think …