We are glad to finally have a summary of a fascinating conversation with Dr. Julio Ozores up on this site in our “Conversations” series. Dr. Ozores challenges us to think about depression in a new way. Although many of us struggle with the negative effects of depression in our lives, are (or were) there benefits to depression that have led …
Social Media Makes Moods Go Viral
Previously we reviewed evidence that the people we live with (family, neighbors, even the larger community of people in a metropolitan area) have an effect on our mood, so it is not surprising to learn of a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of California, Yale, and Facebook that found that moods can go viral, just like ideas and …
When the Grown-ups Disappear: On Self-Destructive Behavior
A brilliant young man I know has been stuck in a pattern of self-destructive behavior and constant and terrifying self-criticism. Nothing seems to be helping him get out of this cycle. We have thoughtful conversations about the problem and come up with various solutions but then, the next time we get together, the behavior remains unchanged. I often feel as …
My Motivation Is Gone
Several of the people that I saw this week have been struggling with a loss of motivation. A lack of motivation can be one of the most prominent symptoms of a major depression, but there were other aspects of their loss of motivation that I found fascinating. I asked one of these patients, a man in his 40s who is …
Reduce Your Social Stress
Regular readers of this blog know that I really like the writings of Rick Hanson (he has a wonderful email list called “Just One Thing” and a new book that is an excellent resource for personal transformation called Hardwiring Happiness). For the last couple of months, however, his posts have seemed a bit repetitive. Just in time for the New …
Reinvigorate Your New Year’s Resolutions: Connect Change with Your Values
The celebration of a new year is frequently accompanied by hopes, wishes, and goals for the coming year, which take shape in the form of New Year’s resolutions. I will start exercising. I will spend more time with family or friends. I will get a hold of my finances. I will start volunteering. New Year’s resolutions are wonderful for providing …
The Trap of Stress Disability
The other day I was asked to evaluate a fellow physician by his disability insurance company. When I do disability assessments I take particular care, because what I say has big implications for the person I am evaluating, and I try very hard to do an extremely careful and thorough job of assessing the person’s situation. Three quarters of the …
Evaluating Emotions and Experiences: Could I Be Bipolar?
People often wonder whether the notion of bipolar moods really applies to their experiences. They compare what they have heard about bipolar (crazy person running berserk) and their life which is never that intense and wonder whether the doctor (or whoever else raised the idea) is just making a wild suggestion about the problem that they have. After all, it …
Distress Tolerance
I have been doing some blog – surfing and happened upon a wonderful series, on the “disorderly chickadee” site that I have referred to in the past, about the skill of “Distress Tolerance.” In working with patients with depression, we often find ourselves encouraging them to learn about Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). And of the many parts of DBT that …
The Irony of Suicide: Book and Other Resources
One of our favorite readers sent us a link to an article entitled “The Irony of Suicide” that recently appeared in the New York Times. We liked the article and thought it might we worth reposting it here. Especially since, irony of ironies, this holiday season is for many people a time when thoughts of suicide can become very difficult …
Endurance of Pain and Suffering
He knew how to handle pain. You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water until you finally got up your nerve to take yourself in hand. Then you took a deep breath and dove in and let yourself sink …
I’m In An Abusive Relationship… with Myself
Many people I see with chronic depression carry around with them a tormentor who says the most terrible things imaginable about them, their abilities, their worth, their very right to live. That tormentor is their own inner critic (hardly a strong enough term for the cruelty that can be unleashed by these inner voices). Often it is clear where this …
Learn How to Hardwire Happiness
As many of you know, I am a big fan of the new book, Hardwiring Happiness. One of the blog’s readers sent me this link to an upcoming class by the author. The class is this coming Saturday, and should be a GREAT experience. If you go I would love to hear from you.
Bipolar Treatment: The “Quick Fix”
A young woman came in to see me today. She was in a hurry. She wanted to make a change in her medication, and she wanted to make that change now. She told me that medication she was taking for bipolar was making her sedated and sluggish. She said she thought the medication was a “trap.” The medication was why …
Winter Leads to Spring
Someone shared with us a wonderful video about John O’Donohue, a Celtic poet, philosopher and writer. In it we found this quote that resonated very much with our experience. It is about winter. And depression. And how life blossoms from the seeming dreariness of a period of fallowness. We think you might appreciate it. If you like this clip we …
Mania and Depression Aren’t Opposites
Recently I found myself thinking about the similarities between two mood states that appear to be extremely different: mania and depression. I was talking to a young man who is now quite depressed, and who was sharing with me his incredibly negative internal though processes. One of the things that he said caught my attention. He said he felt that his illness and …
Hardwiring Happiness
Sometimes it is simple ideas that resonate the most powerfully with our psyches. This week I have found myself, again and again, thinking about the fairly simple but quite elegantly described ideas in the book Hard Wiring Happiness. I should probably admit that I’ve only gotten about half way through the book, but even so, it has had quite an …
A Deep Shadowy Fear
Most of us have had the feeling that, deep in the recesses of our brain, there lurks some terrible secret or event, some deeply frightening, or even terrifying memory or experience. For some of us there may, indeed, be a past trauma and a repressed childhood memory. But the rest of us are left to wonder, if nothing seems to …
Experience a Sense of Plenty
Nothing can seem more urgent, important, and real than the sense that there is not enough for us. Not enough love. Not enough food. The sense of scarcity may not even connect to any clear sense of what is missing. But that doesn’t take away its power. Regular readers of this blog know that we appreciate the insights of Rick …
Treatment as Punishment
I have spent the last two days mulling over an interaction with a patient and with his therapist. The patient is a brilliant, young man who has somehow entered into a conflictual relationship with me. The nature of that relationship was encapsulated for me in a comment by his therapist. She called to let me know that he was escalating …