The Winter solstice is about three weeks away. That is the darkest day of the year. According to the internet, in Connecticut, sunrise will be at 7:12 a.m. and sunset will be at 4:24 p.m. That’s nine hours and twelve minutes of daylight. Which means fourteen hours and 48 minutes of darkness. I’m looking forward…
A little more than a year ago, I wrote a post about my almost total lack of confidence. At the end of that piece, I talked about different things that I’ve tried to do to gain confidence, “I’ve tried affirmations and journaling and meditating and therapy and faking confidence. None of it seems to work.”…
Pennsylvania senator, John Fetterman, recently spent six weeks in the hospital battling depression. He is finally feeling better and now he’s talking about his experience. He did an interview with NPR about his depression and recovery, John Fetterman speaks about depression after returning to the Senate : NPR. I’m sorry that Fetterman had to go…
I’ve read a lot of articles lately (here’s one) that say that preventing mental illness would be better than treating mental illness. The way these authors want to do that is by promoting wellness. The theory is that we shouldn’t wait until people are sick to intervene. There should be more of a focus on…
Aeon ran an article by James Barnes called “The space between us“. Its subtitle is “In order to understand and heal mental distress, we must see our minds as existing in relationships, not inside our heads”. Barnes presents what he calls a relational-intersubjective paradigm as nothing less than a revolution in therapy. I disagree and…
I read an article today in Psyche called “Worried you’re not normal? Don’t be – there’s no such thing” by Sarah Chaney. The gist of it is what it sounds like, there’s no such thing as normal. She takes the reader through the history of normality. Apparently, normal has only been a word used to…
There was an article at Psyche.co called “Mental disorders are brain disorders“. The thesis is that thinking of mental disorders as a separate category from other physical disorders is hindering patient care. The author, Christian Jarrett, says that many people don’t think so because the causes of mental disorders are “outside the body.” Then, he…
I read an article in Psychology Today called “Paying Patients Improves Mental Health Treatment Engagement“. It made a convincing case that monetary incentives would improve mental healthcare. It compared 39 papers on the topic and found that there were large effects from financial incentives. It also addressed several of the possible objections. Finally, it talked…
It’s been a while since I posted anything here on mental health. That’s probably a good thing for me personally. It’s hard for me to write about mental health when my mental health is good. It’s much easier to write about it during a flare up. The bad thing is I’m failing at my goal…
For those who don’t know, back in April, I had a major depressive episode. I was miserable. For a few weeks, my best days consisted of getting out of bed before noon and eating something before curling up on the couch for the rest of the day. I often struggled getting myself back upstairs to…
