On the blog, “Storied Mind,” one of my favorite posts is “The Longing to Leave.” It’s one of the most insightful pieces I’ve ever read about how depression can really mess up a marriage. Because when a person plummets into a depression, his first reaction is to look around himself–at those things that are standing...

As a graduate student pursuing a degree in theology twelve years ago, I took a course called Systematic Theology–by far my toughest class–by a brilliant professor who was dying of bone marrow cancer. No one knew she was dying. She kept her diagnosis to herself and, as best as she could, covering up her chemotherapy...

Although anger is an appropriate reaction to an unjustified wrong, the emotion can easily grow out of control and disable you from your daily responsibilities. Anger increases activity in the fear center of your brain, which releases stress-producing hormones and neurotransmitters. Chronic anger can hurt your adrenal glands and immune system, not to mention interrupt...

Up until recently, psychiatrists and pharmacologists have concentrated on the biochemical approach to treating depression: targeting the imbalance of neurotransmitters that can be addressed with the use of antidepressants and other medications. However, some depression experts today are embracing a neurological perspective, using brain-imaging studies to target specific areas in the brain to regulate mood....

“You have to decide … Are you a Tippper or an Eeyore?” That’s one of the questions Randy Pausch, famous deceased Carnegie Mellon professor whose presentation, “The Last Lecture” went viral landing him on Oprah and a host of other afternoon and late night shows. I loved every other part of his lecture but that....