Depression is devastating to persons of all ages; however, it can be even especially dangerous and debilitating to older adults because of their general deterioration in health as well as complications stemming from other medical conditions. According to the “Journal of the American Geriatrics Society,” depression is one of the major causes of the decline...

Awhile back I wrote a piece on what not to say to a depressed person. Blogger Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S., adds a few more to the list from mental health experts and writers in her new Psych Central piece, “9 Things Not to Say to Someone With a Mental Illness.” She begins … Julie Fast’s friend...

I’ve always found it curious that more suicides happen in the spring than in any other season. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Health Statistics, suicide rates are lowest in the winter months and highest in the springtime. What’s so bad about April and May? The sun...

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), sometimes referred to as “shock treatment,” is the most controversial treatment in modern psychiatry. Many people envision it as the cruel and violent procedure that it is portrayed in movies such as “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The truth is that today’s treatment is safe and painless, but it isn’t without...

Learning to read the daily newspaper as a depressive is like learning to feed the ducks in Annapolis without getting crapped on by the seagulls: it demands good timing, a certain strategy, and an obnoxiously wide hat (to shield your head). I can’t check CNN.com every half hour for the most recent headlines like Eric...