For as long as I can remember I’ve struggled with obsessive thoughts, with severe ruminations that can interfere with daily life. My thoughts get stuck on something and like a broken record, repeat a certain fear over and over and over again until I scream out loud, “STOP IT!” The French call Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder “folie...
One form of cognitive behavioral therapy is exposure therapy, where your brain is supposed to form new connections and rewrite the language of your amygdala (fear center), so that it doesn’t associate every dog with the pit bull who took a bite out of your thigh in the fourth grade. By doing the exact thing...
I loved this post by Elvira Aletta, Ph.D. on Psychcentral! To view the entire post, click here. I have excerpted her five tips for people who love persons afflicted with mental illness. 1) Be informed. Go to the library or do a Google search to learn more about whatever diagnosis our loved one has. Be...
The question of whether or not you should start taking antidepressants is complex and difficult to answer. But even fuzzier is the question of when or if you should stop. Last May, NPR ran a piece called “Coming Off Antidepressants Can Be Tricky Business.” Joanne Silberner writes: Several top psychiatrists say there’s just not enough...
As I mentioned in an earlier post, my great aunt GiGi, who was one of my mental health heroes, owed her life to Recovery Inc. and she would occasionally share with me nuggets of its wisdom, like the following tools, quoted or adapted from Dr. Abraham Low’s writing: • Treat mental health as a business...
