Book Review: Feeling Better: Beat Depression & Improve Your Relationships
There are many ways we can try to feel better. We can try to improve the way we think. We can try to make more money. Have more stability. Get a better job.
But all of these things, say Cindy Goodman Stulberg and Richard Frey, are red herrings.
“We want to let you in on a little secret,” they write. “Your relationships hold the key to your happiness.”
In their new book, Feeling Better: Beat Depression and Improve Your Relationships with Interpersonal Psychotherapy, Stulberg and Frey offer a step-by-step guide to improve your relationships by setting and achieving goals, articulating feelings, and making constructiv...
Source: Psych Central - March 22, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Claire Nana Tags: Book Reviews Depression Disorders General Happiness Memory and Perception Motivation and Inspiration Psychology Psychotherapy Relationships & Love Self-Help Treatment assertive Beat Depression and Improve Your Relationships boo Source Type: news
Book Review: Borderline Bodies: Affect Regulation Theory for Personality Disorders
“The body,” says Clara Mucci, “is the essential go-between in the relationship between the self and other.”
In personality disorders, this relationship between the self and the other is especially troubled. However, this “other” can be the body itself.
Mucci describes psychosomatic disorders as an outcome of the “problematic junction between mind and body.” The body can also act as an imprinting device in which earlier generations transmit their trauma onto us.
In her new book, Borderline Bodies: Affect Regulation Theory for Personality Disorders, Mucci places the body at the center of treatment, viewing it...
Source: Psych Central - March 21, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Claire Nana Tags: Book Reviews Disorders Family General Genetics Memory and Perception Parenting Personality Psychology Psychotherapy Relationships & Love Trauma Treatment Affect Regulation Theory for Personality Disorders Body books on somati Source Type: news
Resting in the Space of Discomfort: A Mindful Approach to Depression
Suffering is a shared human experience that can be viewed integral part of life. Our suffering can range from mild to severe and can take the form of physical or mental and emotional pain.
Whatever the form of our discomfort, we can agree that “suffering of the mind” is one of the biggest concerns of our time. The severity of mental health issues is on the rise, particularly the number of individuals experiencing depression. According to the World Health Organization (2017) over 300 million people are estimated to suffer from depression, equivalent to 4.4% of the world’s population.
The Causes of Depression
The c...
Source: Psych Central - March 18, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Jules De Vitto Tags: Depression Habits Mindfulness Self-Help Source Type: news
Book Review: Bodyfulness: Somatic Practices for Presence
I didn’t know how very much I needed this book until I opened it — one of the biggest gifts for a reader, and for a person who seeks understanding. That word bodyfulness is instantly recognizable as a side-stepping of mindfulness, but you’re wrong if you think it intends a substitution of body for mind.
As you would expect from a book published by Shambhala, it embraces a much more comprehensive understanding of the lived experience. The book includes lessons on how to be centered within yourself in a moment-to-moment way and how to find and hold on to yourself when the winds are buffeting. A very interesting el...
Source: Psych Central - March 16, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Lori Handelman, PhD Tags: Book Reviews Disorders General Happiness Memory and Perception Mindfulness Motivation and Inspiration Psychology Relaxation and Meditation Self-Esteem Self-Help bodily authority Bodyfulness books about meditation books about se Source Type: news
Book Review: The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober
“The first time I got drunk, I’d felt like I finally unzipped my wrong skin and slipped into a slinky new one, “writes Catherine Gray.
In her new book, The Unexpected Joy Of Being Sober, Gray describes her journey from fake friends, hungover mornings, and failed moderation attempts to finally finding her way to sobriety and the many joys that come with it.
Yet early on Gray is unconvinced. She writes, “Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t want to not drink. My day did not look like that. But I didn’t want to drink either.
The world in sobriety is much brighter, louder, rawer, and scarier that Gray imagines. She write...
Source: Psych Central - March 11, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Claire Nana Tags: Addictions Alcoholism Book Reviews Disorders General Happiness Memory and Perception Mindfulness Motivation and Inspiration Neuroscience Personal Stories Psychology Psychotherapy Self-Esteem Self-Help Treatment addiction co Source Type: news
Book Review: Living Light: The Art of Using Light for Health & Happiness
While it’s hard not to notice the brilliant display of colors set off by a sunset over the water, we seldom consider the biological, or even psychological, benefits of light.
“It is my belief that good quality light in our daily lives is far more important than we might think,” writes Karl Ryberg.
In his new book, Living Light: The Art of Using Light For Health And Happiness, Ryberg brings us his life’s work — studying the obvious and not so obvious ways in which light affects us and how we can use light in our lives not only function better, but feel better.
Light, we know, plays an important role in seasona...
Source: Psych Central - March 10, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Claire Nana Tags: Book Reviews Disorders General Habits Psychology Seasonal Affective Disorder Self-Help Treatment artificial light Light therapy Living Light natural light Ryberg SAD Source Type: news
Book Review: Breakdown: A Clinician ’ s Experience in a Broken System
There is no such thing as a perfect system and in the case of the mentally ill, nothing could be truer. The mentally ill face an uphill battle to secure appropriate services, avoid being caught up in the criminal justice system, and most of all, steer clear of the revolving door that has become our mental health system.
Lynn Nanos, a mobile emergency psychiatric clinician, believes it is time for a change. Her new book, Breakdown: A Clinicians Experience in a Broken System of Emergency Psychiatry, reads like a clarion call to all involved in mental health care in this country. Drawing on her rich experience, Nanos highligh...
Source: Psych Central - March 7, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Claire Nana Tags: Book Reviews Disorders Ethics & Morality General Health Insurance Medications Policy and Advocacy Psychiatry Psychological Assessment Psychology Psychotherapy Schizophrenia Treatment Violence & Aggression books on mental illnes Source Type: news
Book Review: Mental Illness Is an Asshole: And Other Observations
“In a world where friends are assholes, parents are assholes, even adorable, little three-year-olds are assholes, there is no reason that psychological disorders get a pass,” writes Gabe Howard.
Howard, who hosts The Psych Central Show podcast and writes for Psych Central on the topics of bipolar and mental illness, is known for his fun, entertaining and eminently useful observations about mental illness.
He writes, “Bipolar, clinical depression, schizophrenia and the like have no respect for the people whose lives they impact.”
In his new book, Mental Illness Is an Asshole – And Other Observations, Howard of...
Source: Psych Central - March 7, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Claire Nana Tags: Anxiety Bipolar Book Reviews Depression Disorders General Habits Happiness Healthy Living Memory and Perception Motivation and Inspiration Panic Disorder Personal Stories Psychology Schizophrenia Self-Esteem Self-Help Sti Source Type: news
The Connection Between Physical and Mental Health
Many of us seriously underrate how strongly our body affects our state-of-mind. We don’t realize how strongly poor diet, lack of sleep, and too little exercise can affect our emotional and mental health.
Better Nutrition Can Alleviate Depression and Anxiety
Over the past decade, interest in how diet affects mental health has grown considerably. Large studies have found that habitual consumption of an unhealthy diet (defined as high in processed foods) is associated with increased risk of depression, anxiety, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents.1
A study employing a “diet inte...
Source: Psych Central - March 3, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Fabiana Franco, Ph.D. Tags: Anxiety Depression Exercise General Habits Healthy Living Sleep Source Type: news
Do Men and Women Experience Bipolar Disorder Differently?
Bipolar disorder affects men and women in equal numbers, and the symptoms are essentially identical. But some key differences do exist—differences that might be due to biological factors, and social ones, too.
For starters, research has consistently shown that women have higher rates of bipolar II disorder, “which typically presents as a chronic depressive disorder with periods of hypomania,” according to Candida Fink, MD, a board-certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist with a private practice in Westchester, N.Y.
There’s a misconception that bipolar II disorder is less severe than bipolar I because mani...
Source: Psych Central - March 2, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. Tags: Bipolar Disorders Gender General Men's Issues Women's Issues Bipolar Disorder bipolar disorder and pregnancy bipolar I Bipolar Ii Gender Differences men and bipolar disorder menopause and bipolar disorder menstruation and bipolar Source Type: news
Narcissists and Abusers Use This to Target Empaths
Projection is a defense mechanism commonly used by abusers, including people with narcissistic or borderline personality disorder and addicts. Basically, they say, “It’s not me, it’s you!”
When we project, we’re defending ourselves against unconscious impulses or traits, either positive or negative, that we’ve denied in ourselves. Instead we attribute them to others. Our thoughts or feelings about someone or something are too uncomfortable to acknowledge. In our mind we believe that the thought or emotion originates from that other person or thing. We might imagine “She hates me,” when we actually hate her....
Source: Psych Central - February 18, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT Tags: Abuse Anger Codependence Narcissism Personality Boundaries Defense Mechanisms emotional maturity externalization projection Shame Source Type: news
What Psychotic Episodes Really Look and Feel Like
When we hear someone is psychotic, we automatically think of psychopaths and cold-blooded criminals. We automatically think “Oh wow, they’re really crazy!” And we automatically think of plenty of other myths and misconceptions that only further the stigma surrounding psychosis.
In other words, the reality is that we get psychosis very wrong.
For starters, psychosis consists of hallucinations and/or delusions. “You can have one or both at the same time,” said Devon MacDermott, Ph.D, a psychologist who previously worked in psychiatric hospitals and outpatient centers, treating individuals experiencing psychosis in ...
Source: Psych Central - February 17, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. Tags: Disorders General Schizophrenia Stigma Hallucinations Hearing Voices Psychosis Psychotic Episode serious mental illness Source Type: news
Book Review: Eating Disorders: The Journey to Recovery Workbook, 2nd Ed.
There is no such thing as a life free of distress. And yet in the distress — by learning to move through it, find strengths that help us cope, and most importantly, not avoid it — we often find the path to growth.
This path, from finding escape from the distress of life to finding growth in it, is also the journey that underlies the recovery from an eating disorder.
“People with eating disorders, like all people, flourish when they feel a sense of agency,” write authors Laura J. Goodman and Mona Villapiano.
In their new book, Eating Disorders: The Journey to Recovery Workbook, 2nd Ed., Laura J. Goodman and ...
Source: Psych Central - February 13, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Claire Nana Tags: Addictions Anorexia Binge Eating Book Reviews Bulimia Diet & Nutrition Disorders Eating Disorders General Habits Healthy Living Psychology Self-Esteem Self-Help Trauma Treatment Weight Loss books on how to recover from an Source Type: news
Book Review: EMDR Therapy & Somatic Psychology
Many therapists and trainees will be familiar with the terms “somatic psychology” and “EMDR therapy,” and there have been many authors who have tried to write a book that encapsulates both of these topics succinctly, but in my opinion, none have succeeded in quite the same way as Arielle Schwartz and Barb Maiberger with their new book, EMDR Therapy and Somatic Psychology: Interventions to Enhance Embodiment in Trauma Treatment.
EMDR Therapy and Somatic Psychology is a wonderful resource for both therapists-in-training and practicing therapists. The first part of the book is devoted to providing foundational knowled...
Source: Psych Central - February 9, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Caroline Comeaux Lee Tags: Book Reviews Disorders General Memory and Perception Mindfulness Neuroscience Psychological Assessment Psychology Psychotherapy Relaxation and Meditation Stress Trauma Treatment cultural sensitivity EMDR EMDR Therapy and Soma Source Type: news
What Everyone Needs to Know About Bipolar Disorder
Nine years ago, Julie Kraft’s doctor uttered the words, “you have bipolar II disorder.” Immediately, images of unhinged film characters, sensationalist tabloid headlines and shocking news stories flooded her mind.
All these things are now associated with me, she thought.
Kraft felt embarrassed, ashamed, sad—and afraid. “I was fearful of being judged, backed away from, viewed as unsafe, unpredictable, unstable, an unreliable friend, an irresponsible mom, a moody wife, a woman of weak character, and the list goes on and on.”
It’s an understandable reaction because even though bipolar disorder is common—about ...
Source: Psych Central - February 5, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. Tags: Bipolar Disorders Stigma Bipolar Disorder bipolar disorder myths bipolar disorder stereotypes bipolar I Bipolar Ii Cyclothymia Hypomania Mental Health Stigma Mood Disorders Source Type: news
