When a loved one is grieving, it can be challenging to navigate the best thing to say. In this article, we’ll discuss 10 ways you can show support to a loved one who lost someone or something close to them. Grief looks different for everybody. When we think of bereavement, it’s common to think […]
Considering Therapy? A Few Items To Consider
Let’s face it: Sometimes life is hard. And sometimes, we all may need help with navigating our way through the messes that life sometimes hands us. In situations like those, it might be worth considering some type of therapy/counseling. One commonly asked question is: “Can I go to therapy even if don’t have a clinical […]
Meditation: ‘Accessing Your Inner Sanctuary’
What do you think of when you hear the word “meditation”? Some might imagine a person sitting cross-legged—perhaps in a simple room, monastery, or in front of a majestic landscape—exploring a universe of possibilities within themselves. And although this cliché has a grain of truth in it, meditation can be much more. Author Christina Rodenbeck […]
Where Depression Ends and You Begin
Depression is a mental disorder that costs the heath system, economy, but above all the person suffering with this medical condition. Prolonged feelings of sadness and hopelessness may seem—to the person suffering—to be limited to subjective experience, but as it turns out, this mental health disorder which, according to the Centers for Disease Control and […]
Why Depression is Hard to Understand
Although depression has been around since perhaps the beginning of human civilization, the disorder has only come into focus in recent decades. Like many other mental disorders—such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which used to be referred to as “shell shock”—depression has long been misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or unrecognized. The ancient Greeks first recorded depression, or […]
Aaron Beck and Cognitive Therapy: An Evidenced-Based Approach to Depression
Born in 1921 in Providence, Rhode Island, Aaron Beck would go on to develop one of the most effective approaches to treating depression. Depression is a mental health condition which, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “ . . . is one of the leading causes of disease or injury worldwide for both […]
Antidepressants: The Risks and Rewards
Prior to the psychopharmacology era (or, the time before antidepressants had become widely available), most individuals struggling with mental illnesses such as depression were, more or less, left on their own. However, throughout the so-called “Prozac Revolution,” in the 1970s and 1980s, antidepressants started to become more commonplace, as more individuals began using them. Nowadays, […]
As Clocks Turn Back, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) Turns Up: Understanding SAD
Earlier this week, autumn Daylight Savings Time begun, and although most of us gained an extra hour to sleep in this past weekend, the reduced exposure to natural light has been known to contribute to a mental disorder known as Seasonal Affective Disorder, or, as it is commonly referred to, “SAD.” Many of us who live in the […]
Treatment Options for Those who Struggle with Insomnia
Insomnia is more than just not sleeping well. It remains a mental health disorder that is classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, and it is also a problem that many Americans suffer from. In order to meet the criteria for insomnia, Haynes, et al. (2011), describes: “Insomnia complaints must last [at least] […]
Tackling Depression and ‘The Approval Addiction’
David D. Burns, M.D., first published “Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy” in 1980. Since then, the book has gone on to sell millions of copies and has inspired countless spinoff workbooks and seminars. In fact, the book’s popularity remains epitomized by a quote from the Los Angeles Times on its back cover: “A book […]