globeandmail.com: Psychiatry: A specialty relegated to the basement

CAROLYN ABRAHAM November 24, 2008 at 8:52 PM EST Jai Shah could have been any sort of doctor he wished. Even before he graduated with honours from the University of Toronto's medical school, the 30-year-old Edmonton native had earned a master's degree in international health policy from the London School of Economics, published papers and worked for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Praise follows him wherever he goes. Except for last fall – when he decided to specialize in psychiatry. “A psychiatrist?” some of his supervisors said, “But you're smart! … You're taking the easy way out … Your patients will make your life hell … Your patients will make you depressed … What a waste of talent!” Dr. Shah knew mentally ill people...

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The Independent: Nervous breakdown: Happy survivors

Anyone can have a nervous breakdown – high-flyers included. But it doesn't have to mean the end of a contented life, says Sophie Morris Out the other side: Emma Mansfield's bipolar condition makes her prone to frenetic activity and slumps At 25, Emma Mansfield was a poster girl for successful young women. She lived in Bristol and loved her job as a producer of natural history programmes, which allowed her to travel all over the world. She had also met and fallen for a wonderful new boyfriend. She was in the pink, you might say, so the last thing she was expecting was to be dragged down into the deep blue storm of a nervous breakdown. "It was like somebody had pulled a rug out from under me," she remembers, eight years, another nervous...

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Ambigamy: Thanksgrieving: Cheer up 'cause it's downhill from here (a musical op-ed)

By Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on November 25, 2008 in Ambigamy When we're down, people sometimes try to cheer us up with reminders that other people are much worse off than we are. Comparing misfortune to good effect also applies to our future selves. We should all cheer up because compared to who we'll be in our declining years we're doing great. Along with AARP cards, one perk senior citizens get is the occasional amusement of consoling some youngster who is distressed to be growing so old. I wrote this song after just such an experience, me at 51 consoling a 36 year old who was distressed about aging.Enjoying the happiness we get depends upon our ability to manage our interpretation of wellbeing as either a complement to, or substitute for future...

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ABC News: Florida Teen Live-Streams His Own Suicide

Abraham Biggs, 19, Was Egged On by Fellow Bloggers, Cops SayBy EMILY FRIEDMANNov. 21, 2008 —A Florida teenager who used a webcam to live-stream his suicide Wednesday was reportedly encouraged by other people on the Web site, authorities told ABCNews.com."People were egging him on and saying things like 'go ahead and do it, faggot,' said Wendy Crane, an investigator at the Broward County Medical Examiner's office.Abraham Biggs, 19, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., had been blogging on an online body-building message board and had linked to his page on Justin.tv, a live video streaming Web site, where the camera rolled as he overdosed on prescription pills, according to Crane.Biggs, who had reportedly been discussing his suicide on the forums, also posted...

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ABC 7 News : Family outraged, distraught over teen's cyber suicide

The family of a college student who killed himself live on the Internet say they're horrified his life ended before a virtual audience, and infuriated that viewers of the live webcam or operators of the Web site that hosted it didn't act sooner to save him. Only after police arrived to find Abraham Biggs dead in his father's bed did the Web feed stop Wednesday - 12 hours after the 19-year-old Broward College student first declared on a Web site that he hated himself and planned to die. "It didn't have to be," said the victim's sister, Rosalind Bigg. "They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours." Biggs announced his plans to kill himself over a Web site for bodybuilders, authorities said. He posted a link from there to Justin.tv, a site that allows users to broadcast live...

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Anger in the Age of Entitlement: Emotional Abuse (Overcoming Victim Identity)

By Steven Stosny in Anger in the Age of Entitlement In terms of your health, happiness, and deepest values, one of the worst things that can happen is to live with a resentful, angry, or emotionally abusive partner. The worst thing you can develop, in terms of your health, happiness, and deepest values, is an identity as a victim. Victim identity destroys personal power and undermines the sense of self. It makes you falsely identify with "damage" done to you or with bad things that have happened to you. The cry I hear over and over again from those who live with resentful, angry, or emotionally abusive partners is, "I don't like the person I've become." Once emotional abuse occurs in a relationship, it becomes necessary not only to stop...

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In Practice: Chicken and Egg

By Peter D. Kramer in In Practice Does depression cause brain differences, or do brain differences cause depression? A scientist whose past research pointed to the latter conclusion has just published findings that reverse the direction.The prevailing contemporary model for depression suggests that in vulnerable people, repeated stress gives rise to adverse changes in the brain; depression is itself a stressor. The primary evidence for this hypothesis comes from rodent studies, where early deprivation and later mild stress cause what look like mood changes - and shrinkage in areas of the brain that correspond to our hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Human studies have tended to be correlational: patients who have suffered more days of mood...

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Quirky Little Things: Imposter!

By Jesse Bering, Ph.D. in Quirky Little Things I don't know what it says about me that as a thirteen-year-old boy my favourite television show was The Golden Girls, but like many fans I was saddened earlier this year to learn of the death of Estelle Getty, who played the sassy Sicilian octogenarian Sophia Petrillo in this long-lived series. Given her obvious talent and inimitable delivery on screen, you might be surprised that Estelle Getty felt like a fraud as an actress. Here's what she said in a 1988 interview with Entertainment Tonight:"I'm awed every day of my life. I think, this is Bea Arthur, this is Betty White. This is a big hit #1 show in the country. I'm afraid. I live with fear as a constant companion. Can I do this week after week? Am I good enough? Will I be able to pull it off...

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Beliefnet.com: 10 Ways to Transform Toxic Thoughts

If you've ever felt the way anger or fear can electrify the atmosphere in a room, you'll know what Sandra Ingerman means by 'toxic thoughts.' The author, a family therapist and shaman practitioner, believes our thoughts and emotions transmit an invisible but palpable energy that can affect our mental and physical well-being. 'Psychic punches,' she writes, are as real as physical violence. Click here for ten simple ways to protect yourself from negative thoughts and learn to radiate positive energy. Text by Sandra Ingerman, adapted from her book, 'How to Heal Toxic Thoughts: Simple Tools for Personal Transformation...

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Time: Defending Nebraska's Child Abandonment Law

By Karen Ball / Lincoln Nebraska never wanted the attention that came with the heart-wrenching reports of sobbing children at hospitals and desperate parents leaving kids, little ones and unruly teenagers alike, under the state's new "safe haven" law. "We were being ridiculed every day," says state Sen. Dianna Schimek of Lincoln, "but I have no apologies because something good will come of this. We uncovered something that we need to address. And it's not just Nebraska — it's widespread." The Nebraska Legislature's Judiciary Committee met in a special session Monday to begin rewriting a law that has resulted in an epidemic of abandoned children — some parents driving from Florida, Arizona and Georgia to leave off their problem kids. Most...

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Don Marquis: "The Lesson of the Moth"

By Don Marquis, in "archy and mehitabel," 1927 i was talking to a moth the other evening he was trying to break into an electric light bulb and fry himself on the wires why do you fellows pull this stunt i asked him because it is the conventional thing for moths or why if that had been an uncovered candle instead of an electric light bulb you would now be a small unsightly cinder have you no sense plenty of it he answered but at times we get tired of using it we get bored with the routine and crave beauty and excitement fire is beautiful and we know that if we get too close it will kill us but what does that matter it is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time ...

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MSNBC.com: Pacemaker for brain may ease mental illness

  MSNBC.comObsessive-compulsive symptoms improved, but some had major side effectsThe Associated PressNEW YORK - The same kind of deep brain stimulation used to treat some patients for Parkinson’s disease also helped a few people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, French scientists reported.Their study involved only 16 patients, but in four of them, symptoms nearly disappeared. However, many patients had serious side effects, including one case of bleeding in the brain.The treatment involved an experimental brain pacemaker, and it reduced repetitive thoughts and behaviors in some of the patients — just as it blocks tremors for some Parkinson’s sufferers.Read more...

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The Last Psychiatrist: Those Five Days Matter More Than Anything, Except The Other Days

Guys, remember that time when you were 24 and you were on the subway, and you saw that girl with the glasses reading a book wearing a black leather coat, and you were obsessing over whether to go up to her or not but then your stop came, and you were like, screw it, she'll probably mace me, so you got off and went to the library to study for your chem exam?You chose wrong.In the Atlantic appears First Person Plural, an article about the growing evidence that identity is more complex than a simple collection of traits and beliefs. The view I'm interested in... accepts that brains give rise to selves that last over time, plan for the future, and so on. But it is radical in that it gives up the idea that there is just one self per head. The...

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Stress Remedy: Nothing to Fear, but Fear Itself?

By Jay Winner, M.D.  in Stress Remedy Nowis a perfect time to reflect on FDR's first inauguration speech - whenthe economic situation was far worse than it is now (excerpts asfollows): "This great Nation will endure as it has endured, willrevive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm beliefthat the only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless,unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts toconvert retreat into advance..." "In such a spirit on my part and onyours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, onlymaterial things... Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realitiesof the moment. Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance....

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The Mystery of Happiness: Self-love precedes the love of others

By T. Byram Karasu, M.D. in The Mystery of Happiness   T. Byram Karasu, M.D. is Silverman Professor of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Self-love is benign self-compassion, not malignant self-centeredness, which unfortunately we call narcissism. Narcissism refers to a metaphor that describes a particular state of mind in which the world appears as a mirror of the self. It is used as an expression of unprincipled self-preoccupation. Even at that level of reading, as Thomas Moore says, "Narcissus falls in love with his image [and] discovers by his own experience that he is lovable." We tolerate better, and in fact find warmness in, such self-love when we see it in children.This positive view of the myth...

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Mind over natter ... sorta ...

Going through a breakup. It hurts. Racing thoughts ... obsession sessions ... ruminating ... the whole deal. Aha, think I -- I should be practicing mindfulness. So I picture myself lying on soft, green grass of a quiet field. I picture my thoughts and feelings as soft, puffy clouds ... just moving across the blue, blue sky.  Try letting them appear ... and move across the sky ... and disappear, unjudged ... untouched by me.... Suddenly, the clouds begin to change shape.  They become ... airplanes ... airplanes with the rotund contours of World War II planes in Warner Brothers cartoons.  More and more clouds become airplanes ... and then they start dropping bombs on me -- hundreds of tiny bombs falling from the sky and exploding...

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Medical News Today: Serious Mental Illness Linked To Increased Risk Of Stillbirth And Newborn Deaths

Mothers with any form of serious mental illness are more likely to have children who are stillborn or who die within the first month, finds research published ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood (Fetal and Neonatal Edition).But the links between the causes of stillbirth and newborn death depend on the type of mental illness the mother has, the research shows.The researchers looked at 1.45 million live births and 7021 stillbirths over a 25 year period from 1973 to 1998 in Denmark, to investigate links with serious mental illness.But the chances of stillbirth and newborn death from any cause were considerably greater for babies whose mothers had been admitted to hospital for mental illness at any point before the birth of their...

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The Sydney Morning Herald: Depression's silent victims

November 8, 2008One Saturday, a few months before the mental collapse that would end John Brogden's political career, the then NSW opposition leader and his wife decided they were overdue for some family time, so they scheduled a day's outing."We got picked up by the car and driver," Lucy Brogden recalls. "John and the driver sat in front. There was me in the back with the baby seat, and a staffer on the other side."Then began a bizarre South Coast road trip that started with an official morning tea at Sylvania. It progressed to lunch with Liberal Party people at Cronulla - for Mr Brogden. Mrs Brogden fed her toddler son and ate in the car with the driver. Next it was on to Kiama for afternoon tea with dignitaries, before a dinner in Nowra,...

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BBC NEWS: Depression treatment trial launch

Ruby Wax on MindfulnessHundreds of volunteers are being urged to take part in trials for a treatment for depression known as Mindfulness.Comedian Ruby Wax says she benefited from the techniques, which is explained as a way to teach people to approach their problem in a different way.She has visited Bangor to speak about it, and universities in the Gwynedd town and Oxford are joining forces to seek 150 volunteers from each area.It is claimed the treatment could also help people with chronic pain."The way in which we react to stressful or emotional situations we face can cause further stress," said Rebecca Crane, director of training at Bangor University for Mindfulness Research and Practice."Mindfulness is effective in reducing this extra layer...

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washingtonpost.com: It Isn't About the Trash Can

By Christine B. WhelanSpecial to The Washington PostPicture this: You're staring at the kitchen trash and feel a surge of frustration. You just saw your partner stuff one more thing into the already overflowing bin without making a move to empty it. Ready to pick a fight, you're about to lash out with an angry indictment of your partner's overall worth as a human being. Then you stop.You've been taking classes in something called mindfulness, so you take a deep breath and step back. You identify and feel your emotions, and then let them pass. You find the real source of your frustration: It's not the trash; it's that you don't feel appreciated around the house. Instead of an opening volley of obscenities, you consider how to resolve the broader...

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Comfort Queen: Comfort During Fearful Times

I finished reading Acedia and Me by Kathleen Norris last night and I want to shout (I guess blogging is my shouting), “This book could change your life!” Acedia - what the hell is that? I’d never heard of it before. Kathleen defines it as: …as the spiritual aspect of sloth. The word literally means not-caring, or being unable to care, and ultimately, being unable to care that you can’t care. Acedia is spiritual morphine, but it does more than mask pain. It causes us to lose faith in ourselves and in our relationships with others.” We are awakening from a time of collective spiritual morphine stupor. We sank into a profound state of weary not caring — not everybody, not all the time but a lot of us. Now we feel the breath of hopeful...

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Sydney Morning Herald: Anxiety can drain your spirit during troubled times

Greg BarnsNovember 6, 2008Over the past decade the lid has been lifted on depression. Organisations such as Beyond Blue and the Black Dog Institute, among others, have shone a light on those feelings of darkness and despair that invade so many lives and which impair them. But depression is not simply about feeling blue. It can be linked to anxiety. People who seem upbeat each day might be physically and mentally drained inside by the relentless drumbeat of gloom and fear about themselves and their sense of security.If you ask the average person to describe the symptoms of depression, unless they have acute medical knowledge themselves, they will generally use phrases such as "feeling sad" or "feeling low". Perhaps it is because the word "depression" conjures these feelings and perceptions.A...

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NPR: Happiness: Is A Priority On Well Being

by Philip Reeves Morning Edition, November 6, 2008 · The tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan has crowned its 5th king in an elaborate Buddhist ceremony. It was the new king's father who pioneered the concept of "gross national Hapiness." Meaning there's more to a country than economic growth — spiritual and mental well-being matter just as much to peop...

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The Writer's Almanac: "Lessons" by Pat Schneider

I have learned that life goes on, or doesn't. That days are measured out in tiny increments as a woman in a kitchen measures teaspoons of cinnamon, vanilla, or half a cup of sugar into a bowl. I have learned that moments are as precious as nutmeg, and it has occurred to me that busy interruptions are like tiny grain moths, or mice. They nibble, pee, and poop, or make their little worms and webs until you have to throw out the good stuff with the bad. It took two deaths and coming close myself for me to learn that there is not an infinite supply of good things in the pantry. "Lessons" by Pat Schneider from Another River: New and Selected Poems. © Amherst Writers and Artists Press, 2005....

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