How the "Mental Illness" Label Helps and Hurts

Childhood hurts and competitive feelings often trickle into the workplace and could prevent one's career from flourishing. Understanding how old family dynamics influence you can be key to carving out a promising career. Untreated depression, ADD, and anxiety can endanger employment in some cases. We all know that the workplace...

Awe is an emotional experience felt when individuals encounter powerful experiences, such as works of art, giving birth, or nature. The feeling of awe evokes a sense of wonder and can transform the way we see the world. The experience of awe can make us feel diminished and insignificant. Encountering...

A discrepancy between explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) self-esteem is associated with anger suppression and negative affect. Emotional dysregulation is a key component in the association of low self-esteem and physical aggression, anger, and hostility. Programs to support healthy self-esteem include those that support the cultivation of emotional intelligence and...

Bullying is a serious problem that affects children of all ages, and it can have a devastating impact on their physical and mental health. Victims of bullying may experience anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and other emotional difficulties, and in severe cases, they may even consider committing suicide. One such victim is Jackson, a seven-year-old boy who has endured a lifetime of bullying and ridicule from children due to his rare disease, Treacher Collins Syndrome.

Colors can increase our visual memory and arousal level. The effect of emotions on memory can sometimes depend on color. We can use colors to brighten our winter days and make us feel better and healthier. Color is an important stimulus for the brain because 80 percent of our sensory...

An enhanced version of cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT-E, specifically treats eating disorders but assumes the patient is neurotypical. Seeing eating disorders as only cognitive-based fails to explore the possible interaction of lived experiences. A neurodivergent individual may not benefit from focusing heavily on the thoughts pertaining to their eating disorder.

I've learned that when my autistic son has an outburst or meltdown, we must summon our empathy. Our focus must not be on making him stop. When he is upset, we must listen wisely to find the key to calming him. Our response must be "can do," not "we can't."...

Listening to patient concerns can create opportunity for open dialogue in the healthcare setting. Putting yourself in your patients' shoes can allow for understanding and empathy. Being open-minded, patient, and understanding to patients' concerns can build trust over time. Compassion is warranted for patients' healthcare concerns, not judgment. In today's...

Caring for family members who are in vegetative states can feel like an ambiguous loss. In addition, caring for family who live in a different country can bring about additional difficulties. Reliance on social networks for instrumental and emotional support can lessen the difficulty during this time. Self-compassion is another...

The health benefits of meditation are innumerable including potentially increasing one's lifespan. Eliminating what the Buddhists call monkey mind is a surefire way to become more present to your life. Higher social standing, once measured by leisure, is now measured by busyness. I have a confession: I once was a...

About 70% of your immune system is in your gut. Your gut biome can be impacted by many factors, including age. Research is looking at the role of the gut in neurodegenerative diseases. Last year, I published a post on this blog discussing the role of your gut biome in...

One of the most common after-effects of childhood attachment trauma is the development of a harsh inner critic. At the root of self-hate and self-neglect are conditioned beliefs that they aren’t good enough to be loved or cared for. Feelings of self-hate and self-neglect can generalize to self-sabotaging behavior...

Are you pursuing a career or relationship that are not true to who you are?. Our lives are fleeting and precious. It is easy to deny the reality of our own demise, but wisdom comes from confronting our own mortality. What does it mean to think like a therapist? That...

The dynamic and often emotionally daunting developmental phase of adolescence offers a complex background for psychosis symptoms. Misdiagnosis is common, especially at the time of onset, as psychosis symptoms can be present across psychiatric and medical diagnoses. The most concerning marker for the presence of a psychotic illness is the...

From the very beginning of our lives, we need another person to reflect back to us that they see us in all of our complexity. We want to know that we can be loved even with our flaws, imperfections, and negative qualities. Mirroring is mutual. The person who reflects to...

Cultural myths affect how we talk about biological mothers and stepmothers. The complex role of the stepmother is often overlooked and reduced to a series of tropes. Being a successful stepmother is not easy, especially since there are specific boundaries associated with the role. The experiences of daughters with stepmothers...

Positive effects of responsiveness to others include compensation for weak inner expectations and a tempering of rigid inner expectations. Negative effects of responsiveness to others include antisocial and self-destructive behavior, enabling addicts, and ignoring one's own needs. A balance between responsiveness to inner and outer expectations is good, but an...

There is unavoidable emotional pain when those we care about are threatened or suffer. Most of our stresses and upsets come from needless suffering that we cause ourselves, which is the opposite of being at peace. Strengthen neural networks in the brain that support spacious mindfulness, staying in the present,...

Many of us approach change through self-shame. Shame activates our fear-response system, which is counterproductive to lasting change. Science shows us that self-compassion is a more effective approach. As January wanes, so too may your resolve for positive change dwindle. For many of us, January starts with a ray of...

Emotional individuals tend to make poorer decisions. It’s normal to want what others have, but this can become deceptively destructive. Measuring one's present self against one's past self, instead of against others, is a good way to combat envy. Envy has long been a destructive force in human relationships...