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Depression

OVERCOMING DEPRESSION WITH ONLINE MINDFULNESS THERAPY

By Peter Strong, Ph.D. on January 31, 2010 in The Mindfulness Approach

Depression thrives on habitual negative thinking and emotional reactivity. The best way to change these is by developing a space around them - the space of mindfulness. In this article we explore the healing effect of mindfulness in a little more detail. Read More

Botox Treatment Slows Perception of Negative Emotions

By Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D. on January 31, 2010 in Charting the Depths

Our smiles broadcast, hey world, I am pleased. Our frowns say, don't mess with me.  

What about the other way around? Do we use our facial muscles to read emotion in the world? Read More

Putting Guilt Into Perspective

By Adia Colar on January 29, 2010 in New Chapter

When I first heard about the earthquake in Haiti, I felt sad, worried, angry. I didn't, however, feel guilty, which is a huge improvement.

 

  Read More

What Shakespeare knew about Sleep

By Anthea Rowan on January 28, 2010 in Living Around the Blues

My cyber silence has been wrought of two things. Busy-ness, which is good, and Insomnia, which is not. Read More

The Decline of Play and Rise in Children's Mental Disorders

By Peter Gray on January 26, 2010 in Freedom to Learn

Rates of depression and anxiety among American children and adolescents have been increasing steadily for the past fifty to seventy years. Today five to eight times as many young people meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or an anxiety disorder as was true half a century ago or more. Why? Read More

Wii and Ennui: Media Use and Child Mental Health

By Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D. on January 22, 2010 in Charting the Depths

US kids spend almost eight hours a day surfing the web, watching TV, playing video games or using their mobile devices, according to a new report issued Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The report, Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year- Olds, was a nationally representative survey of media use in 2,000 children. Read More

No Atheists in Foxholes, or Haiti

By Nigel Barber, Ph.D. on January 20, 2010 in The Human Beast

Religious beliefs are deeply irrational. The all-powerful and benevolent God is strongly disconfirmed for residents of Haiti, yet they continue to cling to the view that God is both good and all powerful. Read More

Bipolar Disorder at Work: Don't Ask, Don't Tell?

By Joni E. Johnston, Psy.D. on January 18, 2010 in The Human Equation

Do you tell your boss about your bipolar disorder?  The answer to that question depends on who's giving the advice and what your goals are. Read More

How High or Low is your BQ tm ?

By Steve Sisgold on January 18, 2010 in Life in a Body

Life is not meant to be an out of body experience. 

But often it is. Sometimes we get so busy and caught up in our thoughts and our efficient multi task machines that we forget to check in and see what our body is doing or saying to us. Here's a test to inform you and raise your body awareness quotient or BQ for short. Read More

Speaking to children about suicide

By Nancy Rappaport, M.D. on January 18, 2010 in We Are Only Human

The day my mother killed herself she had just finished preparing her house on Marlborough Street for the anticipated return of her children after a fierce custody battle. I was just four years old and the youngest of six children. Growing up in a blended family of eleven children, I was bewildered about why my mother took her own life and left me behind. Read More

Avatar blues?

By Elana Premack Sandler, L.C.S.W., M.P.H on January 13, 2010 in Promoting Hope, Preventing Suicide

Can a movie about a utopian society cause us to question the meaning of life? Sure. But to the extent that we contemplate suicide? Wow.

That, apparently, is the power of "Avatar," the film that allows viewers to experience the world of Pandora almost as if they were there, but not quite.

And that seems to be the problem. Read More

Rose-Colored Glasses Linked to Less Frontal Lobe Use

By Adoree Durayappah, MAPP on January 12, 2010 in Thriving101

A recent study published in the journal NeuroImage explains the role of the frontal lobe in these glowing self-evaluations. The study's findings indicate that the less activity there is in the frontal lobe, the more likely we are to see ourselves through rose-colored glasses. Read More

Learning to Sit with Depression with Mindfulness

By Peter Strong, Ph.D. on January 11, 2010 in The Mindfulness Approach

If we want to change our depression and anxiety, we must learn how to listen inwardly as taught during Mindfulness Meditation Therapy. Read More

Affirmationomics: Following the honey trail to what REEEAALLY drives us

By Dr. Jeremy Sherman on January 10, 2010 in Ambigamy

"Every life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first --  the story of our quest for sexual love -- is well known and well charted. Its vagaries form the staple of music and literature; it is socially accepted and celebrated. The second -- the story of our quest for love from the world -- is a more secret and shameful tale. Read More

The Globalization of Psychiatry - Universalizing Our Mental Illness

By Stanton Peele on January 10, 2010 in Addiction in Society

Cross-cultural applicability research shows that DSM-IV-type emotional disorders are specific to the United States and the West.  As we enlighten the world about our "scientific" findings in psychiatry, we are instead creating a contagion of our mental illnesses around the world. Read More

Where Does Happiness (and Everything Else) Come From? Lessons from Literature

By Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D. on January 9, 2010 in How of Happiness

From a young age, I've been drawn to "psychological" authors - those writers who understand what motivates us, writers who grasp the complexity of our emotions and the mysteries of our behavior. Read More

Antidepressants for Whom?

By Peter D. Kramer on January 9, 2010 in In Practice

Just to say that I've put a detailed essay up on XX about the recent news on antidepressants: the claim that they don't work for minor depression, the claim that they do more to change personality than to moderate mood disorder, and the claim that depressed people rarely get a full course of them anyway. Judith Warner has a similar, less technical piece appearing as a New York Times op-ed. Read More

Ranking and Linking, For Better and For Worse

By Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D. on January 9, 2010 in Attending to the Undervalued Self

 Self-affirmations do not help when we are hit with low self-esteem because this universal problem results from our natural response to defeat, part of our broader instinct to rank ourselves among others. The first step is to better recognize ranking and linking behaviors, the two things we do all day but hardly think about. Read More

What is your Response to Man's Inhumanity to Man?

By Peter H. Kahn, Jr., Ph.D. on January 9, 2010 in Human-Nature

Old men are like babies. With their boneless gums they're beggars for love and supplicants for life...You want to know the Truth? My friend, Listen!... Read More

Psychology Is So Simple - Think Positive!

By Stanton Peele on January 9, 2010 in Addiction in Society

After a lot of complicated mumbo jumbo, psychology has found the key to happiness is positive thinking.  But we are in danger of losing this truth in an infrared brain image. Read More

Essential Reads: Editor's Picks

More Essential Reads

Depression Blogs

  • Russ Federman, Ph.D., ABPP

    Bipolar You

    The young adult's guide to bipolar depression.
    By Russ Federman, Ph.D.
  • Jonathan Rottenberg, PhD

    Charting the Depths

    Reflections on the science of depression.
    By Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D.

  • Focus on Forgiveness

    Forgiveness and its connection to anxiety, depression, and overall health and happiness
    By Matthew B. James, Ph.D.
  • Julie Hersh

    Struck By Living

    Coping with depression and living life to the fullest.
    By Julie Hersh
  • Karen Kleiman, MSW, LCSW

    This Isn't What I Expected

    Notes on healing postpartum depression
    By Karen Kleiman, MSW, LCSW

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