We all have problems, but let’s not kid ourselves: it’s how we deal with them that makes the difference.

You can actually eat yourself into a better mood and get rid of depressive thoughts and melancholy.

I can’t answer you in a nutshell. We wouldn’t fit unless we saw the same shrink.

My mother smiled. “I knew my baby wasn’t like that.”I looked at her. “Like what?””Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital.” She paused. “I knew you’d decide to be all right...

Throughout our times with Christopher [therapist] we were encouraged to work together at communicating on the inside. He pointed out that it would be good for us all to listen-in when an alter was telling...

I mean, that’s at least in part why I ingested chemical waste – it was a kind of desire to abbreviate myself. To present the CliffNotes of the emotional me, as opposed to the twelve-column...

It all made sense — terrible sense. The panic she had experienced in the warehouse district because of not knowing what had happened had been superseded at the newsstand by the even greater panic of...

I once read in my physics book that the universe begs to be observed, that energy travels and transfers when people pay attention. Maybe that’s what love really boils down to–having someone who cares enough...

We all talk to ourselves. Those we call mad just talk a little louder.

It was Freud’s ambition to discover the cause of hysteria, the archetypal female neurosis of his time. In his early investigations, he gained the trust and confidence of many women, who revealed their troubles to...

Here’s a thought to help ease the stress: “Good enough is the new perfect.

In 1944-1945, Dr Ancel Keys, a specialist in nutrition and the inventor of the K-ration, led a carefully controlled yearlong study of starvation at the University of Minnesota Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene. It was hoped...

Despite the growing clinical and research interest in dissociative symptoms and disorders, it is also true that the substantial prevalence rates for dissociative disorders are still disproportional to the number of studies addressing these conditions....

An observer can’t tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.

One weekend it rained for 48 hours without stopping. The rain beat like bony fingers against the window panes. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Fungus was growing on the walls. I polished off a bottle...

My sadness is beautiful. It infuses everything I do. It is at the core of my identity and always has been, just as happiness is in some people. I refuse to be told that it’s...

Dr. Talbon was struck by another very important thing. It all hung together. The stories Cheryl told — even though it was upsetting to think people could do stuff like that — they were not...

Maybe this is a second doctoral program: advanced learning about life, death, marriage, mothering, family, faith, patience, prayer. My degree will be ‘Doctor of Life,’ and I will be in good company. So many of...

It sometimes entered Mr. Pontellier’s mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she...

She held the book in her hands, feeling a sense of awe, and lightly ran a finger over its cover as if it contained sacred writings.

I’ve got to that point in life when there’s very few thrills and lots of pills seems we all end up this way. As we wait for our final day. But there’s one thing about...

The reason why I hadn’t washed my clothes or my hair was because it seemed so silly.I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one...

Children who are not encouraged to do, to try, to explore, to master, and to risk failure, often feel helpless and inadequate. Over-controlled by anxious, fearful parents, these children often become anxious and fearful themselves....

The odd sensation I had while cooking would often last through the meal, then dissolve as I climbed the stairs. I would enter my room and discover the homework books I had left on the...

That we are bound to the earth does not mean that we cannot grow; on the contrary it is the sine qua non of growth. No noble, well-grown tree ever disowned its dark roots, for...

Eventually I had gotten it together enough to call her. I did so partly to let her know where I was and partly to almost brag about where I was. Whenever I’d get morose, sulky,...

What happened? Who killed me?

This was a characteroloical prelude, but it wasn’t chemical or somatic. It was the anatomy of melancholy, not the anatomy of his brain.

The current ruling ontology denies any possibility of a social causation of mental illness. The chemico-biologization of mental illness is of course strictly commensurate with its depoliticization. Considering mental illness an individual chemico-biological problem has...

They slow your brain down,” he said, clutching an orange bottle of pills. “They iron out all the wrinkles…Maybe all the bad stuff happens in the wrinkles, but all the good stuff does, too…”They break...

It’s up to you today to start making healthy choices. Not choices that are just healthy for your body, but healthy for your mind.

PTSD is a whole-body tragedy, an integral human event of enormous proportions with massive repercussions.

It was soon after that I, overwhelmed with the implications of that memory, overdosed – well, somebody did but as it was my mouth and my stomach that was involved I had to take the...

I’ve had a lot of therapists, so I’ve had the opportunity to approach my fear in many different ways. I’ve faced it head on and sideways and tried to tiptoe up behind it.

Anger’s like a battery that leaks acid right out of meAnd it starts from the heart ’til it reaches my outer me

It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas and feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consensual validation as...

Once-upon-a-time we buried the memories we didn’t want.

The mental health system is filled with survivors of prolonged, repeated childhood trauma. This is true even though most people who have been abused in childhood never come to psychiatric attention. To the extent that...

Depression affects almost 80% of migraine sufferers at one time or another. People with migraine, especially chronic migraine, also are more likely to experience intense anxiety and to have suicidal tendencies. If we want to...

Children nurtured in kindness learn the value of understanding. Children taught to be self-sufficient, to respect others, to value education and to build life up rather than to tear it down will become adults capable...

If there is a single definition of healing it is to enter with mercy and awareness those pains, mental and physical, from which we have withdrawn in judgment and dismay. (48)

Viscosity occurs on a cellular level. And so does velocity.In contrast to viscosity’s cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own, a means of knowing and commenting on...

If I was set an essay on Friday, I’d spend three hours on Saturday morning in the library. Was that normal? I didn’t know. What I did know was that I felt less prone to...

..balancing time you spend with or without people is crucial for mental health.

There are two types of memory frequently experienced by individuals who have had overwhelming trauma that has been suppressed psychologically or chemically. The first is general memory, experienced as an adult, in which there is...

Self-loathing is man’s effort to sweep the moon of footprints.

They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.

normal.” Their minds work logically; they understand cause and effect; they don’t hallucinate. Their perceptions of most life circumstances are reasonably accurate. They get good reports at work; they do well in school or training...

The greater the gap between self perception and reality, the more aggression is unleashed on those who point out the discrepancy.

What people don’t understand about depression is how much it hurts. It’s like your brain is convinced that it’s dying and produces an acid that eats away at you from the inside, until all that’s...