Blogs

Consultations in a time of Covid-19

In response to the challenge of no longer being able to see clients in my rooms, I am available for phone, Zoom and email consultations. Please feel free to contact me to discuss how this might work for you. We’re all in this together!

Thu, 04/02/2020 - 10:03

What strange and challenging times we find ourselves in.  They say you should be careful what you wish for.  Only several months ago I found myself wishing out loud that my life was not so busy, so full of things to do.  Now most of them have been cancelled …

Sun, 11/26/2017 - 20:14

I would love a dollar for every time someone has said to me that her/his depression has been caused by a “chemical imbalance in the brain,” as if this explained everything, including the necessary treatment (corrective chemicals in the form of antidepressants).

I have long been troubled by the ways we sometimes talk about depression—particularly when we describe it as a “disease,” as if it were as clearly identifiable and discrete a condition as chicken pox, or diabetes.

Sun, 10/15/2017 - 19:47

Everywhere I look lately, the world seems to be crying out about the issue of sleep.  It started a few weeks ago when someone sent me an academic article that examined the relationship between suicidal ideation and sleep deprivation––it concluded that insomnia increased suicide risk because it induced symptoms of depression, as well as being responsible for a heightened sense of “burdensomeness”.

Sat, 09/16/2017 - 10:09

Some research recently published on PLOS ONE suggested that, in mice at least, taking a regular break from a calorie-restricted diet led to greater weight loss than fulltime diet compliance managed to achieve.  We’re not mice, of course, and it’s early days in the progress of this research, but the findings have made me wonder about mini holidays from other things.

We all know how good a proper holiday––an extended, formal break from work––is for us, but what if we were to think of the smaller breaks from our self-imposed regimens we might benefit from?

Mon, 07/24/2017 - 11:03

“I don’t want to waste another year!” a client said to me recently.  When we explored what this meant, it seemed she felt that being depressed – which she had been for the better part of a year – was not something that competent people did with their lives.

Wed, 08/24/2016 - 20:40

The Medical Journal of Australia recently published an article that confirms something those of us who work in the mental health profession already know from our daily practice––that antidepressant medication is less effective than it was once believed to be.

Tue, 02/09/2016 - 17:57

How wonderful it is, particularly for the self-employed who work at more than one location, to be able to call and email others, and check messages, when we are away from our main office.  Indeed, it would not be possible to have the flexible working lives we do without message bank, mobile phones and the internet.  As long as we remember to keep the balance between checking the technology regularly and leaving it alone while we are otherwise engaged, it’s all very handy.

Fri, 08/14/2015 - 12:18

What an interesting day I had last week!  I have had Google Alerts set to keep me posted on articles about prostate cancer and sex—one of the ways in which I try to keep up with what’s being said out there in the world about this important issue—and last week I sat down to scan the last year’s worth of articles to see whether there was a pattern.

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