Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – have been, for years, a prescriptive definition of what every grieving person must go through. They are so culturally imbedded that, when I was writing our company page on grief & loss, I had to include her name and stages or Google wouldn’t even recognize our page as legitimate.
Read moreIn 1994, the American Psychiatric Association removed sexual addiction (Then formally known as, “Hypersexuality,”) from the DSM-V – their expansive psychiatric bible that defines mental health disorders. It wasn’t strange or surprising – and it certainly wasn’t incorrect to remove it.
Read moreSharing. It’s a word we hear in so many contexts. Talk shows are no longer talking at us – we’re, “Sharing the conversation.” Churches are trying to stop laying down rules and invite people to, “Share,” or, “Participate in a discussion.” We don’t even post stuff anymore, we, “Share,” on Facebook.
With all these years of practice, we should all be good at communication and levels of emotional intimacy by now…
Read moreRead moreA life of feeling stalked.
Imagine what it would be like to live life constantly expecting a crisis to happen – always on the alert for some kind of threat or emotional trauma? What it would feel like to constantly scan the horizon seeking for sick people or germs – forever worried that they would make you sick or even just being around those people would cause you to feel sick?
Read moreImagine you have been watching your marriage slip away for years.
Perhaps you finally got to wondering what he had been doing on that computer all of those late nights. You found a spare moment, logged in and started looking at his internet history. When you did, you were instantly greeted by thousands of erotic or pornographic web sites and the hours spent on sites for escorts. Instantly, you understand why he hasn’t been sexually interested in you once this month.
Or:
Read moreIf you’ve never experienced depression yourself, imagine with me for a moment.
Imagine what it would be like to be unable to laugh, and unable to cry. To feel like your head is in a grey cloud that follows you everywhere and all of your thoughts just echo inside of it. Imagine living with the sense that you have no impact and the world has no impact on you — where your only release is sleep but the idea of waking up for another 16hrs fills you with dread. Imagine living inside a glass cell that you can see out of but no one else seems to be able to see you inside of or hear your pleas to get out.
That’s depression…
That’s why, for so many people who struggle with depression, thoughts of taking their own lives actually feel comforting.
If you or someone you love is experiencing this, know that things don’t have to stay this way. There is a way out and here is a map of the first steps on that journey.
In my mind, the award for the most incorrectly labelled disorder ever goes to the generalized mayhem that is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Think about it: We have a disorder that we know is the result of the brain continually searching for external sources of stimulation. We further know that children suffering from such can be treated with stimulant medications and that stimulant, paradoxically, calm the child — likely by providing enough internal stimulation.
Read moreRead moreDoes your partner handle life well? Can you still see a future with her? Do you communicate just as well in the same house? These seem like logical questions that can be answered by living with your potential spouse prior to marriage, but couples who live together before marriage are more prone to marital troubles and divorce. Recent research has sought to determine why.
Premarital cohabitation has become increasingly common. In the last 20-some years, the number of women aged 19 to 44 who cohabited increased by 82%. One-third of women in 1987 cohabited, compared with three-fifths in 2009-2010, and increases like this are seen for every age group. Just 15 years ago, only about half of women marrying were doing so following a cohabitation experience. Currently, among all women 19 to 44, 23% are in cohabiting unions, a percentage doubling that of 20 years ago.
The study aimed to establish whether MBCT is superior to maintenance antidepressant treatment in terms of preventing relapse of depression. Although the findings show that MBCT isn’t any more effective than maintenance antidepressant treatment in preventing relapse of depression, the results, combined with those of previous trials, suggest that MCBT may offer similar protection against depressive relapse or recurrence for people who have experienced multiple episodes of depression, with no significant difference in cost.
Read moreOver 2 years, relapse rates in both groups were similar (44% in the MBCT group vs 47% in the maintenance antidepressant medication group). Although five adverse events were reported, including two deaths, across both groups, they were not judged to be attributable to the interventions or the trial.
Nautilus –
Read moreSchroepfer will never forget when one of her hospice patients was hovering at the edge of death. She was unconscious, barely hanging on. Her children had all told their mother it was okay to let go. But the woman’s grieving husband hadn’t been able to give his blessing. Finally, after talking with his daughter, he decided he was ready to give his wife permission to leave them. “He sat down beside her and told her he loved her, and that it was okay,” Schroepfer recalls. “He got up to walk back to his chair. Right after he sat down, she raised her head out of the coma, said ‘I love you,’ and died. I was glad their daughter was there too, or I would have thought I’d imagined it.”
