Description: How do you deal with someone who you believe is completely unreasonable? Well, one possible answer that makes a lot of sense is simply to not deal with them at all. Who needs the stress and the headaches associated with trying to take on an unreasonable person and try to get them to BE… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Intervention: Identifying Key Elements of Change
Can You Out-Grow or Out-Develop ADHD?
Description: You know a little bit about ADHD, right? So, consider this question, if a child is diagnosed as meeting the diagnostic criteria for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) can or will they, over time, outgrow the disorder (or the diagnosis)? A good friend of mine used to be principal at a school for children… Read more »
Focussed Ultrasound Does an End-Run on the BBB and that is a Good Thing!
Description: If you have had an introductory Psychology course, and perhaps even if you have not yet, you are likely aware of the challenges faced when researchers and clinicians want to introduce drugs in to specific brain regions or to influence specific neurotransmitter systems within the brain. Trying to increase the functional levels of a… Read more »
The Psychology of Covid-19: Challenges in Diagnosing and Treating OCD
Description: I hope you are washing your hands A LOT these days! In fact, might you say that you are washing your hands compulsively? That is not really an appropriate descriptor but here is something to think about. What effect do you think the appropriate jump in hand washing over the past 8 months and… Read more »
The Psychology of Covid-19: Depression or Boredom?
Description: Think about this distinction for a moment in relation to your own experiences within and related to our time with the Covid-19 pandemic. How much of our negative emotional, social and cognitive experiences could or should we attribute to bad things that have happened to us (e.g., health challenges, job losses, life disruptions) and… Read more »
Ending Psychotherapy: Don’t Slip Out the Back Jack!
Description: Think about how relationships tend to go for you. Think about how relationships end for you (assuming you have had one or two relationships end). Now imagine you have been seeing a psychotherapist for the past 6 months, perhaps to help you sort of what is or did go on in your relationships. How… Read more »
Northern Mental Health: Treatment Challenges
Description: You have no doubt heard about the difficulty small towns and rural or northern communities face in recruiting and retaining doctors, but have you heard or wondered about whether this same issues plays out in relation to mental health and mental illness related services? In Canada over one third of psychiatrists (physicians specializing in… Read more »
Drugs versus Psychotherapy: Not Either/Or But And
Description: So, what comes to mind as a definition when you see the term Psychiatric Therapeutics? Psychiatric relates to what Psychiatrists and Psychiatry is the medical specialty that focuses upon mental functioning, mental illness etc. It also involves the training necessary to be permitted to prescribe medications to treat the symptoms of mental disorders. Psychologists,… Read more »
Self-Harm: Symptom or Treatable Issue?
Description: What do you know about self-harm? I do not mean, do you engage in self-harm but, rather, what have you heard of it? Over a relatively short number of years (20 tops) there has been a marked increase in the rates of self-harm (cutting etc.) among young people and particularly among teenaged and young… Read more »
Mental Illness: Beyond the Biomedical Model
Description: Do we (Psychologists and Psychiatrists) know what caused mental illness? When I teach the Psychological Disorders and Treatments sections on my Introductory Psychology course, after talking about the drugs used in treating the symptoms of various mental disorders (like depression or schizophrenia) I will usually ask if people think that because there are drugs… Read more »
Books for Success!
