Mental Health Topics

What if you were depressed for so long that you forgot what happiness felt like? What if your low mood started to feel permanent, like part of your personality? This is the reality for many people with dysthymia, or persistent depressive disorder (PDD), a chronic depressive state that lasts two…

Q: My fiancé and I are going to have a couples counseling session on the 9th of august but he has abandonment issues with me, due to our past of me leaving when things got to be difficult and I’d shut down. How can I reassure him with action that…

Known more commonly and collectively as depression, depressive disorders are a set of closely related mental health conditions that affect a person’s mood, energy, nervous system, sleep cycles, biochemistry, and even brain waves. There’s little in an individual’s daily life that depressive disorders won’t affect—but other than a shared capacity…

Q: My girlfriend of three years is starting to bother me. We’ve had our share of ups and downs, but we’ve always managed to talk things through whenever there’s been a disagreement. Except for one issue: She doesn’t trust me when I’m out and about with other people, specifically my…

Q: My ex girlfriend and I were kind of dating and then she met someone else that she started having feelings for. She told me this morning that she wants to pursue things with him. I am feeling very sad, desperate and don’t know what to do. I also just…

Depression and anxiety might be the Ross and Rachel of the mental health field. You try to think of them as separate entities, two platonic Friends with a romantic history, but then they’re back together again. And even in the episodes when they’re not together, you still feel the tension. …

Q: Is it possible to recover or fix relationships with my young children? I hear often that the first 5 years are critical to a child’s development. I fear that I have messed those years up with my children.  I have struggled with anxiety and have often found myself snapping…

In late 2010, Steve Jobs was still at the head of Apple and had recently unveiled the first iPad. Jobs was well known for his personality and would often call reporters to let them know how he felt about their reviews. At times, these conversations would involve a pat on…

Q: I have a neighbor that I struggle to get along with—we’ll call her Heather. I met Heather when we first moved into our neighborhood a few months ago. She and her husband live across the street and came to say hi while my girlfriend and I were carrying boxes…

Do you struggle with expressing your feelings? Instead of calmly communicating how you feel, do you resort to lashing out in anger instead? Finally, is there no real rhyme or reason for why you react with anger?  Anger is a natural reaction in many situations. It’s healthy to recognize the…

If you’re expecting tips on what medium-priced champagne to buy in order to sweep your lover off their feet this Saturday night, you’re in the wrong place. Sorry. It’s not going to be that kind of a date night. You probably won’t end up in a Jacuzzi, or on a…

The idea of brainwashing had a viral moment in the 1950s when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) decided to wage psychological warfare against Communism. Project MKUltra secretly experimented with “mind control” techniques, dosing people with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) without their consent. In fact, at one point the CIA…