Robin Williams’s suicide has led many to open up about depression in an effort to raise awareness about how many people are living in misery. One of the most common themes in this public discussion has…
It might seem odd that successful, creative and funny people like Robin Williams, can be fundamentally unhappy.
Robert Brye/Handout
News of Robin Williams’s suicide will have taken many of us by surprise. We always feel a mix of emotions when we hear someone famous, successful, creative and much loved has been suffering unbearable…
The broad category of hoarding has only recently been recognised as a psychiatric disorder. It first made an appearance in the 2013 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders…
A new law aims to eliminate the national practice of shackling people with mental disorders.
Akaris Tafoei/Shutterstock
On July 8, a day before Indonesia held its presidential election, the parliament passed the bill on mental health into law. The election coverage drowned the news of the new law, but not its significance…
Back in the early 1990s, I used to play the video game Tetris on my Nintendo Game Boy. I was really good at it – if I do say so myself – and I used to play for hours every day. When I went to bed I would…
Introverted and A-type? We’re not that easily categorised.
Ivana Vasilj/Flickr
The idea that people can be classified into types has a long history. Writing 23 centuries ago, the Greek philosopher Theophrastus sketched 30 characters that are instantly recognisable to this day. They…
Children in Gaza are caught in the crossfire of the conflict.
Mohammed Saber/EPA
I was approached to write this piece a few weeks back. Everyday matters took precedence: a family visit, work deadlines, an imminent house move. Yesterday, after saying I didn’t have time to write it…
We are only now realising how poor diets impact mental health and well-being.
Λ |_ ν-\ Γ Ø/Flickr
Over the last half century, the global food industry has profoundly changed the way we eat. While we understand how these dietary changes have impacted physical health, their effect on mental well-being…
Ian Thorpe spoke to Michael Parkinson about being gay.
Network Ten
Ian Thorpe coming out as gay during an interview with Michael Parkinson last night was both the most ordinary of stories and the most extraordinary. It also showed how deeply homophobia is ingrained in…
Therapy helps patients gradually confront situations, places and activities they’ve avoided since the traumatic event.
Bill Strain/Flickr
While human beings have always known about the mental health effects of trauma, it was only in 1980 that the term post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, was coined. This acceptance spawned an explosion…
People who attribute mental illness to brain disease or genes tend to blame affected people less, but see them as more hopeless and dangerous.
lauren rushing/Flickr
Depression, schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions are increasingly linked to abnormalities in the brain and in our genes. Many professionals believe these developments hold the key to better treatments…
Suicides among mental health patients under home treatment are double the number of suicides in in-patient units, according to a new study published in The Lancet Psychiatry which looks at suicide rates…
Hormones are one of many factors that can trigger or perpetuate mental ill health.
Sascha Kohlmann/Flickr
Political controversies often use the suffix “gate” to embellish their significance. In pop psychology, the equivalent is the made-up “syndrome”, which involves a combination of symptoms and circumstances…
If spotting future problems were that easy.
Anon Photography
Mass murders lead inevitably, if not entirely reasonably, to the question of what is wrong with the American mental health system and how it can be made better. This has happened most recently with the…
We often use the weather as a metaphor for how we’re feeling: gloomy, sunny or under a cloud. But how does it actually affect us? In this episode of TCTV, Nick Haslam describes the influence of sunny skies…
Additional expenditure, such as that on youth mental health, is arguably not in areas where need is greatest.
JLM photgraphy/Flickr
Despite widespread analysis of the federal budget, measures affecting mental health services have received little attention. But, like other aspects of the budget, there’s serious concern about the lack…
Elliot Rodger’s behaviour points to other problems.
Michael Nelson/EPA
The news that Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old confirmed by police as a suspect in the violent rampage which left seven people dead and 13 injured in Isla Vista, southern California, had Asperger’s Disorder…
The proportion of women experiencing depressive symptoms is higher among mothers of four-year-olds, than among mothers with a newborn baby.
Arjun Karkhanis/Flickr
Becoming a parent is a journey into unchartered waters – the physical and emotional demands of looking after a newborn are exhausting and constant. Not surprisingly, depression and anxiety are common among…
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development, Owerko Centre at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary