While mental illnesses are to some extent social constructions, the thing about research is that you are creating new knowledge by observing and writing about it. While new diagnoses may be fads, they also are probably worthy of additional study and analysis. It’s only through additional study that scientists can determine if…

In case you missed the first post, I joined an ED blogger book club that’s reading “Eating in the Light of the Moon.”  This week is Chapter 2: The Buried Moon – Rediscovering the Feminine.  Also, I think I failed to mention this last time, but I skip all the fables (or whatever you want to call them) in the book.  Not my thing.  Hopefully someone else picks up my slack and blogs about them.
Anyway, I can sum up the chapter in one line:
Women who struggle with disordered eating more …

Recently, a couple of girls started a blogger book club. Since my book club in “real life” has turned into a wine club for women who like to read, I was pretty excited about the idea. It’s like group book analysis. Group psych book analysis. The only way it could be more up my alley were if it were group House M.D. analysis.
We’re starting with Eating in the Light of the Moon, by Anita Johnson. It’s a good choice, as Anita has a unique approach …

This afternoon, my husband and I went and saw the movie “Everything Must Go.”  In general, I’m not much of a movie watcher.  It’s funny how I can watch a House marathon all day, but run out of patience about 2/3rds of the way through a film.  Anyway, when I heard the movie had Will Ferrell and was about alcoholism, I obviously had to go.
First, as a kind of sidenote, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a serious Will Ferrell movie.  I didn’t really even know it was possible, actually, …

Carrie beat me to posting about this Grey’s Anatomy quote:
After a trauma, your body is at its most vulnerable. Response time is critical. So you’re suddenly surrounded by people—doctors, nurses, specialists, technicians—surgery is a team sport. Everyone pushing for the finish line. Putting you back together again. But surgery is a trauma in and of itself, and once it’s over, the real healing begins. It’s called recovery. Recovery is not a team sport. It’s a solitary distance run. It’s long. It’s exhausting. And it’s lonely as hell.
The length of your …

There are lots of reasons to NOT seek treatment, and many of them are valid. However, reasonable or not, they are still excuses and they help keep you sick.

Note: While there is REAL research on barriers to treatment, this post only contains my opinion. Maybe I’ll blog about the factual stuff later…

Several years ago, I had a therapist who called herself “a recovering perfectionist.” While I thought that was clever, it wasn’t really something that I personally wanted to strive for. Sure, perfectionism can be hugely problematic and maladaptive…

The line, “You are a human being, not a human being,” would be on my “top 10 overused phrases in therapy” list (were such a list to exist). However, this concept was the first thing to come to mind when I was reading the article, The Reward of Doing “Something”:
People have this inclination to do more, even if what they do is trivial.
Experiments have shown that the desire for activity is quite strong; people will go to a lot of trouble to maintain their desired level of activity, which can …

It seems that this year, Glee is all about morals. On the whole, I’m not sure I love this aspect of the show, but tonight’s episode was on self-love, and I sure have a lot of thoughts on that.
I think I’m going to have to break my thoughts up into several posts, so let’s start with Emma and her OCD. Will’s attempt to help Emma with her OCD is not too far from experiences I’ve had with friends trying to help me with my eating disorder (both good …

Recently, my therapist started leading a group that I’m in. Most people who’ve done any kind of intense treatment (inpatient, residential, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, etc), have probably had this experience (myself included) but it’s pretty rare that my therapist now either facilitates or…