Depression: men far more at risk than women in deprived areas

an article by Olivia Remesan for The Conversation [via World of Psychology’s Psychology Around the Net]


Loss of purpose. Shutterstock

Depression is a major cause of disability around the world, and if left untreated, can lead to substance abuse, anxiety and suicide.

Major depressive disorder is a particular form of the condition which affects many people, potentially causing loss of pleasure in activities that once used to bring joy. It can also lead to feelings of worthlessness, imbalances such as oversleeping or insomnia, and trigger thoughts of suicide. This is the condition we examined during our new study, which showed that living in a deprived area can lead to major depressive disorder in men, but not in women.

Before explaining these findings, it is important to provide some further background on this condition. There are certain factors which can place you at increased risk for major depression. Being diagnosed with a serious chronic ailment, such as diabetes or cancer, now or in the past, can increase your risk for it. As can experiences of trauma, such as physical or sexual abuse, or being raised in a dysfunctional family in which there was a high degree of marital discord.

These, however, are all individual factors – or personal circumstances – which can negatively affect your mental health. And most of the research on depression has indeed focused on such personal factors. But there are characteristics beyond the level of the individual – such as attributes of the communities in which we live – that can also have a profound effect on our mental well-being.

Continue reading

---

Why do new psychotherapies work, and then stop?

a post by Cory Doctorow for the Boing Boing blog



On Slate Star Codex, psychiatrist Scott Alexander offers a "book review of All Therapy Books", which is a jumping-off point for asking how it is that psychotherapy is periodically rocked by new therapies that seem to perform incredibly well, but whose confirmed efficacy shelves off over time.

He proposes four different possibilities to explain this: maybe the first people to practice a new therapy are the most plugged-in, best psychotherapists, and then, as mediocre therapists adopt the practice, it dilutes the findings; maybe once the therapy is more familiar, the placebo effect (driven by excitement at trying something new) fades; maybe the underlying ideas in the new therapy get widespread attention so patients show up already having received much of the benefit the therapeutic perspective brings; or, maybe the inventors of the therapy are "true believers" who do quick studies that are countered by wider follow-on studies.

Continue reading

---

The perks of being a bit neurotic

It's one of our five major personality traits, and arguably, it's the worst one. Why are some human beings neurotic?

a post by Matt Davis for the Big Think blog

• Scoring high in neuroticism is associated with a slew of negative outcomes for your physical and mental health.
• However, it appears to be an inherited trait, one that has persisted through the many thousands of years of human evolution.
• Some researchers argue that in the environment where humans first evolved, being a little neurotic may have been highly beneficial.

Continue reading

---

Derek Owusu: ‘Mental health issues that people find scary aren’t being talked about’

an article by Anita Sethi published in the Guardian

With a new book out on Stormzy’s imprint, the writer discusses men’s emotions, Ghanaian families and paying his brother £50 for each novel he reads


‘The NHS have been amazing. They saved my life a couple of times’: Derek Owusu. Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Observer

Derek Owusu was born in London in 1988. His new book, That Reminds Me, is published by Stormzy’s #Merky Books and is a novel-in-verse that explores identity, belonging, his experience of growing up in foster care, and his mental breakdown last year. Owusu edited the anthology Safe: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space (2019) and is a marketing executive for audio at Penguin Books.

How did That Reminds Me come about?
I started writing it when I was in a mental health facility last year and I created the character of K to try to understand going through a breakdown. I started writing fragments of memory and initially it was going to be a poetry collection, and then it turned into something different. I sent it to Stormzy’s manager and she loved it. I wanted to convey the symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Before my BPD diagnosis, I just thought I was strange. My emotions were always fluctuating. I was often angry. When I was diagnosed it was a relief. It’s important to share awareness with the people around you so they know what you’re going through. The NHS have been amazing. They saved my life a couple of times.

Continue reading

---

The impact of the Work Capability Assessment on mental health: claimants’ lived experiences and GP perspectives in low-income communities

an article by Lorraine Hansford, Felicity Thomas and Katrina Wyatt (University of Exeter, UK) published in Journal of Poverty and Social Justice Volume 27 Number 3 (October 2019)

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of increased welfare conditionality on people with mental health issues claiming benefits in the UK.

Drawing on data from the DeStress study, this paper explores the lived experience of welfare claimants in low-income communities, and the perspectives of GPs seeking to support them.

Particular focus is placed on people’s experience of the Work Capability Assessment, the tool used to determine welfare claimants’ entitlement to sickness benefit, and how the narratives and culture surrounding welfare reform and the actual assessment itself can have a negative impact on mental health and well-being.

Full text (PDF 18pp)

---

Are humans built for living in cities?

an article by Chris Murray published in the RSA Journal Issue 2 (2019) [via Medium]

We need to understand how cities shape us psychologically if we are to improve inhabitants’ well-being and create more efficient, sustainable ways of urban living.



If Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man had a sequel, it would be an urban edition. The global rise in city living is so staggering that we must now accept one simple point with myriad, complex implications: the future success of our species is intimately linked to that of our cities. Yet, as Danish architect Jan Gehl put it, “We definitely know more about good habitats for mountain gorillas, Siberian tigers or panda bears than we do about a good urban habitat for Homo sapiens.” This is particularly the case for the emotional and mental health impacts of city living.

Moving to the city

The figures tell the story: according to the UN, more than half the world now live in urban areas. This will rise to 70% by 2050, and in the UK about 80% of the population already live in cities. But, in evolutionary terms, cities are very new. Modern humans have been around for 200,000 years or so, cities at most 10,000. So, of the estimated 108 billion people that have ever existed (according to the Population Reference Bureau), only a small percentage have lived in a city, and those only recently.

While we are a highly adaptable species, there are limits. We have evolved to best suit our environments over millennia, but the rapid pace of change of the past few centuries has placed strains on our adaptability. For example, living in cities promotes a linear, sped up experience of time. German philosopher and psychiatrist Thomas Fuchs linked this with depression and anxiety, suggesting that it is out of step not only with the cyclical and circadian rhythms of the body, but also an older, deeply ingrained experience of time that is linked to seasonal cycles.

Continue reading

---

Diet and depression: what you eat impacts your mood

a post by Jason Weisberger for the Boing Boing blog

For years a friend has been telling my diet was hurting my general demeanor.

Last year I stopped ignoring her and switched to a diet more like what is described in this study.

I will never be Mr. Cheerful, but it really did help.

NPR:

A randomized controlled trial published in the journal PLOS ONE finds that symptoms of depression dropped significantly among a group of young adults after they followed a Mediterranean-style pattern of eating for three weeks. Participants saw their depression "score" fall from the "moderate" range down to the "normal" range, and they reported lower levels of anxiety and stress too.

Alternatively, the depression scores among the control group of participants – who didn't change their diets –  didn't budge. These participants continued to eat a diet higher in refined carbohydrates, processed foods and sugary foods and beverages. Their depression scores remained in the "moderate severity" range.

"We were quite surprised by the findings," researcher Heather Francis, a lecturer in clinical neuropsychology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, told NPR via email. "I think the next step is to demonstrate the physiological mechanism underlying how diet can improve depression symptoms," Francis said.

Hazel’s comment:
And it is no surprise that people in the UK trying to exist on Universal Credit are also depressed. Bread, potatoes, starchy root vegetables etc are cheaper than the non-carbohydrate vegetables that are good for you!

---

Teenagers need to know where love stops and abusive relationships start

an article by Holly Bourne for the Guardian

Many young women have been in an abusive relationship without even realising. A new website aims to teach them about coercive control


Repeated stalking’: Edward and Bella in Twilight. Photograph: Allstar/Summit Entertainment/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

Why are we always pointing to Instagram as the cause of mental illness in our teenagers? It’s frustrating that abusive relationships, and the trauma they cause, are rarely mentioned in discussions about the prevalence of mental health problems in young people. Research by Women’s Aid and Cosmopolitan has found that a third of teenage girls have been in an abusive relationship. And, if that isn’t shocking enough, when the remaining two-thirds were asked further questions, it emerged that 64% of them had, in fact, experienced abusive behaviour – they just didn’t realise it was abuse.

Continue reading

---

The other self-actualization: What's the difference between Maslow and Rogers?

a post by Matt Davis for the Big Think blog

Most of us have heard of Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs, but Maslow doesn't have a monopoly on self-actualization.

• Along with Maslow, Carl Rogers helped pioneer the field of humanistic psychology.
• Although most associate the term "self-actualization" with Maslow, it's a concept that's frequently found in humanistic psychological literature.
• What's the difference between Maslow's and Rogers' versions of self-actualization, and what can we learn from Rogers?

One could be forgiven for thinking that the term "self-actualization" was developed entirely by Abraham Maslow. Today, there are very few contexts where one can hear the term outside of Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs. But in fact, the twentieth century featured many humanistic psychologists who used the term to mean one thing or another. It was first coined by psychologist Kurt Goldstein, who used it to refer to something very similar to what Maslow would later focus on: the tendency for human beings to become all that they can, that "what a man can be, he must be."

Continue reading

---

Smooth Sailing: A Pilot Study of an Online, School-Based, Mental Health Service for Depression and Anxiety

an article by Bridianne O’Dea, Catherine King, Nicole Cockayne and Helen Christensen (Black Dog Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia; University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia) and Mirjana Subotic-Kerry and Melinda Rose Achilles (Black Dog Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia) published by Frontiers in Psychiatry: this article is part of the Research Topic “Transforming Youth Mental Health Treatment Through Digital Technology”
View all 8 articles

Abstract

Background

Schools play an important role in supporting young people’s mental health, but face challenges identifying and responding to students in need of care. To assist secondary schools, the Black Dog Institute has developed an online, school-based, mental health service (Smooth Sailing). Delivered in the classroom, Smooth Sailing uses a website to screen, assess, allocate, and deliver care for depression and anxiety.

The service is based on the principles of stepped care, offering treatments with varied intensity and follow-up by a school counselor when necessary. The current study aimed to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and safety of this new type of service among secondary school students.

Methods

Between February and June 2017, a single-arm, pre-post, pilot study was conducted among students from four NSW secondary schools. Schools were given access to the service for 6 weeks. Feasibility measures (consent rates and step allocations), acceptability measures (service use and satisfaction) and safety measures (deterioration in help-seeking intention scores and mental health symptoms) were assessed at baseline and completion of the 6-week trial period.

Results

A total of 59 students took part in the service pilot (mean age, 14.57 years; SD, 0.89 years; range, 13-16 years). At baseline, 18.64% of students were found to require follow-up from the school counselor, and 80% of these were new cases. Although completion of the online modules was low, service satisfaction was high. At 6 weeks, the mean scores for help-seeking, depression, and anxiety remained relatively stable or improved.

Conclusions

The current study presents important findings for the development and implementation of an online mental health service that screens students’ mental health and allocates care accordingly, all within the school setting. Although the findings provide some support for the feasibility, acceptability, and safety, service improvements are needed. The modifications outlined are likely to improve the quality of the service and its effectiveness.

Full text (HTML) with access to downloadable PDF

Survey identifying commonality across international Recovery Colleges

an article by Toni King (Solent NHS Trust, Portsmouth, UK; ImROC, Nottingham, UK) and Sara Meddings (Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Worthing, UK; ImROC, Nottingham, UK) published in Mental Health and Social Inclusion Volume 23 Issue 3 (2019)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary outline of the international presence, commonality and differences between Recovery Colleges.

Design/methodology/approach
This study used a short e-mailed survey to create a map of Recovery Colleges internationally and review Recovery Colleges outside the UK. Questions gathered descriptive and qualitative data to gain an overview of the mode of delivery and aspects respondents felt were noteworthy.

Findings
This paper identifies Recovery Colleges in 22 countries in five continents (including the UK). Participants described wide variance in their context. Despite adaptations, the operational models and inherent principles of each were closely aligned to those developed in the UK.

Originality/value
This paper provides the first baseline of Recovery Colleges on an international scale. It provides evidence of a high degree of commonality despite variance in setting and highlights the internationally valued transformational power of this model.

---

I spent so long wearing pain like a badge of honour. But what if happiness was simple?

an article by Kitty Drake published in the New Statesman

I thought struggle made me interesting. But in My Year Of Rest And Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh insists that pain is not meaningful. It’s dull.


GETTY

The first time my mother tried Prozac, it was so fabulous, it felt like God. After 32 years of living with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, the idea that pain could end just like that was simple in a way that felt almost biblical. She spread the good news: she talked about campaigning to have Prozac mainlined through the tap water supply. But Prozac wasn’t God, and so it didn’t last: three years later she was ill again, trying different medication. What did last, though, was that she no longer believed in the inevitability of pain. The real revelation of Prozac was that you didn’t have to experience suffering, as though it was some noble truth. You didn’t have to grope around in the darkness for an epiphany that would propel you out of it. The radical thing about recovery was that it could be about inaction. You could give up. You could rest.

Continue reading

---

It's Not Selfish to Want to Thrive, and I Now Know I Deserve It

a post by Arielle Tuzon for the Tiny Buddha blog


“To create more positive results in your life, replace ‘if only’ with ‘next time.” ~Celestine Chua

I’m twenty-nine-and-a-half and I’ve finally committed to pursuing my dreams of becoming a singer/musician/songwriter, actress, and screenwriter.

But most importantly, I finally feel allowed to live the life I want to live.

I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression on and off since I was fifteen. My coping mechanism always looked the same: isolating myself in my room, listening to music, and making up stories or music videos to go along with songs. I loved to refine these little scenes, repeating the songs over and over again for hours.

Sometimes, the highlight of my day was when I got to go back to my room and listen to that song again—when I got to go back into my dream world.

I didn’t realize then how much I preferred this dream world to my own reality. I’d become disengaged from my friends and family. All I wanted was to go home to my imagination.

Recently, I learned of the term “maladaptive daydreaming,” a mental condition in which a person is in a state of intense daydreaming that distracts them from their actual life. Some say this condition has roots in OCD and ADHD/ADD.

Continue reading

---

“I’d have saved years if someone had asked”: Mental health services must ask about abuse

an article by Andrea Woodside published in the New Statesman

Some 38 per cent of women with a mental health problem have experienced domestic abuse.


GETTY

I have been accessing mental health services for pretty much my whole life. It wasn’t until two years ago, at 47 years old, that anyone asked me about my experiences of abuse. The question was life changing.

Before that, I had been living with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder for over 20 years. I’d been in and out of crisis care and made attempts on my own life. My whole adult life had been wrapped up in a tirade of poor mental health.

But in 2017, when a psychiatrist finally asked me about my experiences of abuse, everything suddenly become clear. It’s bizarre to think I had got to the age of 47 and no one had ever asked me about it before.

It was then that my diagnosis of bipolar disorder was changed: I was now told I was living with severe complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of the prolonged and traumatic sexual and emotional abuse I’d experienced. It all started to make sense.

Continue reading

I really hope that you can access the whole article. I have a paid-for subscription to The Staggers but I seem to remember that you can access three articles each week (or something like that).

---

Social media use may harm teens' mental health by disrupting positive activities, study says

a post by Leah Asmelash for CNN Health [with grateful thanks to Tara at ResearchBuzz: Firehose]

Social media use has been linked to depression, especially in teenage girls. But a new study argues that the issue may be more complex than experts think.

The research, published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, involved interviews with almost 10,000 children between the ages of 13 and 16 in England. The researchers found that social media may harm girls' mental health by increasing their exposure to bullying and reducing their sleep and physical exercise.

"Our results suggest that social media itself doesn't cause harm, but that frequent use may disrupt activities that have a positive impact on mental health such as sleeping and exercising, while increasing exposure of young people to harmful content, particularly the negative experience of cyber-bullying," study co-author Russell Viner of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health said in a statement.

In other words: Social media itself might not be to blame for mental health issues; rather, it takes away from girls' sleep quality and exercise while exposing users to cyberbullying, and that's what leads to lower well-being and problems with mental health.

Bob Patton, a lecturer in clinical psychology at the University of Surrey, said this means strategies focusing only on reducing social media use as a tool to improve well-being or mental health might not help.

"Building strategies to increase resilience to cyberbullying and that promote better sleep and exercise behaviours may well be what is needed to reduce both physical and psychological harms," Patton, who was not involved in the research, said in a statement.

For boys, the impact on their mental health seems to be due to other reasons, so further research is needed, the authors said.

Continue reading

---

Signs of struggle (SOS): The development and validation of a behavioural mental health checklist for the workplace

an article by Jennifer K. Dimoff (Portland State University, OR, USA) and E. Kevin Kelloway (Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, NS, Canada) published in Work & Stress: An International Journal of Work, Health & Organisations Volume 33 Issue 3 (2019)

Abstract

For managers to successfully support employee access to mental health resources, they must first be able to recognise if and when an employee may need help. To manage employees effectively, managers must be able to recognise changes in employees’ work behaviour that may indicate when an employee is struggling at work.

In study 1, we develop and establish the structure of the 20-item Signs of Struggle (SOS) checklist as comprising five factors that describe the warning signs of health impairment at work (i.e. distress, withdrawal, reduced attendance, degradations in performance, extreme behaviours).

In study 2, we show that manager-rated signs of struggle correlated substantially (r = .72) with participant-reported strain. The SOS tool provides managers a way to recognise when employees may be struggling and could benefit from workplace resources.

We recommend that for maximal benefit, managers also receive training on how to use the SOS, and also on how to approach and assist employees who are displaying warning signs.

---

Designing and Using Digital Mental Health Interventions for Older Adults: Being Aware of Digital Inequality

an article by Alexander Seifert (University of Zurich, Switzerland; University of Cologne, Germany) and Dominique Alexandra Reinwand and Anna Schlomann (University of Cologne, Germany) published by Frontiers in Psychiatry

Background

Worldwide, approximately 15% of the people older than 60 suffer from a mental disorder, such as depression and anxiety disorders (1). A total of 322 million people worldwide are affected. The prevalence rates vary by age and peaks in older adults (2). Modern devices, such as smart phones and tablets, can be used to provide digital interventions for various health-related issues.

Digital interventions are promising in their ability to provide researchers, medical practitioners, and patients with a dynamic and individualizable tool for assessing behavior and behavioral change, consultation, treatment, and integrated care. These digital interventions can help patients manage their diseases or their general health as a form of disease prevention. This is particularly important in older people, as individuals often have to deal with highly complex interactions involved in managing their daily lives along with the consequences of a multitude of chronic diseases (3).

Digital interventions can, for example, assess, control, and positively influence mental health and well-being among older patients (4). Particularly with regard to mental health, digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) appear to close a gap in healthcare provision. Many patients with mental health problems have to wait a long time to get an appointment for initial counseling or therapy; in rural areas, older patients may face long travel distances, and many people are still afraid of stigmatization and avoid therapy completely (5). Reviews and meta-analyses have shown the benefits of DMHIs, for example, for people with depression and anxiety (6–8).

While DMHIs are becoming more important and popular, there exists a danger that older people will be excluded. When not comfortable with new technologies, older adults can experience barriers to accessing DMHIs, which might result in larger healthcare inequalities (9). This can happen if only already-advantaged populations use and benefit from these interventions. Therefore, this article will outline and discuss the problems in this field and make recommendations for future developments.

Full text (Downloadable PDF 4pp)

---

Embodied well-being through two media technologies: Virtual reality and social media

an article by Kaylee Payne Kruzan and Andrea Stevenson Won (Cornell University, New York) published in New Media & Society Volume 21 Issue 8 (August 2019)

Abstract

How the body is perceived through media is key to many well-being interventions. Researchers have examined the effects of platforms on users’ self-perceptions, including immersive virtual reality, nonimmersive virtual worlds, and social media such as Facebook.

In this article, we use several conceptions of levels of embodiment to compare empirical work on the effects of virtual reality and social media as they relate to perceptions and conceptions of the self and body.

We encourage social media researchers to utilize research on embodiment in virtual reality to help frame the effects of social media use on well-being. Similarly, researchers in immersive media should consider the opportunities and risks that may arise as embodied experiences become more social.

We conclude our discussion with implications for future applications in mental health.

---

The Relationship Among Stigma Consciousness, Perfectionism, and Mental Health in Engaging and Retaining STEM Women

an article by Erin D. Reilly (Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial VA Hospital, Bedford, MA, USA), Germine H. Awad and Aaron B. Rochlen (University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA) and Megan M. Kelly (Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial VA Hospital, Bedford, MA, USA; University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA) published in Journal of Career Development Volume 46 Issue 4 (August 2019)

Abstract

As research on retention for working women matures, it is necessary to identify particular factors that influence work satisfaction for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

This study collected data on 249 women who had worked 11.51 years on average in STEM. To investigate retention, we modeled the relationship between perfectionism, depression, and stigma consciousness on work engagement and intention-to-leave one’s job using hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

Depression, stigma consciousness, and perceived lack of comparable pay positively predicted greater intent to leave one’s job, with a perfectionistic mind-set representing a nonsignificant predictor. In terms of reported work engagement, depression, perfectionistic discrepancy, and stigma consciousness were significant negative predictors, while having perfectionistic high standards positively predicted work engagement.

For work engagement, lack of comparable pay was a nonsignificant predictor.

Implications and future directions for culturally responsive and intersectional research on the psychological and occupational functioning of STEM women are discussed.

---

As a psychiatrist, if I had severe depression I’d choose ECT

an article by Mariam Alexander for the Guardian

Things have moved on from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Electroconvulsive therapy is one of the best treatments available


‘If you’re looking for a word to describe contemporary ECT, top of my list would be “boring”.’ Photograph: Carlos Davila / Alamy/Alamy

It might come as quite a surprise to learn that, as a psychiatrist, if I ever had the misfortune to develop severe depression, my treatment of choice would be electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Why? Well, to put it simply, ECT is the most rapid treatment for severe depression that we currently have to offer – with a recent study in the BMJ highlighting its effectiveness.

For the uninitiated, ECT is a medical procedure in which an anaesthetised patient has a small electrical current applied to their scalp in order to induce a seizure for the purposes of treating severe mental illnesses and occasionally neurological disorders too. Each treatment takes just a few minutes and is usually administered two or three times a week. ECT course length varies depending on the needs of the patient, but on average eight to 12 treatments are given.

It’s almost impossible to discuss ECT without the word “barbaric” being used. For anyone who is familiar with the psychiatric era of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, this is understandable. But things have moved on a great deal since then. Indeed, if you’re looking for a “b” word to describe the process of contemporary ECT, top of my list would be “boring” – the use of a general anaesthetic and muscle relaxant means there’s probably more drama involved in having a filling than ECT.

Continue reading

---