Articles

Loneliness, a normal part of the human condition, has reached epidemic proportions in recent years. Amplified by the social isolation that the COVID pandemic imposed (and continues to demand of the elderly and the immune-compromised), loneliness as a social issue was already on the rise. As I wrote in a 2017 post on social support (1), a national survey revealed that 25% of Americans said they...

Today, the shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere) is a good day to talk about seasonal depression. At my latitude, there are fewer than ten hours between sunrise and sunset. That’s bad news for people like me, who have a hard time getting up before daylight. If it’s cold outside too, that makes it harder to fight the urge to stay in bed, or at least in PJs, all day. In the...

Reported rates of depression have increased dramatically in the last few years, possibly related to the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated stressors, like social isolation (1). However, it seems that many people who report depression symptoms are not getting treatment (2) while others are questioning whether antidepressant medications are as safe and effective as we’ve been told (3). And...

It’s been a while since I’ve written here – let me explain my absence. Early this year I began to recognize the signs of something resembling burnout in myself, and decided to take the advice I often give to my patients, to take a step back from some of my activities and responsibiilities in order to focus more on my well-being. The activities I chose to give up were writing blog posts...

“There’s no shame in taking a step back to focus on self-care.” As I was saying this to one of my clients recently, it hit me: if I truly believe that, then I need to practice what I preach! It was obvious to me that my client was suffering from burnout, due to the demands of her job as a mental health professional as well as her family caregiver responsibilities, and equally obvious that she...

In a recent poll, 70% of Americans agreed with the statement: “It’s time we accept that Covid is here to stay and we just need to get on with our lives.” New York Times writer Charles Blow cites this in last Sunday’s column, and goes on to say, “The number of lives taken by Covid in this country alone – north of 900,000 – is almost unfathomable. But, somehow the public has absorbed and...

The calendar tells us it’s a new year, so my mind tells me I should set goals and make plans, decide what I want to accomplish this year, and yet – how to do so, when the world seems more unstable, uncertain, and unpredictable than ever? Welcome to 2022, or “twenty twenty, the sequel!” Actually, I gave up making New Year’s resolutions several years ago, and switched to setting intentions. I...