Posts Tagged ‘Depression’
Depression and the Art of Savoring
Richard, a diligent type-A tech guy, who defended against his depression with unending work, sat on my couch and listed what he had accomplished this last week. After that, with barely a pause, he launched into his tasks for, and worries about, the upcoming week. Given his pace, when I asked him which of the…
In and Out of the Void: Pixar’s “Inside Out” as a Map of Depression
[Movie totally spoiled herein: don’t read if you have not yet seen it!] Pixar’s “Inside Out” is so remarkable to my therapist’s eye because it really got the human mind right (which Linda McCabe’s article addresses), particularly in presenting a depiction and map of how depression happens, and what is depression’s cure. It was also…
A Louis C.K. Kind of Deep: Pain and Bliss
Feeling pain is the doorway to bliss but as Louis C.K. says, you may “cry like a bitch”.
Understanding Depression: Void vs. Emptiness
Depression is a pretty odd thing, different from other “illnesses,” in that it ranges between very grungy and visceral experiences like fatigue, through problems with sleep and eating, and then into the lofty realms of the meaning of life. Well, I suppose to its credit, at least it’s not boring. Understanding depression calls us to…
Listening to Depression: The Choice of a New Generation
Meet Poppy. She’s spunky, hip and successful. She’s the V.P. of marketing at a happening firm and recently got married to a successful lawyer. She and her beau are also in the process of baby-making talks. Life is, well… perfect. Only, it isn’t. In those rare moments of inactivity, Poppy increasingly finds herself feeling exhausted,…
Energy theft: toxic forms of shame and guilt
[Democracy is coming] From the homicidal bitchin’/That goes down in every kitchen/To determine who will serve and who will eat. —Leonard Cohen, “Democracy” Sarah, 27, who is about to finish graduate school with a PhD in engineering, hates to call her mother…and does so, dutifully, and with dread, every week. Saturday mornings come with…
Regulating Energy to Regulate Depression
Dan Siegel, a psychiatrist and preeminent writer on neuroscience, has a great story about being at a conference with a gaggle of different hard science people, especially physicists. He realized that he didn’t really know how energy is or should be defined, so he went around asking these folks, whose bread and butter is studying…
The River of Grief: Pain That Teaches
Most of us are not very good at grieving. We deny loss, we judge emotions, we fear getting lost or stuck, or “wallowing,” or we fear judgment or unsupportiveness from others. Maybe it’s the legacy of eons of human history in which we were so exposed to disease, social chaos, natural disasters, psychological trauma, and…