Christmas Eve (Photo credit: Wikipedia) It’s Christmas Eve!  If you celebrate Christmas, then chances are over the next 48 hours you will be scrambling to finish your shopping and/or traveling to be with family to celebrate, enjoy a traditional meal and spend a great time with your grandparents, parents, siblings, spouses, children, cousins, nieces and...Read More

English: Leonard Cohen (Photo credit: Wikipedia) “I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse.” …Leonard Cohen Holidays and depression This is the time of year when many people...Read More

New study examines teen dating violence The results of a new study were published on-line December 10, 2012, in the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics: Longitudinal Associations Between Teen Dating Violence Victimization and Adverse Health Outcomes. This research was conducted by Deinera Exner-Cortens, MPH, John Eckenrode, PhD, and Emily Rothman, ScD. Both...Read More

Serendipity and television  How much television do you watch? Of course, in today’s world television viewing has evolved to include a 24 hour broadcasting menu with hundreds of channels and in excess of 50 nationwide broadcasting networks delivered to most households via cable subscription offering DVR (digital video recorder) programming and OnDemand viewing.  All of...Read More

Headlines are buzzing about the DSM-5 If you have been reading the mental health headlines over the past couple of days, then for sure you have seen at least one headline dealing with the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) final approval of the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). According...Read More

English: A 30 kHz bright light therapy lamp (Innosol Rondo) used to treat seasonal affective disorder.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia) 2012 Winter Solstice will occur on December 21 Many people pay very little attention to when the winter season begins each year. To them it is just another day on the calendar; however, for at least...Read More

English: Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad looking at an album of photographs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Recovery is a process, we take simple steps one day at a time. We learn how to live sober and we relearn how to work through issues and day to day events, all the while keeping our eye on...Read More

Physical bullying at school, as depicted in the film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) A few generations back one could hear a parent say to their child: “Stop being a bully!” It was something parents would say when they wanted one child to “stop picking” on another child. Teachers said it, too. The...Read More

Only the strong survive… When you think of the phrase only the strong survive, what comes to mind? A song title or a movie title? Or maybe you think about Herbert Spencer’s phrase “survival of the fittest”, which was used by Charles Darwin when in 1869 he published his fifth edition of On the Origin...Read More

Adolescence: the transitional period between puberty and adulthood in human development, extending mainly over the teen years and terminating legally when the age of majority is reached. (dictionary.com) The operative word in this definition is transitional. We talk about our children “going through” adolescence, as if it were a quiet walk in the park. We...Read More