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A healthy diet isn’t just about physical health – research increasingly emphasises the importance of diet to our mental health.
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What makes you get out of bed in the morning? What makes you go to work? What makes you read a book, or sit down to watch tv? Motivation has been on my mind because one of the biggest challenges in providing effective psychological treatment for depression seems to be overcoming motivational barriers that…
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Ever been told depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain – specifically serotonin? Scientists have known for some time that this is not correct. The truth is we still don’t know what causes depression … but for some reason the serotonin hypothesis continues to be perpetuated.
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Our brains are not like computers. Neuroplasticity is the ability your brain has to rewire itself in response to experience. What implications does this have for depression and other psychological conditions?
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“She’s just doing it for attention.” This is a phrase I have often heard from people trying to understand why a patient, a friend or a loved-one has been deliberately hurting themselves. Self injury goes against all our natural instincts of survival and self-protection. Unfortunately, the assumption often ends up being that a person…
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There is a common paradox for psychological therapy: many times the strategies we have found to provide us relief from our problems are at the same time perpetuating our problems. Consequently, therapy can at times be very uncomfortable: you make a choice to confront difficult feelings and experiences that you have developed a range…
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Depression is more than just sadness. It is different to grief. Depression is a chronic state of low mood, negative thinking, depleted energy and absence of motivation. It is a self-perpetuating state in which the very actions that might contribute to recovery seem the least possible.