I took part in the Living With Narcolepsy event jointly organised by the Royal Society of Medicine and Narcolepsy UK in London. Medicine and Me days are a great opportunity for people with a given condition and clinicians in that field to meet and share their knowledge. This is my brief overview of a fascinating day with a range of speakers talking about diverse aspects of narcolepsy, a frequently misunderstood condition.
Seasonal Affective Disorder – Beating the Winter Blues
Fortunately, there are lots of things that can be done to fight the winter blues. The NICE Guidelines are based on the ones for depression, but it is important to take the seasonal variability of the condition into consideration. Some improvement in our sleep quality can be achieved with a few straightforward measures.
Published
My doctoral thesis research into tablet-computer based art interventions for people with dementia and their caregivers has been published. You can find the paper here, or here if you are on ResearchGate. I conducted the research with Paul Camic, Sabina Hulbert and Michael Heron. The research explored the impact of art-viewing on wellbeing, both quantitatively… Continue reading Published
Lost in transition
I recently attended the BPS joint CPD event between the Faculties of Intellectual Disabilities and for Children and Young People entitled Making the Transition. The focus was on what happens when young people with intellectual disabilities reach the transition cliff from child and young people’s services to adult services, usually at the age of eighteen. This… Continue reading Lost in transition
Killing (your demons) with kindness
A recent study has found evidence to suggest that performing acts of kindness can reduce the degree to which people with social anxiety avoid situations they might find anxiety-provoking.
On practicing what you preach
Sometimes in practice, I have found I feel somewhat hypocritical. An example of this was when I was a primary care mental health worker, helping people to work on their blood / needle / injury phobias.
Screens – worthy addition or wasteful addiction?
I recently attended a seminar about screen addiction led by Dr Aric Sigman. I was intrigued by the information about how excessive recreational screen-use has a detrimental impact on people, and how each new generation seems to be increasingly glued to screens. I weighed this up against the research I have looked at which aims… Continue reading Screens – worthy addition or wasteful addiction?
What about now?
It is customary, at least in the culture I grew up in, to look back over the past year, and think about the coming year on the last day of a given year. It is also customary to make resolutions, which in my experience can be summed up as “idealistic, knee-jerk plans founded on guilt… Continue reading What about now?
Talking about ‘the gap’
In a previous post, I described the thoughts Clinical Psychology Forum 261 – a special about the gap between clinical psychology and psychiatry. A letter summarising those thoughts was published along with other responses to CPF 261 in this month’s Forum, which is somewhat poignantly a special about ‘Remembering the bio in biopsychosocial’.
Look into my eyes…
Therapeutic use of hypnosis is perhaps most commonly associated with the archetypal psychoanalyst, using it to unlock memories and associations that might be inaccessible when people are fully conscious. This is one possible therapeutic use, but there are other areas where hypnosis is being trialled.