Introduction Confidence has always been an enigma to me . Why is confidence so easy to lack? Perhaps it is a legacy of the past. Schools and institutions may have crushed your spirit or well meaning parents sent out subtle messages of assault to your inner sanctum . Grown ups don’t actually have all the […]
Read More
Research shows that up to 70% of patients who visit their primary care provider do so because of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, stress and burnout. Stress is defined as a process in which environmental demands strain an organism’s adaptive capacity resulting in psychological demands as well as biological changes that increase the risk […]
Read More
To prioritize mental health in the context of HIV we must first place into perspective the HIV pandemic’s treatment trajectory. It is 2023 and I live and work in Cape Town. Clients with HIV face first world challenges now such as adjustment disorders, existential crises related to a new diagnosis, the breakup of a relationship; […]
Read More
By Claire Tweedy May 24, 2022 30% of people with depression don’t respond to treatment with antidepressants. It often takes a long time to respond to such drugs. This causes some people to stop taking them after a while. Psilocybin — the ingredient in magic mushrooms that makes people hallucinate — has been shown to […]
Read More
A short history of serotonin The serendipitous discovery of clinically useful antidepressant medication occurred about 60 years ago. So, what are monoamines? Monoamines are essentially chemicals in your brain, for example serotonin, dopamine and noradrenalin. These are the transmitters most implicated in psychiatric disorders from depression to bipolar and to schizophrenia. Neurons communicate with each […]
Read More
By Zano Kunene October 11, 2022 South Africa has a workforce of more than 2 000 mental health workers who are specially trained to provide basic mental health services in communities without psychologists. Registered counsellors can work in hospitals, prisons and schools. But a lack of job opportunities means very few of these practitioners are […]
Read More
Doctor burnout happens due to prolonged exposure to high levels of stress and the workload in the medical field. Doctor burnout is a state in which medical professionals experience chronic exhaustion, both physically and emotionally. It leads to feelings of detachment from work. It causes negativity in thoughts and cause a reduced sense of accomplishment. […]
Read More
Upon reading an article about physician assisted suicide (available in Canada and Switzerland), I came across the term Cognitive Distortions. Not knowing the meaning of this terminology, I sought out the simplest and most concise definition. Cognitive distortions are negatively biased errors in thinking that are purported to increase vulnerability to depression (Dozois &Beck 2008). […]
Read More
A study published in the American Journal of Pschiatry 2009 by Harper et al revealed : Antidepressant drug administration modulates emotional processing very early on in treatment before changes occur in mood and symptom improvement. Evidence suggests that depressed patients are more likely to remember negative than positive emotional information. Previous studies in depressed individuals […]
Read More
Excerpt from article by Thomas Khan Department of Cardiology, Danderyd University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden Nighttime blood pressure shows a higher association to future adverse cardiac events than day time blood pressure. This has been taken to suggest that taking the medication at night may improve nocturnal blood pressure control . The recent publication of the […]
Read More