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HealthyPlace.com Newsletter

This Week - October 6, 2003

1. Antidepressants not the same for everyone
2. New clues to treating tough cases of depression
3. Antidepressant Cymbalta nears FDA approval
4. Dr. Grohol's support group at HealthyPlace.com changes times
5. Congress debates forcing children to take Ritalin
6. Should you tell your boss about your AD/HD or learning disability?
7. Late night fridge raids - what causes them?
8. Schizophrenia can lead to dementia
9. Support groups offer help to mentally ill, their families
10. Hearing voices. What's that like? What causes it?
11. Narcissists and Narcissism radio show
12. Separating despair from depression
13. "Am I Going Mad?"
14. Thought for today

Antidepressants Don't Work the Same Way for Everyone

A Stanford University Medical Center study may offer new insight into why some people suffer side effects when taking common antidepressants while other people experience no problems.

Read more

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Treating Tough Cases of Depression

Using brain imaging, an international team of scientists has found significant differences in brain activity between healthy people and those who suffer from treatment-resistant clinical depression. The discovery could lead to a new type of antidepressant.

Details here.

Cymbalta for the Treatment of Depression Nears FDA Approval

Analysts say the new SNRI antidepressant Cymbalta may be on the market in early 2004.

Last week, Eli Lilly, the drug's manufacturer received word that the FDA will not require additional clinical studies for Cymbalta.

Find out more about Cymbalta and if you participated in the clinical trials, share your experience on our bulletin board.

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Dr. Grohol's Mental Health Support Chat Changes Day/Time

Dr. John Grohol's mental health support chat at HealthyPlace.com is changing to another night. Previously held on Wednesday evenings, Dr. Grohol is moving to Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern.

John Grohol, PsyD answers your mental health, psychology and relationship questions in support room 2 on our chat site. There's no charge to participate.

Congress Debates Children on Ritalin

Some schools across the U.S. have been giving parents an option: medicate your ADHD kid or get him/her out of school. Now Congress is jumping into the fray with a bill to prevent school officials from demanding a student take the behavioral drugs in order to attend school. Find out more.

Other AD/HD Stories:

• Adults with ADHD, Learning Disabilities Face Workplace Anxiety. Should you or should you not tell your employer you have a learning disability?
• CHADD Senate briefing dispels myths about AD/HD

Looking into Late-Night Fridge Raids

Light may be a deterrent to binge eating, so long as it's not the fluorescent glow of the fridge. People are more apt to give in to food cravings in dimly lit surroundings because they feel uninhibited, according to Joseph Kasof, Ph.D., research associate at the University of California at Irvine. Kasof's survey of 401 undergraduates built upon earlier studies associating binge eating with dimmer light, nighttime and winter.

Kasof hopes his findings, published in Personality and Individual Differences, will help treat those with bulimia and other eating disorders. "An intervention that has never been attempted is simply to use brighter lights when eating," he says.

But snacking throughout the night can be more than a lack of willpower—or illumination. Night Eating Syndrome is a disorder in which individuals regularly wake one to three times a night to eat, consuming more than half their daily calories during these episodes.

Norwegian researchers now attribute this behavior to hormonal disturbances. Grethe Birketvedt, Ph.D., an obesity specialist at the University of Tromo in Norway, found irregularities among night eaters in the way the hypothalamus controls activity in the pituitary and adrenal glands.

Night eaters had a lowered response to a stress-inducing intravenous hormone, meaning their hormones were already overtaxed. When hormonal flow is stressed during the day, hormones cannot function correctly at night. Subjects with the disorder do not secrete adequate levels of the satiating hormone leptin or the sleep-inducing melatonin. The results were published in The American Journal of Physiology—Endocrinology and Metabolism.

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REMUDA RANCH - Help for your eating disorder

The caring and compassionate team at Remuda Ranch can help you or a loved one overcome an eating disorder. Our highly professional treatment team and biblically- based individualized programs have worked for hundreds of our patients.

Take the first step toward living a life that is not controlled by fear and food. Call us now at 1-800-445-1900. We'll be happy to answer your questions. or visit our site.

Schizophrenia Can Lead to Dementia

Many individuals who develop symptoms of schizophrenia when they are 50 years of age or older exhibit a rapid decline into dementia.

Get the details here

What's It Like Hearing Voices and What Causes Auditory Hallucinations?

A "constant state of mental rape" is what one patient calls it. Auditory hallucinations, "hearing voices," that permeates a schizophrenic's mind causing extreme distress.

Ralph Hoffman, professor of psychiatry at Yale University examines those hallucinations and the causes behind them.

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More Schizophrenia Stories:

• Support Groups Offer Help To Mentally Ill, Their Families
• Risk of Schizophrenia Relapse Halved in Risperdal Patients Compared to Haloperidol
• Schizophrenics Find Stigma Is Even Worse Than the Disease

are linked from the Schizophrenia homepage. Also read the post from one of our schizophrenia visitors who wants to know how Abilify compares to Zyprexa.

Narcissists and Narcissism

Narcissists can be arrogant, self-aggrandizing, and manipulative. But what's it like to have narcissistic personality disorder? And how can it be treated?

Guests include Dr. Jeffrey Young, the founder and director of the Schema Therapy Institute of New York and the Cognitive Therapy Centers of New York and Connecticut and co-author of Reinventing Your Life; Sandy Hotchkiss, a licensed clinical social worker and the author of Why is it Always About You? The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism; Dr. Corinne Pache, an assistant professor of classics at Yale University and a fellow at Harvard University's Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington D.C., who talks about the myth of Narcissus and Echo; poet Tony Hoagland, whose latest collection is called What Narcissism Means to Me; and Samuel Vaknin, who has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder and has written extensively about the topic.

Listen to the "Infinite Mind" radio show

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Separating Despair From Depression

One of the best ways to get a grip on depression is to separate it into its many layers.

One of the best ways to get a grip on depression is to separate it into its many layers. Many clinical psychologists have found that the problems that contribute to disappointment, paralysis and hopelessness are often clearly separable.

For most people, the topmost layer of malaise is a blanket of depression about being depressed--despair, hopelessness. This layer consists of an emotional and behavioral response to symptoms of depression. It is supported by negative thoughts people have about themselves when they’re depressed: “Nobody loves me as I need them to.” “I’m not a real man if I’m depressed.” “I’m an unattractive woman if I’m depressed.”

Some people assume that the negative experiences they have--the adversities, rejections or difficulties--cause their depression directly. That makes it difficult for them to approach their problems; they get overwhelmed and demoralized. It’s more useful to distinguish the emotional crust from the practical primary issue underneath.

Psychologists have found that when people get less depressed about being depressed, often they get less depressed at the primary level.

• To begin resolving the depression, first you have to tune in to how you feel: you’re depressed, whatever that means to you. It could mean lethargy, passivity, hurt, self-pity.

And then you ask yourself, about what? “I’m rejected.” Or “I have a hard time.” That’s the practical problem. You have to look squarely at your life. You can start small: “My report got rejected.” “I’ve gotten rejected by 25 people on Match.com.”

When you assume that you can’t carry on because you’re down, that’s a clue that you’re getting depressed about being depressed. You may feel ashamed that you’re depressed, upset and anxious that you’re depressed.

Getting depressed about being depressed creates a cycle of hopelessness, passivity, hibernation, avoidance. It creates a positive feedback loop by which you keep getting more depressed. Separating the layers of depression cuts the self-downing loop.

The topmost layer of despair is emotional but such emotions have behavioral consequences. They lead to avoidance, passivity, perhaps aggression. But they also suggest that depression evolved for a reason--to make you retrench. Used the right way, it prompts you to approach a troublesome situation differently.

That’s why it’s good to get rid of the depression about being depressed. It allows you to act on the primary problem.

• Once you’ve separated the emotional problem from the primary practical problem, you can identify the beliefs you have about yourself. “ I must be loved.” “I must do well.” These are classic rational emotive philosophies, or mind styles, that foster depression. There may be beliefs about the world: “The world should recognize me.” Or “I need a guarantee of success, otherwise it ‘s too hard to live with my dreams and hopes.” A belief that things must go your way can lead to very destructive rage: “The world must see me fairly and favorably, otherwise the world is contemptible.”

• Because depression often has adaptive value, it can be helpful in identifying beliefs to ask yourself whether being depressed has a payoff for you.

  When we’re depressed we retrench. We also unconsciously, but desperately seek affection and attention from those who might give us love. Depression may have evolved to allow us to discern who loves us; it’s hard to fake caring for someone who is depressed; the depressed are irritable, negative. The payoffs may be clues to beliefs we hold.

• The next step is to question these beliefs. “What are the functional effects of my believing that I must do well?” Why must someone love you? Why must you succeed? Why do you deserve an easier time of it? It’s necessary to breach the absoluteness of those beliefs.

  Then you can see the practical problem for what it is. Adversity. Frustration. A pain in the neck.

• It is helpful to find humor in the beliefs you hold about yourself. Humor provides a way of seeing things differently. It reframes our beliefs.

  If a client says “I can’t stand to fail and I must not be disapproved,” we can laugh about the horrors that never occur when they’re disapproved. We come to see that rejection doesn’t imply that one person is speaking for all of mankind; it just means there’s a lack of fit in that case.

• After examining the self-defeating beliefs that keep you depressed, you’re still left with frustration and disappointment over the practical problem. That’s the point at which you assess the skills you need for coping with the primary problem. Less morose and depressed, you’re better able to learn any skills.

Often it is a matter of interpersonal skills. One way to learn the skills of life and social life is by trial and error. Depression, however, subverts trial and error and thus the acquisition of practical skills. So it pays to beat back depression not just because it feels bad but because it deters learning what works for you.

Here’s the payoff. Learning the skills of life not only makes you less depressed, it makes you less depressible. It makes you more confident, better able to achieve and reproduce success.

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Bulletin Board:
"Am I Going Mad?"

thellings6 op:

"Over the past few days I don`t know what has happened to me. I feel I have lost control of my emotions. I've become extremely paranoid and scared about what is going to happen. I think that people are talking about me when they're not and imagine them talking about me, when I know they're not there."

"I am scared about losing my career as my confidernce has dropped and I'm scared about being left alone. I have lost weight and I am not interested in eating. I want to get through and over this now, can anyone offer me any help?"

Can you help thellings6? Respond here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Here's something to think about...

"The wind of anger blows out the lamp of intelligence." - Unknown

From all of us here at HealthyPlace.com, we hope you have a good week.

Previous Newsletters

• Sept. 15, 2003
• Sept. 8, 2003
• Sept. 1, 2003
• August 25, 2003
• August 18, 2003
• August 3, 2003
• July 27, 2003
• July 20, 2003
• July 14, 2003
• July 6, 2003
• June 30, 2003
• June 22, 2003
• June 15, 2003
• June 8, 2003
• June 2, 2003
• May 26, 2003
• May 20, 2003
• May 12, 2003
• April 28, 2003
• April 14, 2003
• March 31, 2003
• March 24, 2003
• March 12, 2003

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