Worldcrunch
Researchers say “sickness behavior” mimics mild depression as immune cytokines signal the brain to conserve energy, making people listless and withdrawn. Yet it differs from true depression and varies widely depending on mindset, stress and loneliness.
New studies from Finland, Denmark and Norway suggest that mental health disorders might spread through social contact. But how strong is the effect — and should we call it an epidemic?
How are you feeling? Is it time to stop? Is it me or my therapist? Here are the questions to ask if you’ve taken that plunge.
Small doses of psychedelic drugs are said to make parents more engaged and even childlike in their enthusiasm. Is this reckless nonsense, or a parenting breakthrough?
Small doses of psychedelic drugs are said to make parents more engaged and even childlike in their enthusiasm. Is this reckless nonsense, or a parenting breakthrough?
Young people have been living in a world of escalating drama for the past five years, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s also a challenge for parents. The seven-point plan of a leading researcher can help navigate these unprecedented times.
Motivate them or leave them alone? Be honest or say nothing? It is not easy to deal well with depressed people. But psychology professionals say that those closest can often help even more than trained experts. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Here’s how to help…
The World Health Organization estimates that mental disorders impact one in four people worldwide. To help respond to mental health issues, a first aid training program was created in Australia in the early 2000s and has become available in France over the past five years.
Debate over Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying law shows the need to rethink the biological model of mental illness.
Maria Branyas Morera, the world’s oldest person who has just passed away at age 117, once talked about the importance of socializing in old age. Even if the aging and elderly tend to wind up confined to family circles, studies have shown the often untapped benefits of friendship in our later years.
Thanks to athletes like Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and Teddy Riner, who have opened the conversation, psychological counseling is no longer a taboo in the world of high-level sports. The Paris Olympics will be a showcase of champions who are doing the hard work.
Worldwide, PCOS is often missed in teenage girls as they go through puberty. Jane Dipika Garrett draws on her own struggles with the disorder to boost awareness — and self-acceptance.
The complexity of danzón, a graceful and intricate dance, encourages a group of older adults to stimulate their minds, making it a key part of protecting their mental agility and memory.
Children and teenagers whose parents are in prison report depression, anxiety and a drop in school performance. New laws meant to protect them are not properly applied.
The war in Ukraine has been going on for a year. Many have died, fled or been traumatized — day after day and night after night. Such harrowing experiences leave deep wounds. But there are ways to overcome traumatic experiences.
Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a “hostile” world. It’s a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.
“I did it all because basically, I’m an idiot.”
It has long been assumed that psychotherapy can do no harm at worst. But new research makes clear that for some people, it can have very serious, even life-threatening, consequences.
Applying Artificial intelligence to vocal cues is increasingly being used to detect a range of illnesses from COVID-19 to asthma and even depression. But such technology also comes with serious ethical concerns.
Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) has officially been recognized as a mental health disorder. The decision could do more harm than good.
Fifteen years ago, Francesco kept busy by scamming people. He was a regular visitor to the beaches of Terracina, south of Rome, where he was caught several times selling counterfeit Ray-Ban sunglasses. Then came the drugs, which fed a serious substance-induced psychosis and eventually he tested positive for HIV. It’s around that time that I […]
From St. Paul to St. Diego…
To each mental illness, its castle.
One day a patient, after listing all his phobias, asked me: “Dottoré, be honest, who’s worse off than me?” “The ones,” I replied, “who say they aren’t afraid of anything.” ____________________________ Learn more about Worldcrunch’s exclusive Dottoré! series here.
“Dottoré, the reason why I am depressed is simple. But to explain it, I need an answer first. How much did you use to pay for a coffee?” “Over the last few years, it was 80 cents, then 90 cents, and now one euro.” “And what did you use to do with the 10 or […]
Burnout doesn’t just occur in the workplace. Pressured by unrealistic perfectionism and a cult of performance, parents are also increasingly affected by a similar weight at home that becomes too much to bear. Here’s how to recognize the symptoms and act before before it’s too late.
PARIS — After first reckoning with the physical toll of COVID-19, the world also began to register the risk of rising rates of depression and isolation as the first wave of the virus forced hundreds of millions of people to stay confined at home for months at a time last spring. But now the second […]
A group in East Amman gives men from Syria and other conflict zones an opportunity to open up and talk through the many ways they struggle.
Abdullah, a psychosocial health worker in Idlib, discusses helping families cope with depression and other mental health issues that are rampant across the city.
-Essay- BOGOTÁ — Colombia’s Caribbean coastal cities have people with less depression, bipolar mood swings, schizophrenia and other mental health conditions than elsewhere in the country, according to a recent national mental health poll. Is that surprising? A few days after I arrived in the Caribbean, I was invited to a barbecue in one of […]
PARIS — French workers are allowed up to four leave days to celebrate their entrance into a civil union pact. But if a partner or, heaven forbid, child should die, they get just two. Losing a parent or sibling warrants just one single day off work. And there’s no legal leave for the death of […]
In Italy and Spain, there’s more time to casually socialize. Americans unapologetically dive into the consumerist crush of gifts. But in Germany, Christmas is a solemn pseudo-Christian ritual with much too much pressure on everyone.
Much of what we think we know about sadness is still based on what the father of pychoanalysis wrote 100 years ago, but psychologists and brain researchers are starting to discover more about the feeling’s true mechanisms.
Andreas Lubitz, who apparently suffered from depression, hid his condition before he deliberately crashed a plane with 150 people on board. A closer look at mental health controls at Lufthansa, which operated the low-cost Germanwings flight.
A record 53 French police officers committed suicide last year. The Courbat, a health facility, treats officers suffering from burnout, depression and alcoholism with a very specific therapy.
A trial public work program for German drug addicts promised modest hourly wages and optional bottles of beer. The results have surprised social workers.
When Grandmaster Flash wrote “The Message” and The Notorious B.I.G. turned out “Juicy,” it was not just a way to share a glimpse of everyday life in New York’s toughest neighborhoods, but also escape it. “It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin” under” Grandmaster Flash raps, urging himself […]
Invented by Buddhist monks, secularized and developed by Western science, mindfulness seems to be everywhere. But the aim is to make the most of life, not to seek nirvana.
Though it has been taboo to discuss, the top ranks of soccer are rife with players who suffer from depression during and after their careers.
While European politicians have been hailing an economic uptick in the troubled Greek economy, Greeks themselves have yet to see any real signs of rebound. What explains the divide?