Finding the right treatment for depression can be exhausting and demoralising. The three key treatments are antidepressants, therapy and lifestyle changes, but all three take time, and you can expect a few false starts along the way.
Ask your doctor the right questions When a patient considers a certain treatment, there are specific things they want to know: Will this make me
In the twilight of his life, as storm clouds gathered over Europe, Sigmund Freud began the most ambitious and controversial analysis of his career. With Civilisation and its Discontents, Freud put all humankind on the couch, and the neurosis he sought to expel was religion. Psychiatry’s relationship with God has been fractious ever since.
If depression is an evolved adaptation to stress, the immediate question is what possible benefit it could bring. As discussed in the Depression Reflex, it makes evolutionary sense for a creature hit by defeat, loss, or injury to withdraw – a strategic retreat that stops a bad situation from becoming worse.
The plot of many thrillers is a vital secret from the past hidden in plain sight, a twist that upends everything we thought we knew.
Just as the ordeals of pregnancy and labour are over – right when a mother expects joy and blissful repose – there is an illness that not only feels dreadful but also impairs her ability to be the happy, adept, and loving carer she hoped to be. With mood low, energy gone and thinking foggy, normal tasks suddenly seem impossible, let alone providing the expected perfect welcome to a demanding new arrival.
