The hallmark of schizophrenia is perceiving things that are not there. Auditory hallucinations, including “hearing voices”, is particularly common. What if this clinically distinguishing feature of schizophrenia differs from the…
The Grad School Gospels is a series of posts inspired by Dirk Hayhurst‘s The Bullpen Gospels. In the Bullpen Gospels, Hayhurst tells stories from his struggle to self-actualize through professional…
Many wisdom traditions encourage a path or process orientation rather than a destination or product orientation to living well. Happiness makes for a poor goal. It’s not particularly well-defined. What…
In The Grad School Gospels: On Professional Baseball, Academia, and My Shared Experience with Dirk Hayhurst, I juxtaposed Hayhurst‘s pro baseball journey – which he recounts in his first book,…
I watch a lot of news stories unfold, reading left-wing, centrist and right-wing media alike. In the course of a news story, issues ignite, blaze hotly and then smoulder into…
Last night I attended a free session at our local mental health facility. It was called Getting the Low Down on Substance Use, and was presented by Michael Coughlin, a…
What is it about being a CEO of a psychiatric hospital in Ontario that warrants much greater compensation than executives of similar-sized general hospitals? Last month we took a look…
Women with mental illness are disproportionately more likely to find jail than health care help according to the associate chief of psychiatry at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group. Speaking…
by Amelia Wood Whether you identify yourself as a conservative, liberal or something in between, there’s no denying the fact that you or someone you know has likely been affected…
…this! It’s certainly not too early to think about Mental Illness Awareness Week When I read the Ottawa Citizen article (linked above) I immediately thought, “Mom will have read that…
I’m delighted to be at the top of the list, perhaps it’s random, of 16 Five Star Rated AIDS Information Sites & Blogs – and I’ve found a few fellow…
On Saturday the Ottawa Citizen ran a story called Pleas to help mentally ill son ignored, mother says. It was in Hugh Adami’s column, The Public Citizen. Complete with names…
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – John Conway discusses the Cons’ project of destroying Canada’s social safety net. – But the good news is that Stephen Harper is running…
Yesterday, I wrote about those disaster scenarios that have a way of poisoning our imaginations. Today, I’ve been thinking about some strategies that I use to keep the demons at…
The brutal and tragic killing of 12 people in a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado has raised the thorny issue of gun control in an election year. Not surprisingly both…
I’ve been wrestling all day – less with what to write than how to write it – so I thought I’d begin with an absurd fruit-plate. Leading with humour is…
“I feel morally compelled to remain on the side of other uprooted men and women everywhere. Today, as yesterday, a nation is judged by its attitude towards refugees.” The sobering…
What is regret? Regret is a verb defined as: to feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over (something that has happened or been done, esp. a loss or missed opportunity). Synonyms…
Not one to scan this blog’s activity logs too often, much less understand them, I was quite chuffed to be contacted by Michelle Lamont, representative of Ashley Berges – author,…
In the hours following the conviction of their once-revered Jerry Sandusky, Penn State is most anxious to move on. After my exclamation on Facebook of “Yes! Yes! Yes!”, attached to…
