Trying to Be Kinder to Ourselves
If there is one generalisation we can hazard of those who end up mentally unwell, we could say that they are masters at being very nasty to themselves without noticing they are even being so.
Rembrandt as a Guide to Kindness
Born in 1606, Rembrandt became a hugely successful painter when he was still only in his twenties. He earned a fortune and lived a wildly extravagant life. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait…
How Mental Illness Impacts Our Bodies
The Body Keeps the Score is the beautiful and suggestive title of a book published in 2014 by a Dutch professor of psychiatry at Boston University called Bessel van der Kolk.…
The Difference Between Fragile and Strong Couples
How can you tell whether a relationship is going to last the course - or whether it’s doomed to founder? What’s the difference between fragile and solid couples? Here are some…
The Maturity of Regression
One of the most striking features of relationships is that, after a while, if things are going well, one or both partners will almost naturally start to refer to the other…
Two Reasons Why People End up Parenting Badly
Given how important it is to be properly loved by one’s parents in order to have an emotionally sane grown-up life, one may wonder with some urgency why – in cases…
What is Emotional Neglect?
When we imagine the difficulties involved in a so-called ‘bad childhood’, we most readily think in terms of children who are physically harmed – beaten, underfed, sexually abused – or else…
How Unloving Parents can Generate Self-Hating Children
A central fact about early childhood is that babies are born into the world entirely at the mercy of others. They have no native strength, intelligence or utility, they cannot fight…
On Falling Mentally Ill
For a long time, we may cope well enough. We make it to work every morning, we give pleasant summaries of our lives to friends, we smile over dinner. We aren’t…
Living Long-Term with Mental Illness
We would – of course – like any encounter with mental illness to be as brief as possible and, most importantly, to be isolated and singular. But the reality is that…
How Mental Illness Closes Down Our Minds
It may sound odd or impolite to suggest that most of us, when we are in the grip of mental illness, are no longer capable of thinking. That’s not how it…
Companionship and Mental Health
One of the cruellest aspects of mental illness is that it strips us of any ability to believe that other people might be suffering in the way we are. We aren’t…
The Role of Love in Mental Health
The one ingredient on which any recovery from serious mental illness depends is also one which, curiously and grievously, never makes an appearance in any medical handbook or psychiatric diagnostic, namely…
The Role of Sleep in Mental Health
Part of the reason why many of us have a tangled and unhelpful relationship to sleep can be traced back to the way we first learnt about the subject many years…
The Role of Pills in Mental Health
A standard strategy, when we are physically unwell, is to head to the doctor, take a pill and then expect, in a short while, to feel a lot better. This recourse…
Mental Illness and Acceptance
One of the great contributing factors to mental illness is the idea that we should at all costs and and all times be well. We suffer far more than we should…
What is Mental Health?
So efficient and hushed are our brains in their day to day operations, we are apt to miss what an extraordinary and complicated achievement it is to feel mentally well. A…
Mental Illness and 'Reasons to Live'
When we are feeling well in our minds, we hardly notice that we might be harbouring in ourselves anything as formal or as dramatic-sounding as ‘reasons to live.’ We simply assume…
Zen Buddhism and Fireflies
One of nature’s odder creatures is the firefly, a soft bodied beetle that emits a warm yellow glow from its lower abdomen, typically at twilight, in order to attract mates or…