Why “stabilizing” people is entirely the wrong idea

By Ron Unger If human beings were meant to be entirely stable entities, then “stabilizing” them would be an entirely good thing; a target for mental health treatment that all could agree on. But it’s way more complex than that: healthy humans are constantly moving and changing. They have a complex mix of stability and instability that is hard to pin down. All this relates to one of my favorite subjects, the intersection of creativity and madness. It is a curious fact that people seen as “psychotic” or “schizophrenic” may show sometimes more creativity, and sometimes less creativity, than “normals.” … [click on title to read and view more]

September 19, 2014

Aspartame, diet drinks etc #foodie friday

Coverage of this issue is in the New York Times again...so I'm sharing a post I did on it a while back because it includes how it's particularly significant to mental health. Artificial sweeteners are problematic in multiples ways... In her piece: BIPOLAR off meds success, Jazz traces her experiences with mania that led to a bogus bipolar diagnosis to consuming large quantities of diet soda. I've talked to others who have made this connection with their own "mood-disorders." From Jazz: In my reading, I also came across some information about the artificial sweetener Aspartame being implicated in mood disorders. When I thought back over my own history, I realized that my mood swings had started in college, soon after I'd turned to diet soda as a study aid. I'd never liked coffee or tea, and didn't want the calories in regular soda, so Diet Coke became my drug of choice. More importantly, those mood swings had stopped when I'd stopped drinking Diet Coke. … [click on title to read and view more]

September 19, 2014

September 2014
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