Recommended For:
Journalists and writers alike, and those keen to know more about PTSD
Mac McClelland is an award-winning journalist who spent many years of her career covering traumas and tragedies, as well as human rights issues, around the world. However, McClelland soon found that she was not immune to these on-the-job exposures to violence, disaster, and terror as they began to haunt her and wreak havoc in the form of flashbacks, nightmares, and other manifestations of PTSD. Recently, McClelland wrote a memoir called Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story in which she explores her personal experience with PTSD and her journey to recovery and ultimately survival. Recommended For: Journalists and writers alike, and those keen to know more about PTSD
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In Part 4 of the series on mental health and the newsroom, we meet Mac McClelland, a renowned journalist who has traveled around the world covering stories of sadness, violence, and disaster. It was through her work experiences and the trauma she witnessed that led to her experiencing first hand the wraths of PTSD. In light of her experiences with PTSD, McClelland has become more outspoken about mental well-being in journalism. Through both her new memoir as well as this interview, McClelland emerges as a mental health advocate and brings to light the importance of recognizing the impact of trauma, particularly amongst photographers and writers like her who are frequently exposed to it. "Nobody that I have ever talked to has been trained to think about their emotional wellness before they go on an assignment. I certainly do now, but that's not normal. Your editors are never like, “Hey, how are you going to take care of yourself and your feelings? ... Society as a whole sucks at PTSD awareness -- it’s a thing nobody knows or talks about -- and that extends to journalism. We don't know that PTSD actually affects way more civilians than it does soldiers in the United States. But journalists suffer in higher numbers from PTSD than the general population, just because of what reporters are being exposed to. The profession could really be a trailblazer on the issue. We could say, “Listen, we're going to talk about this in our own profession. We're going to have conversations about it. We're going to act like it really exists. We're not going to pretend like we're all super tough, reporting robots who don't have any feelings.” That is a thing that journalism as a profession could do and if it did, I think you could have a big impact on the way that the rest of the culture deals with PTSD." Psychoanalysis is a theory and set of therapeutic techniques that was originally developed by the infamous Sigmund Freud. "Freud believed that people could be cured by making conscious their unconscious thoughts and motivations, thus gaining 'insight'. The aim of psychoanalysis therapy is to release repressed emotions and experiences, i.e. make the unconscious conscious." When many think of Freud, they tend to recall the classic couch which patients would lie on, as the therapist sat behind them taking notes. But what do modern day psychoanalysts offices look like? Have we evolved beyond Freud's archaic couch? Psychoanalyst and photographer Dr. Mark Gerard has been working to answer this question. Over the past number of years, Dr. Gerard has been photographing psychoanalysts in their offices around the world to give us an inside look at the variety of shapes and decor twenty-first century psychoanalysis offices take. You can check out his series "In The Shadow of Freud's Couch" here. “One of my early goals or values with this project was to demonstrate the viability of psychoanalysis through diversity,” he explains. “It doesn't have too look on the outside the same to be able to work deeply and be analytic. I’d like to go to parts of Africa and see what’s going on there. While these things may seem different, the interest in subconscious— even if it is not called that— the interest in dreams and in what gets communicated beneath the surface, that is universal.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/22/dr-mark-gerald.html?via=desktop&source=twitter An emotional and personal #poem describing the difficulties common to the contemporary #youth, issues of eating #disorders, self image, and the veiled reassurances given to others to hide these issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEOFt82GMOI Spotlight on Geriatric Psychiatry at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)6/13/2015 The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is a national and global leader in psychiatric care. One area in which they specialize is seniors' mental health. A recent blog post appearing on CAMH's website highlights the experience of Dr. Angela Golas, a resident in the final weeks of her geriatric psychiatry residency, as she works with seniors in this area of practice. Check out this interview with Dr. Golas to read about her passion for geriatric psychiatry. Joyce Josephson's poem "The Glass" eloquently explores one's personal experience living with bipolar disorder. However, her poem is one that needs to be seen and not just read, as the visual impact serves to further emphasize the expansive mood and increased arousal and activity that are characteristic of mania, as well as the swirling darkness and crash into depression that for some can follow. "I spill a bottomless glass of grandiose thoughts like stars splayed in a boundless universe of my psychic radiance floating easily through the infinite cosmic musings of God..." (For the full poem visit: http://allpoetry.com/poem/3544212-The-Glass-by-Freed-by-Mercy) In Part 3 of the series on mental health and the newsroom, readers are given glimpses into the workspaces of twenty-first century newsrooms including those of LinkedIn, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Forbes, Business Insider and Mashable. During the virtual newsroom-crawl, we are able to see how newsrooms are changing their architecture and interior design to not only foster creativity and productivity, but to increase employee satisfaction, prevent burnout and reduce stress. The changes vary from the simply better lighting to having a hidden speakeasy on location. "At HuffPost, Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington has made taking time for yourself a priority. It's all part of Huffington's goal to “prevent burnout.” Writers and editors can take a quick snooze in one of the New York office's nap rooms, find some peace in the meditation room, join a weekly restorative breathing class and recharge in one of the many massage chairs scattered throughout the office. Couches and hammocks also flank the open newsroom’s rows of desks." Canada is a major user of opiates in the world, coming only second to the U.S. What's more is that both the US and Canada are seeing a rise in the number of opiate overdoses, and especially in deaths due to overdoses, in the last number of years. In Ontario, opioid overdoses are now the third leading cause of accidental death. As a result of these statistics, many regions are now focusing on ways to prevent overdose-related deaths, including enhanced prescribing guidelines, as well as the increased use of and training in how to administer an opioid receptor antagonist called Naloxone. In the video below, you can learn about the programs cities in Massachusetts have been putting in place to combat opioid overdoses, as well as hear about Narcan's positive effects on the lives of many in the US state, and see why some other regions may be slow to adopt similar programs... "New England has been hit especially hard by fatal overdoses. In Massachusetts, deaths caused by heroin and other opioids have increased by more than 90 per cent since 2002. In response, the state started a pilot program in 2007 aimed at decreasing the number of fatal overdoses. The centerpiece of the program is a drug called Naloxone, known by its brand name Narcan. It's a nasal spray that can instantly stop an opioid overdose." Schizophrenia affects individuals around the world. Though it is not something unique to developed nations like our own, researchers are starting to discover that the experience of schizophrenia symptoms can vary widely between different countries. In the brief study summary "Hallucinated voices’ attitudes vary with culture", we learn that the context of auditory hallucinations, such as whether they are positive or negative, can vary greatly between the East and West, and this may perhaps be due to difference in cultural beliefs about the mind and mental health. "In the United States, schizophrenia’s symptoms include hallucinations of disembodied voices that hurl insults and make violent commands, says an international team led by Stanford University anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann. But in India and Ghana, schizophrenia patients often report positive relationships with hallucinated voices that they recognize as those of family members or God." |
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Supporting and enhancing students' and health professionals' knowledge and understanding of mental health and psychiatry
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