20 Life-Changing Benefits of Psychotherapy

Have you ever considered seeking psychotherapy to help you manage or overcome a personal or emotional concern? Or perhaps you’re engaged in therapy currently or you have participated in the past. We know that psychotherapy works. In a previous post, I wrote about some of the considerable evidence for the effectiveness of psychotherapy. But what are some of the tangible benefits of psychotherapy? Here are 20 potentially life-changing benefits you could obtain from psychotherapy. This list is by no means …

Read more

My Top 10 Most Popular Blog Posts

Since I’ve been blogging for quite a while now, I thought it would be interesting to step back and see what my most popular posts have been so far. After a quick review of my stats, here are my top 10 posts in terms of total page views. I’ll also have a comment about each post and a few overall lessons learned from this review. 1) “8 Reasons Why People Don’t Get Treatment for Mental Illness” Far and away my …

Read more

Do’s and Don’ts for Media Reporting on Suicide

Trigger Warning: This article discusses the public health issue of suicide and guidelines for responsible reporting of suicide in the media, but does not refer to specific methods of suicide or other details related to specific deaths by suicide. Even though I’m a mental health professional and issues surrounding suicide are an ever-present part of my work, I’m still astounded by how often the topic of suicide comes up in the media. It seems that hardly a week goes by …

Read more

Learning to Enjoy the Present

Stories of Hope: An Interview with Theresa Larsen This is part of a series featuring individuals who share their life experiences with mental health issues. Recently, I asked mental health advocate and author Theresa Larsen about her son’s mental health challenges and their effect on the family. Here’s our interview: DS: Tell us about when you first started noticing concerns related to your son’s mental health. How did these issues continue to affect him and your family before he received treatment? TL: I first noticed something was …

Read more

Overcoming the “8 Reasons Why People Don’t Get Treatment for Mental Illness”

My most popular blog post to date is “8 Reasons Why People Don’t Get Treatment for Mental Illness.” In it, I described several common obstacles and barriers which often keep people from seeking or obtaining treatment for mental illness. This post clearly struck a chord with a lot of people, including those who have had negative experiences with treatment and family members trying to persuade their loved ones to seek help. You can read the original post here. I thought it …

Read more