People Who Hoard Animals in Psychiatric Times is one of scant few in-depth looks at the mental health issues behind animal hoarding. Once known as animal collecting and commonly stereotyped as the “crazy cat lady” (cats are most common but many animals are involved) research in recent years still yields no clear cause or diagnosis. […]

A few days ago, the headlines blared something akin to this Washington Post article:

Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, and a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties […]

Are people really born gay? To what degree can we ‘choose’ our sexuality? Research that’s been carried out into the biological basis of sexuality recently hit the headlines. What role does hormone exposure in the womb really play? Can homosexuality be adaptive from an evolutionary perspective? Where did sexologist Alfred Kinsey go wrong, and what […]

There is no greater obstacle to people receiving treatment for psychological problems than the stigma associated with it. Embarrassment, feelings of failure, and individualism are all pieces related to the greater socio-cultural stigma that relegates a depressed person to his bedroom and relationship problems to closed doors. At least half of Americans who are in […]

Will mentioned earlier in this blog that he’s always on the lookout for famous people coping with mental disorders. They can be inspirational - but in some cases, negatively so.
“Thinspiration” images used in eating disorders are popular with the pro-ana movement and often feature celebrities. Mary-Kate Olsen, Lindsay Lohan, and even the first celebrity […]

I’m always on the lookout for famous people that disclose they have some sort of mental disorder in hopes that this person can become a model of success for others struggling with the condition. Recently, baseball player Adam LaRoche of the Atlanta Braves disclosed he had ADHD that affected his play on the field (although […]

An AFP story on Yahoo! News has been getting big attention: Psychotherapy helps infertile ’superwomen’. Some researchers found that stress many be an issue with infertility, and that going for counseling for lifetyle stress can actually have a dramatic impact on women becomming fertile. Again, the biological relevance of psychotherapy is in the spotlight, and […]

NPR had a great piece last week on the increase in structured activities and planned time for children (listen here). This generally is seen as a departure from days when children would have many hours a day to do whatever they wished from running around the backyard to organizing a game of tag. Some folks […]

The June issue of the APA Monitor had a piece on the legislation in Hawaii trying to get prescription privileges for psychologists. In some states there are shortages of psychiatrists creating a deficit of services. One of the proposed solutions is to allow psychologists to receive extensive training to prescribe a limited amount of medication […]

World Science reports Ego traps us in costly, losing battles, study finds.
An advance review of an article in the July issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, egotism is defined here by psychologists Roy Baumeister and Liqing Zhang as “the motivation to maintain and enhance favorable views of self.” Study participants risked more when ego […]

A story via Reuters reported on some new research that found a relationship between attachment style and risk for eating disorders. Essentially, folks with an insecure attachment style were more prone to low self-esteem and body image issues, which in turn can lead to eating disorders. This isn’t really surprising since insecure attachments have been […]

From the New York Times: In Diabetes, One More Burden for the Mentally Ill focuses on the link between increasing rates of diabetes (as high as 20%) in people with some mental illnesses following the widespread adoption of atypical antipsychotic drugs such as olanzapine (Zyprexa), clozapine (Clozaril) and risperidone (Risperidal).
This isn’t new news, however. […]