They are a continuing hidden epidemic among teens and young adults today.

But self-harm behaviors such as cutting don’t have to remain in the dark. Best of all, if a person can find a way to talk about them to someone they trust — such as a friend, a family member or a teacher — they may also find help for them.

In this video, Psych Central’s Ask the Therapists Daniel J. Tomasulo, Ph.D. & Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D. discuss why some people turn to self-harm (such as cutting), and what can be done to help them.

Dr. Marie and Dr. Dan host many videos on relationship and mental health topics here on our blog and you can check them out on our YouTube channel. Want to learn more about Dr. Marie and Dr. Dan?

What do you think about their advice?
Please leave your thoughts in our comments section.

Get psyched with Psych Central’s Zoë Kessler and author Melissa Orlov in a fun hour of sharing about the good stuff in an ADHD / Non-ADHD partnership!

We’ll talk about how we can bring out the best in you and your loved one.

During our webinar, we’ll:

• re-discover what each partner brings  to the relationship
• discover some new ways to bring out the best in you and your loved one!
• invite you to share your positive stories
• remind each other of opportunities and possibilities

…and more!

Please join us (and bring your special someone) for an uplifting hour that will leave you feeling re-energized, hopeful and ready to move forward!

The webinar is this Thursday, May 24 from 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT.

Space is limited, so please sign-up today:  http://bit.ly/MkKMhk

Host Zoë Kessler writes the popular blog, ADHD from A to Zoë here at Psych Central.  Diagnosed with ADHD at 46, Zoë, an author, journalist, speaker and workshop facilitator, is a regular feature article contributor to ADDitude Magazine; writes radio and film documentaries about ADHD, and is featured in Her Fast Mind, a film about women and ADHD produced by The Bilkey ADHD Clinics and released in 2012.

Special Guest Melissa Orlov, is married to a man with ADHD. Melissa, a marriage consultant, is the award-winning author of The ADHD Effect on Marriage. She also blogs at her website ADHD and Marriage (www.adhdmarriage.com), which she co-hosts with Dr. Ned Hallowell.

Dr. Barbara Fredrickson discovered that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones leads people to a tipping point beyond which they naturally become more resilient to adversity and effortlessly achieve what they once could only imagine.

In this video, Psych Central’s Ask the Therapists Daniel J. Tomasulo, Ph.D. & Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D. discuss the benefits of positivity and understanding how the positivity ratio might help you in your own life.

Take the Positivity Ratio test discussed in the video.

Dr. Marie and Dr. Dan host many videos on relationship and mental health topics here on our blog and you can check them out on our YouTube channel. Want to learn more about Dr. Marie and Dr. Dan?

What do you think about their advice?
Please leave your thoughts in our comments section.

According to Dr. Marie’s philosophy, it is the heart that provides safety and warmth to all within its embrace. It is what transforms the very ordinary and repetitious tasks of daily life into expressions of mutual support and care. It is what celebrates the dailyness of love and belonging and helps everyone cope in times of challenges, separations, and even tragedies. When the “heart part” is strong, it provides both children and adults with what they need emotionally and psychologically to become their best versions of themselves in spite of whatever stresses come their way.

Psych Central’s Ask the Therapists Daniel J. Tomasulo, Ph.D. & Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D. discuss Dr. Marie’s bestselling parenting book in this video.

Dr. Marie and Dr. Dan host many videos on relationship and mental health topics here on our blog and you can check them out on our YouTube channel. Want to learn more about Dr. Marie and Dr. Dan?

What do you think about the book?
Please leave your thoughts in our comments section.

Coincidentally, a few pharmaceutical companies also released a set of medications — called atypical antipsychotics — which can be used to treat certain symptoms of bipolar disorder.

Doctors started diagnosing bipolar disorder in children with a looser set of criteria, and felt more at ease prescribing a treatment for it because these new medications had become available.

This set of circumstances led to a reported 40-fold increase in the past decade of bipolar disorder diagnoses in children. This suggests a pretty obvious problem in the diagnostic criteria, since nothing has changed so much in the past decade to offer a reasonable explanation for this sort of increase.

This issue has gotten more attention as of late because of the DSM-5 revision process. This is the perfect time, after all, to ensure the research criteria match the official diagnostic criteria. Such an effort can put a halt to too-liberal diagnosing of children’s simple bad behavior as a “disorder.”¹

The result?

A new proposed diagnosis called “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder.”

Symptoms of Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder

A. The disorder is characterized by severe recurrent temper outbursts that are grossly out of proportion in intensity or duration to the situation.

1. The temper outbursts are manifest verbally and/or behaviorally, such as in the form of verbal rages or physical aggression towards people or property.

2. The temper outbursts are inconsistent with developmental level.

B. Frequency: The temper outbursts occur, on average, three or more times per week.

C. Mood between temper outbursts:

1. Nearly every day, most of the day, the mood between temper outbursts is persistently irritable or angry.

2. The irritable or angry mood is observable by others (e.g., parents, teachers, peers).

D. Duration: Criteria A-C have been present for 12 or more months. Throughout that time, the person has not had 3 or more consecutive months when they were without the symptoms of Criteria A-C.

The disorder must also be present in 2 or more settings (just like ADHD), and the symptoms must appear between the ages of 6 and 10 (I guess 2 to 5 year olds simply can’t be diagnosed). The diagnosis cannot be made in adults.

Is this a good step forward, or one step back?

Something needed to be done about the mis-diagnosis and over-diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children. Clinicians, pediatricians and family doctors have simply been ignoring the official DSM-IV criteria, and making up their own to justify most of the increase of childhood bipolar diagnoses. This situation needs to end.

Some fear the new proposed disorder is simply too squishy:

[Janet] Wozniak, who opposes the new mood-disorder diagnosis, said she fears that its focus on temper and irritability may capture too many normal but volatile children or delay what might be an appropriate bipolar diagnosis and treatment. Accepting the proposed disorder, she said, is “misguided and unconscionable.’’

Wozniak is one of the lead researchers and proponents of kids just being diagnosed with a form of bipolar disorder. She, along with Joseph Biederman, believe that a child’s irritability and aggression is just a different form of mania. Talk about stretching the definition of words…

Luckily, reason and logic has won out in the DSM-5 revision committee, and the proposed new diagnosis recognizes that trying to stretch the adult criteria for bipolar disorder simply doesn’t work very well.

Some other local clinicians applauded Leibenluft for challenging what they describe as excessively flexible criteria used to diagnose bipolar disorder in children, leading to an explosion in new cases. They said clinicians should consider other complex causes for severe mood problems, including family trauma or developmental delays.

And that’s the key problem with childhood bipolar disorder diagnoses today — the criteria already are too squishy, and yet are being used to diagnose hundreds of thousands of children.

It’s likely that the proposed diagnosis, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, would help solve this problem, and bring some much-needed sanity back to this area of childhood mental disorders.

Read the full article: Proposed new diagnosis for bipolar disorder divides psychiatrists

1. We don’t much care for the fast-and-loose way some have diagnosed bipolar disorder in children or the disagreements in the research.

We all face problems and difficulties in our lives. What often differentiates a person from being able to cope with the challenge or not is understanding what’s really going on. Why did we overreact to that comment from our boss? Why can’t we let that painful end of a relationship go 5 years later?

Sometimes gaining perspective and psychological insight means looking beyond the surface, and digging a little deeper. And we hope that our new blog, Sorting Out Your Life, will help you do just that.

This blog will be focused on helping people sort out their lives. Blog topics may include tips on making the most of psychotherapy, understanding why we do what we do (for example, staying in abusive relationships or dead-end jobs), dealing with difficult people in our lives, healing from past hurts, etc.

We’re pleased to also welcome Jenise Harmon, MSW, LISW as the host of our new blog, Sorting Out Your Life. She is a psychotherapist with a private practice in Columbus, Ohio. Originally from Seattle, she lives with her husband, young daughter, two dogs, three cats, and a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach named Sally. When not working, Jenise spends her free time writing, drinking coffee, and hanging out with her daughter and husband. You can learn more about Jenise here.

Please head on over to Sorting Out Your Life and give Jenise a warm Psych Central welcome!

In fact, it makes me wonder whether there’s really any journalism done any more, or if it’s just, “Let’s pair one expert’s opinion with the word ‘epidemic,’ and there’s our story!”

The problem with a word like “epidemic” is that, sans a legitimate base comparison, you can always throw this claim around with little regard for actual scientific data. Because if you actually look at the scientific data, you’d be hard pressed to use the word “epidemic” for virtually any mental disorder.

And while this isn’t particularly new news to me, it may be news to many who’ve been following the hype and melodrama surrounding the DSM-5 revision process over the past week, as the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association took place.

With so much scrutiny being placed on the DSM-5 revisions, many mainstream news articles written about the revision process make the claim that — if left to their own druthers — the DSM-5 will bring on a plague of new epidemics of mental disorders across the board.

But of course, these are just the “Sky is falling” opinions of people who have their own agendas.¹

Enter a breath of fresh air to help bring perspective to using the word “epidemic” when it comes to any mental disorder. Our colleague Dr. Ron Pies has written a research-based article over at the Psychiatric Times to look at the prevalence rates of different mental disorders over time to answer the simple question, “Is there really an epidemic of psychiatric illness in the US?”

The answer may surprise you.

Is There Really an “Epidemic” of Psychiatric Illness in the US?

1. Agendas rarely examined by those journalists writing the articles.

We’re not talking feeling sad because of a breakup with their boyfriend or girlfriend. We’re talking about serious feelings last 2 weeks or longer of sadness, lethargy, lack of interest or pleasure in the usual activities in a person’s life, and even suicidal thoughts. These are the hallmarks of untreated depression.

Psych Central’s Ask the Therapists Daniel J. Tomasulo, Ph.D. & Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D. in this video talk about teenage and adolescent depression. Young adults experience depression more often than many adults, but there is hope for getting better. Here’s how.

Dr. Marie and Dr. Dan host many videos on relationship and mental health topics here on our blog and you can check them out on our YouTube channel. Want to learn more about Dr. Marie and Dr. Dan?

What do you think about their advice?
Please leave your thoughts in our comments section.

We’re pleased to introduce Bipolar Trek: The Voyages of BipolarLab with Dr. Yanni Malliaris, Bsc, PhD, who is a Clinical Psychologist – Psychotherapist (Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London), and Founder and Director of EDO the Hellenic Bipolar Organisation and BipolarLab.com.

As Dr. Malliaris says,

“Bipolar disorder the final frontier…these are the voyages of BipolarLab, its continuing mission to explore the chaos of bipolar disorder, to seek out new technologies and new treatments, to boldly go where no one has gone before…”

You can learn more about him here.

Please head on over to Bipolar Trek and give Dr. Malliaris a warm Psych Central welcome!

Alcohol and drug problems don’t go away on their own. And they rarely get better just with the passage of time, unless the person has made a concerted effort and pledge to change.

Do you know someone who has an alcohol or drug problem?

If so, this week’s video from Psych Central’s Ask the Therapists Daniel J. Tomasulo, Ph.D. & Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D. may be able to help you.

Dr. Marie and Dr. Dan host many videos on relationship and mental health topics here on our blog and you can check them out on our YouTube channel. Want to learn more about Dr. Marie and Dr. Dan?

What do you think about their advice?
Please leave your thoughts in our comments section.

The critics were worried that these new diagnoses would label millions of Americans with a mental disorder — and offering them subsequent treatment — that today wouldn’t qualify for such diagnosis or treatment.

For instance, while anxiety mixed with depression is actually quite commonly seen in the wild of clinical practices, there is no specific diagnosis for this mixed mood state. The DSM-5 sought to correct this problem — that clinicians are treating millions for a problem the DSM says doesn’t technically exist. But critics worried the new criteria were too lax and might result in over-diagnosis.

The same was true for attenuated psychosis syndrome. The proposed diagnosis was an effort to get children and young adults into treatment sooner for experiencing weird thoughts or hallucinations. But people worried that it would lead to unnecessary treatment of kids for a potentially temporary problem.

The DSM folks responsible for these changes emphasized that they were the result of scientific data — not just people’s subjective opinions:

Dr. David J. Kupfer, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and the chairman of the task force making revisions, said the changes came in response mainly to field trials — real-world studies testing whether newly proposed diagnoses are reliable from one psychiatrist to the next — and also public commentary. “Our intent for disorders that require more evidence is that they be studied further, and that people work with the criteria” and refine them, Dr. Kupfer said.

Allen Frances, resident curmudgeon and the editor of the DSM-IV — the prior revision of the DSM that caused a lot of the over-diagnosis of disorders we see today — was jubilant, “At long last, DSM 5 is correcting itself and has rejected its worst proposals.”

Really? Was there really any doubt that as the data came in from the field trials, the DSM-5 — which is under active draft revisions and has yet to be published — would also be updated? Of course there wasn’t, yet critics like Frances raised the straw man argument and constantly suggested the DSM’s new criteria were already set in stone.

Autism Disorders Will Continue to Undergo Reorganization

One set of disorders that will continue to undergo their proposed reorganization are autism spectrum disorders, according to the NY Times. The current mishmash of diagnoses simply aren’t very well organized or well thought-out:

The proposed definition of autism, which would eliminate related labels like Asperger’s syndrome and “pervasive developmental disorder,” came under fire in January, when researchers at Yale University presented evidence that about half of the people who currently have a diagnosis on the higher functioning end of the “autism spectrum” would no longer qualify under the new definition.

At this week’s annual meeting, researchers presented data from an unpublished study of some 300 children, finding that the proposed definition would exclude very few who currently have a diagnosis of autism or a related disorder.

And last, the DSM committee will try and ensure clinicians and physicians don’t misdiagnose grief as depression, with a prominent note stating that, in most cases, normal grief does not qualify for a major depression diagnosis. However, since the note won’t take place of the actual diagnostic criteria, professionals will still be able to give people experiencing a severe grief reaction a diagnosis of depression — allowing them to access needed treatment to help them with their depressive feelings.

All of this is good news and demonstrates that the DSM process is working according largely to scientific data, not loud-mouthed “experts” who believe their subjective judgment should override the research.

Read the full article: D.S.M. Panel Backs Down on Diagnoses

It’s a shame, really. Technology was supposed to help us have more leisure time and free us up to be able to spend more of our lives with things that really matter — like family, friends, and experiences. Instead, it’s tying us down to our devices in ways their inventors never imagined.

So if you’re feeling stressed out being always connected to your device to check email and texts, here are three more tips for helping to cope.

Tips for Dealing with Texting and Email Stress

In addition to the tips we covered five years ago — filter for important stuff, chunk response times, and stop checking every minute — here are some additional simple yet effective ways to relieve texting and email stress.

1. Use the 3-second rule.

A common problem with email (more so than texts) is that we spend too much time deciding what to do about a specific email. “Hmmm, he raised a lot of good points in his email, so should I respond to them now, wait to talk to him in person about it, or…?”

Force yourself to spend no more than 3 seconds deciding what to do with an email — respond to it with a quick email, delete it, archive it, or “to-do” it (schedule it for a phone call or meeting, reply later for a longer response, or take some other followup action). While it might be difficult to adhere to this rule at first, you may be surprised how easy it is to get into the habit of limiting your decision-making time. It’s a quick and easy way to plow through your inbox with every email taken care of in no time.

2. Turn off notifications for all but the most important things.

This may seem like hobbling a tool meant to improve one’s communication flow and productivity, but today’s mobile phones and computer desktops are overflowing with multitasking distractions that actually make you work less efficiently and less effectively.

As I’ve noted previously, most people are actually quite horrible multitaskers — but ironically most people think they multi-task pretty well. This formula makes for a poor outcome. We all think we’re getting a lot done when we multitask, but we’re actually getting less done than if we had simply focused on one task at a time.

Notifications are only useful when they mean something special — otherwise they just become background white noise in your daily routine. So those little pop-ups telling you have new email just act as expensive distractions to your brain’s limited ability to process incoming stimuli. Every notice you quickly view has a silent cost.

Shut them down except for the most important of notices (like from your boss or an email subject line that says “Urgent” or “Emergency”). You can let your colleagues and family know that you’re changing your routine, too, so nobody gets miffed that you’re only replying to emails now four or five times a day (instead of instantaneously every minute of every day).

Turning off your notifications also will help you with scheduling your email responses to just a few times a day (instead of whenever something new comes in). This is important to helping you feel like you’re in charge of your email — not at its mercy.

3. Unsubscribe. From everything.

Companies love to “keep us informed” about every little new thing they’re doing. The truth is, most of those newsletter and product updates we signed up for are never read by nearly 90 percent of the people they’re sent to. Companies know this, but they keep sending them anyway to people who never open these emails. You’re one of them.

So why not stop the problem at its root? Go through your email box and be reckless about unsubscribing from every newsletter or company email you get that’s automatically sent to you. You’re allowed to keep one or two if they mean a lot to you and that you actually read. But the rest just contribute to your feelings of being overwhelmed and stressed out by the sheer quantity of email you receive.

Do you have any email stress tips?
Share what works for you in
the comments section!

Read my original article on this topic: Dealing with Email Stress

Anger is one of those emotions we’re taught to suppress and many of us simply don’t know how to handle it. This webinar will help folks better understand the role of anger in a relationships, and ways with dealing with it.

Here are a few of the topics they’ll cover:

• Why effort and willpower are no match for ADHD treatment in curbing anger

• How anger erodes trust and creates anxiety
• The gender difference in coping with anger
• How untreated ADHD anger can lead to low self-esteem, dwindling self-confidence, and depression
• ADHD-specific anger-management techniques, tools, and treatment that work
• …and more!

A Q & A will also be included.

The webinar is this Thursday, May 10 from 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT.

Host Zoë Kessler writes the popular blog, ADHD from A to Zoë here at Psych Central.  Diagnosed with ADHD at 46, Zoë, an author, journalist, speaker and workshop facilitator, is a regular feature article contributor to ADDitude Magazine; writes radio and film documentary about ADHD, and is featured in Her Fast Mind, a film about women and ADHD produced by The Bilkey ADHD Clinics and released in 2012.

Special Guest Melissa Orlov, is married to a man with ADHD. Melissa, a marriage consultant, is the award-winning author of The ADHD Effect on Marriage. She also blogs at her website ADHD and Marriage (www.adhdmarriage.com), which she co-hosts with Dr. Ned Hallowell.

Space is limited, so sign up today!

Many in the news media are portraying this as some sort of new news — that having your head repeatedly banged and bashed can cause long-lasting brain damage. Even with a padded helmet, there’s been a wealth of research demonstrating that head injuries still occur. The human head just wasn’t meant for years and years of such repeated abuse.

It’s also not the first time we’ve known of this link between football playing, concussions, and being at a much higher risk for depression (and even dementia). Perhaps this time the message will get through.

The Chicago Tribune reminds us of what we already know:

On Wednesday, some saw similarities between the deaths of Seau and former Bears safety Dave Duerson, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest last year. In a suicide note, Duerson had asked his family to donate his brain to the Boston University School of Medicine.

Researchers from that school later determined Duerson suffered from a neurodegenerative disease linked to concussions, and that played a role in triggering his depression.

Duerson’s case isn’t the first brain to have been studied, demonstrating a clear link between physical damage and trauma in the brain, and cognitive problems later in life. These problems can include issues with memory and attention, and can even lead to dementia.

Another concern for semi-celebrities like Seau and Duerson is one less talked-about in the media. That working for 20 years as a pro football player — being an integral part of a team, in the spotlight, making a weekly contribution, taking home a paycheck that pales in comparison to any of ours — sets up a lot of players for an inevitable letdown in retirement. How can a player transform their lives at age 40, when most of the rest of us are only half way through our careers?

Some players make the transition into a normal life and retirement well. Others have a more difficult time, and seek out continuing their career in football as an analyst, broadcaster, or even coach.

Still others — perhaps even Junior Seau — have a more difficult time leaving the football spotlight. Whether it was due in part to concussions or not, we may never know. But depression could’ve occurred even without a history of concussions, since this kind of career transition is not automatically an easy one to make.

Seau’s family announced today that they would allow his brain be donated to Boston University researchers to study further.

Depression — no matter what its cause — is still one of those things that is eminently treatable. Hopefully Seau’s story will help encourage others to seek out treatment for their own depression. Before it becomes too late.

For Further Reading

Read the Chicago Tribune article: Former NFL star Seau dead in apparent suicide

Read the Chicago Tribune op-ed: Saving American football

She’s going to be focused on video blogging on the blog (also known as a vlog) on what she’s learned and learning in her journey in recovery. You can learn more about Danielle here.

We’re pleased to welcome her. Please give Danielle a warm Psych Central welcome over on her blog today!