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While researching the history of psychology, I come across a lot of interesting information. Every month I share five pieces, podcasts or videos that you might find fascinating, too.

Last month we talked about Alan Turing, Carl Jung and the famous Robbers Cave Experiment.

This month we’ve got quite the array of topics and in various mediums, including a podcast and a few videos. You’ll learn about the first sport psychologist, the infamous Wolf Man, the history of treating depression, mental asylums and a recent film featuring psychology’s masterminds.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Nicole Burley. 

Well, it’s official. There is now absolutely zero reason to be eating fast food whatsoever! For those of you who always knew that fast food wasn’t healthy but ate it anyway because it made you feel happy, I have some unfortunate news.

A recently published study in the Journal Of Public Health Nutrition showed that people who ate hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizza were 51% more likely to suffer from depression than those who rarely or never ate the stuff. Yikes!

Do you get what that means? It means that your Happy Meal might not be making you very happy. In fact, the food that you may have been turning to when you were feeling sad, lonely, or depressed is actually contributing to those feelings.

How can this be?

I have stopped describing what depression feels like to the person with no experience of this “black dog,” as Winston Churchill called it, or even an occasional bout of melancholy, because my inability to express the physical and mental deterioration, the frustration at trying to articulate my madness, tends to make my black dog growl and attack strangers. I agree with the ever-wise William Styron who wrote in his classic, Darkness Visible:

Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self — to the mediating intellect — as to verge close to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode.

The closest description Styron finds is that of drowning or suffocation.

I am not the only person with an anxiety disorder.

Likewise, you are not the only person with an anxiety disorder.

But it can sure feel that way sometimes, eh? Especially on days when everyone else at the party is acting super sociable, but you’re slunked (is that a word?) down in a corner and too dizzy to talk to anyone.

It’s easy to feel alone on days when everyone else seems to be gathering their groceries from the store shelves just fine, but you’re still hovering in the breezeway, leaning on your cart, and trying to muster up the courage to walk inside.

And it’s easy to feel alone at work, too. Everyone else can pay attention to the corporate PowerPoint presentation in the conference room, but you’re sitting next to the closed door, thinking about how far you are from the office restroom, and flexing your leg muscles for a quick escape.

Every time we say “I am alone!” we are lying.

We are not alone in our struggles…and I made a video, just for you, to prove it:

When clinical psychologist Deborah Serani, PsyD, was diagnosed with depression, she was relieved. But soon after the comfort and relief dissipated, she felt shame and guilt and even started reconsidering her profession.

Serani writes poignantly about this so-called self-stigma in her beautiful, information-packed book, Living with Depression:

…I felt inadequate and embarrassed by my diagnosis. I knew that society feared anything that strayed from the norm, and the idea of being seen as different, disabled, or dysfunctional really frightened me. I didn’t tell anyone about my depression, kept my medication hidden in a bedside dresser, and kept secret my feelings of failure. I even went so far as to believe that I should hang up my shingle as a practicing psychologist because, clearly, I was incapable of taking care of myself as a person. How could I take care of others as a professional? Despite the fact that I was a psychologist educated in the mind, brain and body, the misconceptions about mental illness shoehorned themselves into my life.

Fortunately, as Serani started feeling better, these negative thoughts and feelings went away.

In her book Serani outlines other types of stigma, and provides tips for dealing with them.

Teenage depression is just as serious as clinical depression suffered by adults of any age. Yet because of the unique situation most teens find themselves in — at a sensitive stage of their development and becoming comfortable with their own personality — it’s often hard for a teen to get help for feeling depressed.

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.

Demonstrating that the folks who are revising the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) are listening to the scientific data, they have nixed two new proposed diagnoses — anxiety-depressive syndrome and attenuated psychosis syndrome. The changes were announced this week at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, the organization largely responsible for updating the reference manual used by health and mental health professionals to make diagnoses.

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.

If your loved one is struggling with depression, you may feel confused, frustrated and distraught yourself. Maybe you feel like you’re walking on eggshells because you’re afraid of upsetting them even more. Maybe you’re at such a loss that you’ve adopted the silent approach. Or maybe you keep giving your loved one advice, which they just aren’t taking.

Depression is an insidious, isolating disorder, which can sabotage relationships. And this can make not knowing how to help all the more confusing.

But your support is significant. And you can learn the various ways to best support your loved one. Below, Deborah Serani, PsyD, a psychologist who’s struggled with depression herself, shares nine valuable strategies.

The evidence is in, and the death of NFL football player Junior Seau has been ruled a suicide. The speculation is that he suffered from depression as a result of the concussions he sustained as a pro football player in the U.S. Seau spent most of his football career as a San Diego Charger.

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.

When I read Richard Zwolinski’s most recent Therapy Soup blog post, this quote caught me off guard:

“While I know of suicidal youth as young …

Read more… »

Hypothyroidism — known as low thyroid — may cause depression. Hypothyroidism is a “condition in which the body does not get enough thyroid hormone for optimal brain and body functioning,” according to Gary S. Ross, M.D., in Depression & Your Thyroid: What You Need to Know.

Research has found a link between hypothyroidism and depression. For instance, there’s some evidence that people with depression tend to have higher rates of hypothyroidism than the general population (such as this study). A 2004 study found that 38 percent of older patients with hypothyroidism also reported symptoms of depression.

Unfortunately, hypothyroidism often goes undiagnosed. Some people simply aren’t tested for thyroid problems, while others are, but their lab tests come back “normal,” Dr. Ross notes.