Mental Health

02 Jun

Extra choline may help pregnant women decrease negative effects of COVID-19 on their newborns

Counseling CEUs, Counseling Continuing Education Courses, Mental Health, Psychologists

Pregnant women who take extra choline supplements may mitigate the negative impact that viral respiratory infections, including COVID-19, can have on their babies, according to a new study from researchers in the Departments of Psychiatry and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Choline is a vitamin B nutrient found in various foods and dietary supplements, and is critical to fetal brain development. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)…

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20 May

Research Finds Self-Compassion Can Relieve Depression

Counseling Continuing Education Courses, Marriage & Family Therapist CEUs, Mental Health, Psychologist CEUs, Psychologists

A new research study published in Journal of Affective Disorders shows that mindfulness-based compassion living skills can reduce depressive symptoms in people with chronic or recurrent depression. Researchers found that practicing self-compassion reduced the severity of depressive symptoms and these benefits lasted for at least six months after learning self-compassion skills. The study compared 61 participants diagnosed with recurrent depression who took part in mindfulness-based compassionate living training versus 61 participants who received treatment as usual for depression. Participants who took part in the mindfulness-based compassion…

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04 Feb

Straddling two worlds

Counseling CEUs, Mental Health, Psychologist CEUs

Because immigrants often feel like they are straddling two worlds — their origin country and their new one — identity development is complex and critical for this population. Immigrant clients often tell Sara Stanizai, a licensed marriage and family therapist and owner of Prospect Therapy in Long Beach, California, that they have one foot in each culture and don’t fully fit into either one. When people feel like they don’t fully belong to any one community and…

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29 Jan

It May Be Time for You to Do a Body Image Checkup

Health, Mental Health, Psychologist CEUs, Psychologists, Psychology,

As a component of people’s identity, body image forms a central focus. Body image is defined as your internal representation of your physical self, and includes such features as self-perception of your height, age, weight, attractiveness, and functionality or your body’s ability to perform actions of importance to you. Along with these cognitive components are the emotions attached to these internal representations. Do you feel too heavy, old, unattractive, and weak or are you happy with most aspects of…

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27 Jan

Ricky Gervais teaches Hollywood what speaking truth to power really means

Health, Mental Health, Psychologist CEUs, Psychologists, Psychology,

If you had “host Ricky Gervais becomes a conservative darling” in your office Golden Globes pool, congratulations, because you must have won a bundle. The rest of us will continue our slow, astonished blink as we contemplate the fact that this year’s most talked-about speech slammed not oil companies or gender inequality, but Hollywood hypocrisy: “You say you’re woke,” said Gervais, “but the companies you work for — I mean, unbelievable: Apple, Amazon, Disney. If ISIS started…

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24 Jan

Poor mental health ‘both cause and effect’ of school exclusion

Mental Health, Psychologists, Psychology,

Children with mental health needs require urgent support from primary school onwards to avoid exclusion, which can be both cause and effect of poor mental health, new research concludes. The research, led by the University of Exeter, and published in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, concluded that a swift response is needed, finding that young people with mental health difficulties were more likely to be excluded and also suffer ill-effects from exclusion. The research, which was…

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22 Jan

It May Not Be Your Fault that You Can’t Lose Weight. Here’s Why.

Mental Health, Psychologists, Psychology,

If you’re like most people, you took the optimism and opportunities that come with a new year and thought about improving your eating and exercise habits with the aim of weight loss and improved health. Perhaps, you even made a firm commitment to “get in shape” or “lose X amount of weight” in 2020. But now, as January slips away, you may find yourself grappling with the familiar realization that this new year’s resolution feels less than resolute. It’s…

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20 Jan

Alcohol Consumption Worsens Global Burden of Disease

Health, Mental Health, Psychologists, Psychology, , , ,

Study results published in Lancet Public Health underscores the significant worldwide burden of disease attributable to alcohol. Alcohol-attributable death rates were highest in Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and countries with low human development indices (HDIs). Across countries, alcohol use disproportionately affected young people and men.   Kevin Shield, PhD, led study efforts to investigate global trends in the alcohol-related burden of disease. The investigators conducted a comparative risk assessment for 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2016 using alcohol exposure…

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17 Jan

Largest Ever Genome-Wide Association Study Finds Genetic Risk Factors for Anxiety

Health, Mental Health, Psychologists, Psychology, , , , ,

The largest study ever conducted on genetic risk factors for anxiety, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 200,000 participants recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, found significant associations between self-reported anxiety and specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Daniel Levey, PhD, from the department of psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues pulled data from one of the largest biobanks in the world, the Million Veteran Program. To assess anxiety and related…

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15 Jan

Miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy may trigger long-term post-traumatic stress

Health, Mental Health, Psychologists, Psychology, , , , ,

One in six women experience long-term post-traumatic stress following miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy. This is the finding of the largest ever study into the psychological impact of early-stage pregnancy loss, from scientists at Imperial College London and KU Leuven in Belgium. The research, published in the journal American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, studied over 650 women who had experienced an early pregnancy loss, of whom the majority had suffered an early miscarriage (defined as pregnancy…

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