I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.
-Henry Miller
There’s no arguing with numbers but that doesn’t mean that the recently released BMJ study suggesting the pandemic’s impact on mental health was negligible isn’t perplexing. The study’s authors, listed here, compared symptoms reported before and during the pandemic, finding “most symptom change estimates for general mental health, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms were close …
Is It Time To Revise The COVID Mental Health Narrative? Read More »
My new therapist tells me that many people function happily day to day by maintaining a healthy denial of all the things they cannot control. Until recently, I lived at the other extreme, as if calamity could befall me any minute. Anticipating earthquakes, heart attacks, carbon monoxide poisoning and global famine left me exhausted, with …
About Episode: “Could depression be an asset in your leadership? Elsie Ramsey, founder of the nonprofit Bigger than Depression, says it can. She says depression has helped her navigate workplaces, build lasting relationships, and promote her ideas. Comedian Tristan Bowling is in a different place in his journey. Sadhna talks with both about the profound …
“I fight my battle with monopolated light and power”. -Ralph Ellison I think about loneliness often and most so when I am lonely. In the aftermath of a glorious trip to Puerto Rico, spent in a state of harmonious connection with light, water and people, I am mourning sudden absences. Home in Philadelphia, winter is …
I’m on vacation in Puerto Rico for two weeks. I’ve been looking forward to this respite from the East Coast and the grinding pressure of life in semi-post COVID for MONTHS. And now that I’m here, I have to put away the bad habits that prevent meaningful experience. We got off to a bumpy start …
In mid-December, when my “seasonal stress” looked a lot like clinical anxiety, I found a task force. Christmas was nearing and I’d been trying–not very successfully–to soothe myself with spiritual reflection. The biblical story would soon tell of the Magi, opening their treasure chests to give gold, frankincense, and myrrh to an infant in a …
It Takes a Task Force by Elsie Ramsey and Louisa Farr Read More »
I happen to be one of the lucky ones. My state, Pennsylvania, decided to extend COVID state of emergency legislation through March of 2022. That’s a big deal for me because I get to keep receiving virtual therapy from my New York based psychiatrist. While legislation allowing for streamlined cross-state licensing procedures is being adopted …
Updates to State Licensing Laws: Check Your State Read More »
I was recently made aware that therapists are blowing up on the video sharing platform, TikToky. I easily located a top 10 list of the most influential clinician’s accounts in Cosmopolitan’s July 2020 issue and urge you to take a look for yourself. Sure, the players have likely shifted in the last year but the rankings …
TikTok Becomes a Mental Health Hub by Elsie Ramsey Read More »
May was full of important breakthroughs, covering a range of mental health areas of research: Yale University released the results of a study that identified the over 100 gene variants connected with major depressive disorder. The University of California San Francisco released the results of the first comprehensive MDMA phase 3 clinical trial. A study …
