What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. – William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet) The same goes for words used to describe mental illness, does it not? The meaning of a word depends on what it represents not on the word itself. In my column [...]
Category Archives: Mental health
The memory and the moment
Here is a column I published in today’s Métro. It was written for Alzheimer’s awareness month in Canada (Voir plus bas pour la version Française). The memory and the moment (Source: Les souvenirs et le moment. Journal Métro, January 15, 2013) Marie-Andrée and Jacques met at Place des Arts during a Montreal Symphony Orchestra performance. [...]
Guy Turcotte
Since Guy Turcotte was given his release yesterday, I thought it might be appropriate to post something I wrote when his trial ended but never published. In it I examine some of the clinical and societal implications of this and similar decisions. Needless to say, these opinions are my own and do not reflect the [...]
Vidéos sur la gestion des émotions / Video on the managing emotions
Re-bonjour! Voici les vidéos de mes présentations de l’École Mini-Psy (édition 2011). Prenez des méga-doses de caffeine et bon visionnement! Hi again, Here are the videos of my two-part presentation in our last edition of Mini-Psych School – 2011 edition (In French). Take some caffeine pills and enjoy! Du coeur au cerveau – Des émotions nécessaires [...]
Mini-Psych School / L’École Mini-Psy 2011
Bonjour tout le monde (an English message will follow). L’automne dernier, j’ai eu l’honneur d’agir comme hôte de notre 6e édition de l’École Mini-Psy de l’Institut Douglas, une série de présentations qui s’adressent au grand public. Les vidéos des présentations se trouveront sur notre site web à partir du 1er juin, à raison d’une nouvelle vidéo [...]
Let’s talk!
Today is Bell Let’s Talk day. The campaign urges us to talk about mental illness with the goal of improving the lot of individuals with mental illness. The reason’s are simple: – One in five of us will suffer from a mental illness at some point in our lives. This of course doesn’t mean we [...]
Secret shame
Yesterday I took part in a walk for mental illness. It was good to see a decent (but not great) turnout of about one or two thousand people by my estimate. Although a good number of media outlets were there, I saw no coverage of it on the news I watched. Three other walks and [...]
What’s HIS problem? I’ve gone through worse.
Many factors contribute to stigma in mental illnesses but an important one involves assumptions made when two people experience the same circumstances. It is natural to assume that if we both stub our toes, we will experience similar pain, or if we both lose our jobs we will both have the same reaction. In reality, [...]
It’s all in your brain
The Douglas Institute recently released a video designed to spark interest and debate about mental health and to encourage people to consult our website, which is a rich source of up-to-date and scientilically validated information on a wide variety of mental health topics. The video was designed to grab people’s attention and in this respect [...]
