Lobotomies: The cutting edge of madness

At the end of this month, the Douglas Institute will be hosting its third annual Mini-Psych School. I won’t be giving a presentation this year but I have the honour of hosting.

The previous years focussed on providing an overview of mental illnesses. As a change of pace this time, we decided to explore some interesting areas in the field of psychiatry such as “Does mental illness really exist?” and, “Has the use of medication in psychiatry gone too far?”

The first lecture will be given by our chief of psychiatry, Dr. Mimi Israel. She will explore the origins of stigmatization in mental...

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Posted on 13 Oct 2008
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Transferable skills

Here is something I published last week on the idea of skills being part of us regardless of the situation we find ourselves in.

Personality is extremely stable. (This does not mean we can never change. It’s just that changes are difficult. This fact is not as discouraging as you might think. People can still work on making minor changes which are achievable. These minor changes can sometimes produce large effects.)

Personality cannot be completely separated from the situation a person finds himself or herself in. For example, confidence in one domain (e.g., work) does not necessarily...

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Posted on 05 Oct 2008
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The two-step learning process

How do we learn things? We read, we attend lectures, we listen while others share experiences. It’s all good! And yet there are times when, despite hearing something over and over again, it just never seems to really click.

Conversely, we sometimes do things over and over again and never seem to learn. Our experiences don’t lead to corrective action as quickly as one would expect. The reason for this is that the learning process requires both instruction (theory) and experience (practice) in combination to work best. Separate them and the learning process slows to a snail’s pace.

This is...

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Posted on 17 Sep 2008
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24

My life and my brain

OK, so my good friend, and fellow Douglas Institute blogger, Joe Rochford (The Rochford Files), has decided to write about some of the discussions we have had in the past. It seems that in between conversations about Bob Dylan, particle physics, and unpleasant bodily functions, we occasionally touched on questions of mental illness (what are they? how are they classified? etc…)
The question he discusses in his blog is the following: are mental illnesses diseases, or are they just problems in living (as Thomas Szasz used to call them)?

Since it is a topic that constantly comes up, here are...

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Posted on 09 Sep 2008
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Citius, Altius, Fortius

The olympics and I go way back. I was in the 1976 games in Montreal. Well…more like “at” the games rather than “in.” I was 17 and my summer job was to work in crowd control. We were all hired for six weeks even though the games took place over the last two. For the first four weeks, we were asked to make sure no trouble happened around the site. In actual fact, we slept, played frisbee, and admired our orange polyester jump suits, complete with Gilligan-style white hats. I got to watch the closing ceremonies from my perch on top of one of the scoreboards. A great experience!

The 12-hour...

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Posted on 18 Aug 2008
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23

Vacations from heaven (or hell); They’re all good!

Just before going on vacation I decided to write something light for Métro. I thought about the annual media requests for quotes about vacations from an “expert.” I am not aware of any profound research in the area (although there probably is) and of course there are no graduate courses on the topic. Nevertheless, an expert needs to be quoted so they call the Douglas Institute.

Ironically, after submitting the column, CBC-Radio One in Montreal called me and I appeared on their afternoon show on July 28th. The topic? “How are people handling the stress of all this bad weather during this...

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Posted on 17 Aug 2008
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24

The long and short of first impressions

Very few of us would want to give a bad impression to others, especially when we find ourselves in a new situation. That goes without saying. Unfortunately we cannot always guarantee that the impression we give others will be a good one. In general, while it is important to be aware of the effect we have on others, too much of an effort to control what others think normally backfires.

I was invited to write an article for Speed magazine. One of their editors worked with me and asked if I could write something that could be relevant to their readership of young professionals. I was reminded...

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Posted on 06 Aug 2008
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25

A great life revisited

Sadly, Randy Pausch’s inspirational battle with cancer ended on July 25. If you are one of the few who haven’t seen it, watch his now famous “Last Lecture,” which I posted in this blog last February (“a great attitude, a great life“). It is the full length version. The shorter version given on the Oprah Winfrey Show, while good, does not do justice to the story. Do yourselves a favor and invest an hour of your lives to watch the full lecture.

It may be a bit clichéd to say that a story makes you both laugh and cry, but to be honest with you, those are the kinds of stories that always stay...

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Posted on 27 Jul 2008
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Mental illness discussed with class and a human touch

If you want a real sense of what it is like to be afflicted with a mental illness, I strongly suggest you check out a website called Breakdown put together by The Globe and Mail.

It provides a clear and very human portrait of how lives are affected by schizophrenia, anxiety and depression. In reading and watching some of the testimonials, you will also come to understand how mental illnesses can at times touch the lives of family and friends as strongly as the sufferers.

Bravo, Globe and Mail!

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Posted on 21 Jul 2008
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27

The Power of Positive Thinking?

We are always told to think positively. I couldn’t agree more. Despite an occasional tendency to complain, I consider myself to be an optimist in general. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to think positively. Many people believe that saying positive things to themselves is the answer. If only life was that simple.

In last week’s column, I argue that the best path to more positive thinking is through a critical examination of our thoughts. Critical thought helps us see things from a broader perspective. For negative thinkers, this results in more positive thought.

This does not mean that...

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Posted on 08 Jul 2008
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