By Harold W. Anderson, Ph.D., LMFT When I was a practicing mental health professional, many of my clients would complain about anxiety. “I just can’t turn off my brain,” they would complain, “My busy brain keeps me awake, floods my waking moments with ominous possibilities and makes my everyday life so problematic it’s affecting myContinue reading “The Busy Brain”
Tag Archives: Mental Health
Am I speaking your language?
By Harold W. Anderson, M.A., M.Div., Ph.D., LMFT As with every discipline, mental health and its related fields have developed its own vocabulary. Learning how to become a mental health professional includes learning how to be comfortable with and utilize this form of discourse. However, when one moves into the field and begins working withContinue reading “Am I speaking your language?”
Living with Depression: A Challenge No Matter How You Cut It
“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow While some people might feel “down” occasionally, such feelings do not describe the intensity of negative emotions and debilitating effects of depression. Clinical depression (major depressive disorder) isContinue reading “Living with Depression: A Challenge No Matter How You Cut It”
Mass Shootings and Red Herrings
Red Herrings, if left unattended, tend to stink up the place and the red herrings that prevent intelligent and common-sense responses to mass shooting are indeed stinking up our country. Can you say red herring? A red herring fallacy is a ploy used to divert people’s attention from the original topic of discussion. Following theContinue reading “Mass Shootings and Red Herrings”
Fitbit Watches and Mental Health
My clients’ constant glance at their watches and my conversations with my cousin really got me to thinking about these things. Are they really that good for our health? When I saw people as a mental health provider, I began to notice they were starting to look at their watches all the time. At first,Continue reading “Fitbit Watches and Mental Health”
Mental Health Care and the Free Market
Should Mental Health Care go to the highest bidder? I can remember a conversation I had a while back with a county commissioner. I was discussing an idea with him when he paused, calculated for a moment, and said “Yes. That fits into my way of thinking.” It was a while ago, so I don’tContinue reading “Mental Health Care and the Free Market”
Loving a Façade: The Powerful Deception of Abuse
A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation’s relating itself to itself. A humanContinue reading “Loving a Façade: The Powerful Deception of Abuse”
Harold and the Art of Asking Questions: A Short Autobiography
But moments of truth are infinitely better than platitudes of lies, which seek to undermine our democracy and hinder the promise of freedom to which the liberal experiment of the American Republic has been so fervently dedicated. I remember a Sunday School class I was taking when I must have been around 9 or 10Continue reading “Harold and the Art of Asking Questions: A Short Autobiography”