Tag: Psychiatry and Psychology
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Hypochondria
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:Be not the first by whom the new are tried,Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.— Alexander Pope The changing use and meaning of words are the daily bread of dictionary compilers. Long ago…
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Modern day obstinacy: the persistence of pangalintaw
Halima AbdulmaguidNorth Cotabato, Philippines In the first week of June, my mother was rushed to the hospital because her cough was getting worse and her shoulder pain no longer bearable. On her x-ray film we saw that half of her lungs were not visible; there was fluid inside causing the obscurity, and there was also…
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Past, present, and future of psychedelic medicine
Jennifer KeehnBaja California, Mexico While there are now more clinical trials than ever before on the therapeutic applications of psychedelics, the medicinal use of such substances is not new. Indigenous cultures worldwide have used plants, roots, vines, and fungi that produce altered states of consciousness in healing rituals for thousands of years. The contemporary study…
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Psychiatric care at the historical Athens Mental Health Facility
Cherron PayneFarmington, Connecticut, United States When I was an undergraduate student at Ohio University in Athens, my friends and I would often hike to an intriguing place called the Ridges, overlooking the picturesque Hocking River and the Appalachian gem of Ohio University in Southeastern Ohio. The Ridges was not solely a picturesque hillside, but a…
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Poe’s murder mystery as a model of neurodiverse inclusion
Geoff HoppeVirginia, United States A murder mystery might seem like a strange place to find hope, but hope is what Edgar Allan Poe’s mysteries can provide—if you know how to look. While Poe’s stories depict the macabre, they also demonstrate how a neurodiverse mind can find inclusion in a neurotypical society. Two instances in a…
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When daydreaming becomes a problem
S.T GamageColombo, Sri Lanka “They say there’s no harm in daydreaming, but there is.”— Charlaine Harris An excessive amount of daydreaming can lead to a psychological condition called maladaptive daydreaming (MD). It is also known as daydreaming disorder. Professor Eliezer Somer from the University of Haifa, Israel, first identified this condition. It is a disorder…
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Eye contact: A gateway to empathy
David JeffreyEdinburgh, United Kingdom “Do you think I needed anticoagulants for my atrial fibrillation?” I asked the general practitioner. He stared at his computer screen, and answered without looking at me. “No-one knows for sure. I will print out a recent article which you can read at home and then decide what you would like…
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Mental hospital memories of another era
Robert CraigBrisbane, Queensland, Australia In 1964, having obtained a place to study medicine at Cambridge University, I was given the opportunity as a medical student to work as an assistant nurse for three months in a large residential mental hospital in Suffolk, England. The pay was meager but board and lodging were included. Suffolk was…