Why Body Temperature, Health, and Well-Being Are Related
Throughout history, people have had to find ways to cope with varying environmental conditions. Whether they lived in a hot or cold climate or had access to plentiful or limited water, they adapted their clothing and their homes to the conditions around them. With the advent of technology, we gained the ability to heat and […]
How Does Retirement Affect Our Health and Happiness?
While becoming unemployed can be a huge Mental health challenge, many of us assume that retirement—which also involves stopping or at least reducing work—will be the opposite. It’s pictured as a well-deserved time of leisure and relaxation, when we’ll get to do all the things we always wished we had time for. But is retirement […]
The Psychology of Mental Health Memes
Memes are a form of digital storytelling, except instead of hunting scenes, it’s a sloth giving side-eye with the caption: “If I delete my Instagram, my social anxiety will delete itself too.” And it spreads, because it’s a blunt snippet that somehow captures our collective anxiety in one post. What Are Memes? Memes are Gen […]
When Mental Health Is Medical: The Cost of Missed Diagnosis
As therapists, we’re trained to explore the psychological roots of emotional distress. We dig into trauma histories, family systems, attachment wounds, and patterns of regulation and dysregulation. We learn to validate complexity, especially with clients navigating dissociative identity disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder. And yet, the Mental health field still struggles to address these conditions […]
Making AI Safe for Mental Health Use
According to recent survey data pending review and publication (Rousmaniere et al. 2025) yet widely circulated, 48.7 percent of 499 U.S. respondents reported using LLMs (large language models) for psychological support in the preceding year. The majority did this for anxiety, personal advice, and depression. Notably, they reported primarily either neutral or positive responses, and […]
How Does Menopause Affect Your Mental Health?
Tamsen Fadal remembers the exact moment that she thought she was losing her mind: 10:30 p.m. on November 19, 2019. The longtime prime-time news anchor couldn’t remember how to pronounce the word “subpoena.” But, as she writes in her 2025 book, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even […]
How Can Immigrants Protect Their Mental Health Right Now?
In early January, a wave of immigration arrests in California’s Central Valley sparked fear across the state. Those real arrests spurred false reports of raids in cities like Oakland, heightening anxiety just days before President Donald Trump officially returned to office. Then, on his first day, Trump signed a series of executive orders targeting immigrants’ […]
The Mental Health Benefits of Free Speech
Sarah Ross / CC BY-NC 2.0 What is free speech? The First Amendment of the United States Constitution says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, […]
Study Finds AI Chatbot Can Improve Mental Health
A new artificial intelligence (AI) study in The New England Journal of Medicine publication NEJM AI demonstrates how an AI chatbot called Therabot can significantly improve symptoms in just two months for those suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and eating disorders. “Generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI) chatbots hold promise for building […]
If Parenting Feels Hazardous to Your Health, Try This
The U.S. Surgeon General recently issued a warning that startled millions of people, claiming that parenting can be hazardous to your health. My understanding of the report is that he finds the hazards to be the deleterious impact of stress, social isolation, and financial strain. This was compounded by a powerful March 2025 essay in […]