Mental Health Campaigns Can Do More Harm Than Good
A year ago, I questioned whether we were overdoing Mental health awareness. Since then, the evidence has only strengthened: The answer is yes. To be clear, conversations about Mental health remain vital in the right context. The danger lies in how broadcast and social networks amplify this messaging in ways that frequently cause more harm […]
Why Mental Disorders So Often Travel Together
Why does depression so often arrive with anxiety? Why do trauma symptoms, substance use, and mood problems so frequently become tangled together? For many patients, receiving more than one psychiatric diagnosis can feel confusing and discouraging, leaving them to question if the first diagnosis was wrong or if they’re getting worse. But a large new […]
Evolution, Schedules, and the Quiet Cost to Mental Health
For much of our existence, clocks and calendars did not exist to mark time. Instead, we lived according to the cycle of day and night. Weather, hunger, or seasons dictated when we ate, slept, and moved season to season continuing to survive. As humans, we have always lived spontaneously, in tune with natural rhythms, not […]
Can Teaching Self-Compassion Improve Teen Mental Health?
Suicide. It’s not something we like to talk about—especially when we’re talking about our kids. Yet it’s a painful reality in our world today. Unfortunately, most of us know someone in our community whose child has died by suicide. There’s good news and bad news on teen suicide rates. Let’s have the good news first. […]
We’re Missing the Good News About Youth Mental Health
Let’s play a word-association game. If I say “youth Mental health,” what’s the next word that comes to mind? It’s probably “crisis.” For over a decade, researchers, policymakers, teachers, parents, and the media have been raising the alarm about the rising prevalence of anxiety, depression, and emotional distress among young people. Most alarmingly, the suicide […]
The Mental Illness Recovery Paradox
Most people think the hardest part of a Mental health crisis is the illness itself. In my case that would entail the acute experience of psychotic depression. And it is often true that acute mental ill health is extraordinarily disorienting and frightening. I wouldn’t wish my previous symptoms of psychotic depression on anyone and they […]
Mental Health After Hurricane Melissa
As a daughter of Black River, Jamaica, the four weeks after Hurricane Melissa made landfall on October 28, 2025 have been so so hard. I went to Black River Primary School and my cousin was the principal during much of that time. My dad worked at the courthouse and my mom worked at the only […]
Why Baby Sleep Books Can Harm Maternal Mental Health
When I was seven months pregnant, someone handed me a copy of Twelve Hours by Twelve Weeks, a bestselling baby sleep manual. I devoured it like scripture. Everyone had warned me that the sleep deprivation would be brutal. This book promised salvation, if I just followed the rules: stretch feedings, track ounces, ignore midnight cries. […]
How Immigration Policies Are Harming Mental Health
By Srishti Katuri, MA, and Cynthia J. Najdowski, PhD, University at Albany. On March 15, 2025, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act—historically employed only during wartime—so that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could immediately remove Venezuelan citizens alleged to be terrorists from the United States. That same day, ICE deported Kilmar […]
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 […]