A major study published this summer in the Journal of Molecular Psychiatry is making strides in finally putting the chemical imbalance theory of depression to rest. The chemical imbalance theory suggests that depression is caused by low serotonin in the brain. This theory has lead to the sale and use of many psychiatric medications that …
“Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” “Major Depressive Disorder.” “Attention Deficit Disorder.” Psychiatrists are trained to assess the “symptoms” of their patients and then assign labels using the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (currently the DSM-5). While the DSM gives clinicians a common language to communicate with, the boxes created by these …
If you asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would not have said a psychiatric nurse practitioner. This is the story of how mental health and holistic medicine found me.
Opinions vary widely about covid-19, but everyone can agree that the pandemic has been downright hard to bear. The virus brought along with it risks, disruptions, and debates that have left many struggling to cope with the mental stress of pandemic life and effects of decreased social interaction. If you are experiencing increased fear, anxiety, …
IFS and the Anatomy of Our Emotions The first two posts in this series introduced you to Internal Family Systems (IFS) and the reasons we use it at Atlas. This post will synthesize that information into a more complete picture of how IFS works. For review, the formula for any emotion and behavior is: Life …
My last post explained the origin of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and explained some basics of how it works. In this post, I will focus on the benefits of IFS as a form of therapy and why I choose to use it in my practice. IFS is Non-Pathologizing To pathologize someone means to treat …
My previous post covered some of the scientific theory behind where negative emotions come from. In this post, I’d like to explore a model of therapy that is very well-suited to healing negative emotions: Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS). The History of IFS Internal Family Systems therapy was developed by a family therapist named …
The Subconscious Mind I always cringe when I see a saying like, “Forget your past. Look to the future.” As if completely forgetting the past is something we can and should just choose to do. In reality, we cannot forget our past just as much as a cloud cannot forget moisture. We are made of …
Imagine for a moment that our bodies did not experience physical pain. It is easy to think there would be no downsides. No more throbbing stubbed toes or paper cut stings. But what about more serious injuries? What if breaking our leg caused no pain? How would we even know it was broken? What would …
As we mulled through thesauruses, searched across web pages, and compiled a massive list of possibilities, we kept coming back to the idea of helping people “orient” themselves in both psychiatry as a whole and within their own heads.