I’m packing up my DSM 5-TR, lap top, notepad, perennial mug of tea and leaving community mental health in West Virginia. Working in the Appalachian mental health has been equal parts enlightening, startling, weird, and frustrating. Oh—and lest I forget—endlessly amusing. I was not raised in West Virginia and moved to work in community mental […]

We’ve talked about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) before on this blog (What is Borderline Personality Disorder? – Quiet Minds, but did you know that it has a complex relationship to Psychosis? According to Dr. Daniel Fox, a licensed psychologist and author who hosts a video series on BPD, the term “borderline” was given to BPD […]

So as a supervisor to psychology/counseling interns and early career mental health professionals, I am often asked to review the differences between schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. I think people, who potentially have these disorders, and the loved ones who support them, should also know what symptoms to look for. Here is a mini-primer on both […]

We all know that music can change the way we feel. Think of a bar full of strangers all stopping to sing along to Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ or a church full of congregants raising their voices to ‘Amazing Grace’. As humans, we’re wired to respond, and it naturally follows then that symptoms […]

Recent, while talking to a young client, who is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, they reported noticeable changes in their memory and ability to read/fill out necessary paperwork (e.g. legal, housing, doctor’s forms).  This particular client observed a decline in their memory and reading comprehension over the past several years, shortly after receiving their schizoaffective diagnosis.  […]

Did you know that science can tell us more about outer space than it can about the deepest parts of our world’s oceans? In much the same way, we may think we know everything about the human brain, but it seems there’s even more to be learned, especially when it comesto psychosis. Scientists at Monash […]

“I really will not rest until anyone who has schizophrenia, anywhere, worldwide, is not afraid to say the words ‘I have schizophrenia’.” – Ceclilia McGough In early 2014, Cecilia McGough was a Freshman at Penn State University when she began struggling with psychosis. Though her PSU career would include such achievements as helping discover a […]