Soft animism is a term I use to refer to an acceptance of the animistic ethic, sensibility, and mode of perception but a rejection of the belief in spirits that reside in nature. Alternative terms for this position could include weak animism and naturalised animism (the latter emphasising that this is a form of animism…
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The biopsychosocial model is one of the main approaches in psychiatry. The psychiatrist George Engel formulated this model in 1977, in a paper titled ‘The Need for a New Medical Model: A Challenge for Biomedicine’, published in the journal Science. He did not, however, propose this new model exclusively for psychiatry (which focuses on the…
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Meta-depression and meta-anxiety are phenomena that are rarely discussed in conversations surrounding mental illness. Yet they are common experiences for depressed and anxious people. These terms refer to the fact that one’s own depression or anxiety can itself become a contributing factor in – or aspect of – the mental health condition in question. In…
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As much as the world can feel separate from our discrete selves, upon closer examination, we will see that our whole experience of reality (and so reality itself) is acutely dependent on our inner world. The self and the world are inextricably intertwined. And this curious relationship between the ‘I’ we imagine sitting behind the…
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The writer Andrew Solomon is best known for his book The Noonday Demon, a harrowing personal account of clinical depression. In it, he captures the essence of the condition in one sentence: “The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality.” While depression undoubtedly varies between individuals, it seems to commonly feature this loss of…
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