Can You Accurately Self-Diagnose a Mental Health Condition?

How can you know if a distressing state of mind you’re experiencing is a sign of a mental health condition or is something within the parameters of so-called ‘normal’, non-pathological human experience? This is an extremely thorny question – and for any individuals asking themselves it, in such times of distress, no solid, unwavering answers…

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Ram Dass on the Paradox of Suffering

The spiritual teacher Ram Dass often examines human suffering in his many lectures and writings, since it concerns us all. As the First Noble Truth of Buddhism says, “life is dukkha” (a Pali term commonly translated as “suffering” or “unsatisfactoriness”, although its meaning is quite varied, since impermanence is also dukkha). It may seem like…

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Psychiatrist Allen J. Frances Says Normal Behaviour is Being Diagnosed as Mental Illness

Allen J. Frances is an American psychiatrist who has become famous for his critique of the DSM-5, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Mental Disorders. He was also the former chair of the task force that published the DSM-IV, the fourth edition of the DSM. The DSM is published by the American…

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How Ketamine Can Be Used to Treat Mental Illness

Ketamine is a dissociative drug, meaning that it produces feelings of dissociation – dissociation from one’s environment and even dissociation from one’s own body. The drug is used in human and veterinary medicine, both as an anaesthetic (to knock the patient out) and as an analgesic (to numb any feelings of pain). Ketamine is also…

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