Lara was adopted from Battersea Dogs Home and became a therapy dog by default due to my job as a psychotherapist at the Priory’s Hospital Bristol. The therapy Lara provides in my sessions doesn’t require any formal training, however, she is registered with the national organisation Pets as Therapy as a therapy animal which ensures that interactions […]
Twins generate a great deal of excitement and curiosity, and with the increasing frequency of twin births as a result of IVF and later age of conception, amongst other factors, it is important to understand the true nature of twinship and how it affects, and is affected by, us all. In particular, we need to […]
Stress Awareness Month takes place every April and has since it first launched in 1992. Throughout this period of time, teams of experts aim to increase public awareness about stress. This includes highlighting the causes of stress, the negative effects stress can have on the mind and body, and how to relieve stress. Watch this short […]
The conventional therapeutic approach to dealing with a problem like depression is to wait for the problem to set in and then give you a drug to stop you feeling depressed. GPs often have less than 15 minutes for a single appointment so they just don’t have the time to ask a patient about the […]
Opioid addiction, fuelled by OTC medication and prescription pain killers, has reached epidemic proportions in the US but is becoming a growing problem in the UK too. According to a recent BBC News investigation, GPs in England prescribed nearly 24 million opioid-based painkillers in 2017, the equivalent of 2,700 items every hour. ‘As a doctor, I […]
I am proud of having initiated Britain’s National Autism Project (NAP). This started in late 2014, reported in 2017 and has just moved into its legacy phase. Its original purpose was to map the existing research base on autism and provide authoritative recommendation on what further research was needed. A team from the London School […]
Publication of our recent research on aluminium and autism has prompted myriad questions not least of which being ‘what next?’ Before attempting an answer, it is important to re-visit the conclusions of the research, specifically a potentially causal link between aluminium in brain tissue and autism. Aluminium in brain tissue is an inevitable consequence of […]
Edinburgh University’s Patrick Wild Centre was opened in 2010 by Alfred Wild who had watched his parents care for his autistic brother and determined to help people affected by autism. Last year the University drew up plans for a combined clinical and basic science facility to investigate and assess autism, Fragile X syndrome, intellectual disabilities […]
Maintaining a consistent focus on something until, and if, it becomes an unconscious habit, is essentially a battle against our unruly minds. For most of us, most of the time, our mind simply doesn’t want to be tethered to one thing. Instead, it has the tendency to float from this thought to that. Whilst, to […]
Should we always challenge the distorted beliefs of someone with dementia or do inaccurate memories play an important role in helping them to retain key information? Researchers at the University of Birmingham suggest that distorted memories play a role in preserving knowledge for someone with dementia and that the role they play should be evaluated. […]