Elusive Autism in girls: I had seen one paediatrician, one educational psychologist, three psychiatrists, multiple therapists, and required at least three Crisis Home Treatment Teams before my Asperger’s was spotted. Some of my diagnoses included Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Stomach Migraines, Depression, Anxiety, Anankastic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Traits, and general mood instability. I do not […]
This is a complex eating disorder which is characterised by low body weight accompanied by a body image distortion. The sufferer has an obsessive fear of putting on weight, so they control their calorie intake by starvation, vomiting, excessive exercise and other weight control methods According to The Royal College of Psychiatrists, Anorexia nervosa is […]
Self-harm is when someone deliberately hurts or injures him or herself. This can take a number of forms including: cutting, taking overdoses of tablets or medicines, punching oneself, throwing their bodies against something, pulling out hair or eyelashes, scratching, picking or tearing at one’s skin causing sores and scarring, burning, inhaling or sniffing harmful substances. […]
In the 1940s, Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger separately identified a set of unusual behaviours in certain children, including strange and focussed obsessions and repetitive movements, but mainly characterised by a lack of social interaction or ‘aloofness’. The term ‘autism’ was coined to capture this aspect. Today, the ‘diagnostic’ term Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) covers […]
Read More… from Autism in the 21st Century – missing the girls.
How hard it is to say what we mean. “I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, I speak like a child.” So said the distinguished Nobel prize winner, Vladimir Nabokov of his ability to express himself when speaking to others. Think of the amount of ways we have of saying the […]
Fear is a basic human emotion which causes a pyschological and physiological response in the body known as ‘fight or flight.’ It occurs as a result of a sense of impending danger, evil or pain. Fear is a necessary defensive stragegy against things that may cause us harm because it serves as a motivation to […]
Five years ago my dad took his own life. But I’m lucky. I’m incredibly lucky to have people around me that saw me through the hardest time of my life and continue to do so. Lucky that I have entered a career where I can build on my understanding of mental health and what it […]
Echoism – A life dominated by the other. Psychotherapists Mark Linington, Chair of the Bowlby Centre, Elisa Morris and Nell Montgomery offer a reworking of the myth of Narcissus and Echo to illustrate a common theme in their clients, where sense of self and identity have been sacrificed for the sake of the another. It […]
Until recently, agoraphobia was defined as a fear of open spaces. It now also includes several other related fears such as a fear of entering shops, fear of crowds and public places, or of travelling alone on trains, buses or aeroplanes. It also includes the anxiety associated with being unable to reach a place of […]
I became a doctor influenced by my late father, a single-handed general practitioner. He, like many doctors in the 1960’s came as a foreigner to work in the newly formed, but already struggling NHS. His practice was our home – our living room by evening became the patient’s waiting room by day, our dining room […]