Two people tell us about their experiences with CBT and how it changed their lives
The psychotherapist Aaron Beck, known as the father of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), died on Tuesday aged 100 at his Philadelphia home. CBT is a form of treatment that helps patients to analyse and manage negative thinking patterns rather than focusing on past conflicts. Here, two people tell us about their experiences with CBT and how it changed their lives.
Continue reading...It’s certainly not just women who worry about ageing and procreation – and now men have begun speaking about their own deep anxieties
It was when Connor woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom that he started thinking about it. The 38-year-old civil servant from London got back into bed and couldn’t sleep: he was spiralling. “I thought: ‘Shit, I might not be able to have children. It actually might not happen,’” he says.
“It started with me thinking about how I’m looking to buy a house, and everything is happening too late in my life,” Connor says. “Then I started worrying about how long it would take me to save again to get married, after I buy the house. I was doing the maths on that – when will I be able to afford to be married, own a house and start having kids? Probably in my 40s. Then I started freaking out about what the quality of my sperm will be like by then. What if something’s wrong with the child? And then I thought, oh no, what if me and my girlfriend don’t work out? I’ll be in an even worse scenario in a few years.”
Continue reading...‘Widespread’ mistreatment linked to physical pain, fatigue, alcohol abuse and depression, research finds
Women are suffering serious and long-lasting physical and mental health problems from “widespread” emotional bullying, sexual harassment and physical assault in the UK military, research reveals.
Those most likely to have experienced such treatment were younger personnel, those who have held the rank of officer or had a combat or combat support role, according to findings published in the BMJ Military Health journal.
Continue reading...Customer-facing workers in all sectors report greater hostility, research shows
People in public-facing jobs are facing rising hostility and verbal abuse since the end of the Covid lockdowns, according to organisations which represent them. Half of all shop, transport, restaurant and hotel workers and others dealing regularly with the public have experienced abuse in the past six months, figures from the Institute for Customer Service (ICS) show. This is a 6% rise over May’s 44%. Of those who had been abused, 27% had been physically attacked, it found.
The research comes as trades unions and industry bodies warn of growing public hostility towards workers since Covid’s second wave.
Continue reading...Uncanny and creepy, premonitions that turn out to be authentic can feel profound. But is there science to explain them?
Around seven years ago, Garrett, was in a local Pizza Hut with his friends, having a day so ordinary that it is cumbersome to describe. He was 16 – or thereabouts – and had been told by teachers to go around nearby businesses and ask for gift vouchers that the school could use as prizes in a raffle. There were five other teenagers with Garrett, and they’d just finished speaking to the restaurant manager when suddenly, out of nowhere, Garrett’s his body was flooded with shock. He felt cold and clammy and had an “overwhelming sense that something had happened”. He desperately tried to stop himself crying in front of his peers.
“It was like I’d just been told something terrible,” the now 23-year-old from the southwest of England says (his name has been changed on his request). “I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was, but I just knew something had happened.” Garrett returned home and tried to distract himself from a feeling he describes as grief. The phone rang. His mum answered it. A few hours earlier – around the time Garrett was in the restaurant – his grandfather had died from a sudden heart attack while on a cruise.
Continue reading...Jon Hopkins timed his upcoming album to the length of a ketamine high, while apps are using AI music to tailor drug experiences. Welcome to a techno-chemical new frontier
Two hundred psychedelic enthusiasts have converged in Austin, Texas for a “ceremonial concert” on the autumn equinox. People sprawl on yoga mats around a circular stage as staffers pace the candlelit warehouse, jingling bells and spritzing essential oils. While psychedelic drugs are prohibited, some attenders seem in an altered state, lying on their backs and breathing heavily as rumbles of bass from Jon Hopkins’ upcoming album, Music for Psychedelic Therapy, shakes the hushed space.
This is the first time Hopkins – known for acclaimed solo electronic albums as well as production for Coldplay and Brian Eno – has played his new record in public, and the crowd is visibly moved. As recordings of spiritual guru Ram Dass’s teachings fill the room on the final song, the woman next to me begins silently weeping.
Continue reading...Latvia has closed schools, restaurants and entertainment venues for a month; UK reports 49,156 new cases and 45 Covid-linked deaths
Australia’s Northern Territory chief minister, Michael Gunner, has hit back at US senator Ted Cruz who criticised the Northern Territory’s vaccine policy, telling the Texan conservative “you know nothing about us”.
The spat began when the US Republican shared a video of Gunner announcing the territory’s wide-ranging vaccine mandate for workers. Cruz lamented the “Covid tyranny of their (Australia’s) current government,” which he said was “disgraceful and sad”.
Continue reading...75% rise in referrals for first suspected episode of psychosis between April 2019 and April 2021
Cases of psychosis have soared over the past two years in England as an increasing number of people experience hallucinations and delusional thinking amid the stresses of the Covid-19 pandemic.
There was a 75% increase in the number of people referred to mental health services for their first suspected episode of psychosis between April 2019 and April 2021, NHS data shows.
Continue reading...The first thing to think about is what you hope to achieve by replying to him, and whether this is achievable
My dad is in his 70s and has contacted me on Facebook. I have not yet replied. I last spoke to him almost 20 years ago, shortly after my mum died. I was 17, and he was angry with me for ignoring him. In my early childhood my dad lived with us only briefly, but was often drunk and angry, and I heard stories of him hitting my mum.
My mum left him when I was four and I saw him again when I was eight, when I was expected to keep him company; if I didn’t he would go to the pub and get very drunk. One time I went to play with my friends, and when I came home he was so drunk he hit my mum and threw my dog against a painting. That day I decided I hated my dad.
Continue reading...Mothers describe their daughters’ dangerous experiences after whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony
Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, Michelle noticed her teenage daughters were spending substantially more time on Instagram.
The girls were feeling isolated and bored during lockdown, the Arizona mom, who has asked to only be identified by her first name to maintain her children’s privacy, recalled. She hoped social media could be a way for them to remain connected with their friends and community.
Continue reading...The comedian and her dad recreate a childhood photo and talk about early days in India, agoraphobia and swapping banking for comedy
Born in New Delhi in 1969, Sindhu Vee spent her childhood in India and the Philippines, before throwing herself into academia, getting degrees from Oxford, Montreal and Chicago universities. In her early 40s, she traded the world of investment banking for standup comedy. Her career quickly ascended, with appearances on QI, Have I Got News for You, Radio 4 and Netflix’s forthcoming adaptation of Matilda. She lives in London with her husband and three children; she is currently touring her new show Alphabet.
Continue reading...It started in bed one morning when I realised I hadn’t had an original thought for months. I needed someone to make me wake up
For some reason it takes me two and a half hours to email my life coach. I write “email life coach guy” on my to-do list. I have a really long shower. I riffle through a stack of unopened New Yorkers, and pretend I am either going to read them, or leave them in my building’s lobby for my neighbours to claim, and in the end I do neither. I watch a 20-minute YouTube video about Amir Khan’s boxing career (“The legendary speed of Amir Khan!”), then check Wikipedia to see how he fared in the fight the video was trailing (an embarrassing knockout). I send three tweets and scroll Instagram. I stand at the fridge and eat some hummus with a plain cracker for no reason at all. Finally, I sit and write the email. It is 36 words long. Tomas, the life coach, writes back almost immediately. That was the absolute last thing I wanted.
The pandemic was broadly fine for me. I worked at home anyway, so I didn’t have any shock adjustment to make. I didn’t (and still don’t) have any children to look after, so there wasn’t any particular agony with my many lives layering on top of each other in a confined space. My girlfriend, Hannah, and I did the usual things to stay sane when confronted with seemingly endless periods of time and no real social life: jigsaws, taking too long to cook dinner, a Sopranos rewatch.
Continue reading...Estimated 76m extra cases of anxiety and 53m extra cases of depression during pandemic, say researchers
Cases of anxiety and depression around the world increased dramatically in 2020, researchers have found, with an estimated 76m extra cases of anxiety and 53m extra cases of major depressive disorder than would have been expected had Covid not struck.
The study is the latest to suggest the pandemic has taken a serious toll on mental health, and that women and young people are more likely to be affected than men or older people.
Continue reading...In her new memoir, New York City Ballet’s first Asian-American soloist speaks out about racism and sexual bullying in ballet. Now she wants to overhaul the industry from within
When Georgina Pazcoguin was 19 years old, she went to see a doctor about her thighs. A dancer at the New York City Ballet, Pazcoguin had previously had what was known among dancers as “the fat talk” with the company’s then leader, Peter Martins. During their meeting Martins had told her she didn’t “fit in”, silently indicating the area between her backside and her knees. And so, following a recommendation from a friend, she visited the office of one Dr Wilcox, who told her she should consume no more than 720 calories a day – the recommended number for the average woman is closer to 2,000 – and gave her some sealed packets of powder. For the next four months, she subsisted on the powder, plus a single chicken breast and two pounds of spinach or lettuce, which would make up her evening meal.
“No one wants to be told their body is insufficient,” says Pazcoguin, now 36. “I mean, line is essential in my business; there is a certain aesthetic [that is expected]. But I am not an ectomorph. As a dancer you are staring at your body all day long in a mirror. But to try to intimidate me to make me look like this stick figure? Some women are just born a particular way. And there [should be] flexibility within the ballet world for more body types than just this waif-thin idea.”
Continue reading...Fresh from winning gold in Tokyo, the diver answers readers’ questions on everything from gay role models to his passion for knitting and the secrets of his success
Tom Daley, Britain’s most decorated diver, grew up in the spotlight. He was 14 when he made a splash at his first Olympics, in 2008, and at 15 he became a world champion. This year in Tokyo, at his fourth Games, he finally won a longed-for gold, with his synchronised diving partner, Matty Lee. In 2013, Daley came out – a rarity among professional sportspeople – and he has become a campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights. Now 27, he is married to the screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, with whom he has a three-year-old son.
In a new autobiography, he describes struggles with injury, debilitating anxiety and coping with the death of his father, his biggest champion. Here, one of Britain’s best-loved athletes gamely answers questions from our writer and Guardian readers on all of the above, as well as his other great passion: knitting.
Continue reading...Brooke Castillo, the ‘queen’ of life coaching, has convinced her fans they can find meaning and money in the field – but is she selling them an unattainable fantasy?
In November 2020, Olivia* was ready for her life to be transformed. She had just stepped away from her long career in business and paid $18,000 for a six-month program to become a life coach. “It was a big decision financially, but it felt right,” she said. “I wanted to start bringing the work I’d done on myself to see if I could help others.” The program, she believed, was the key to a career that would be both lucrative and emotionally satisfying.
Throughout her life, Olivia had explored her inner world via spiritual retreats, therapy, and psychology books. But she’d been dismissive of life coaching, which she regarded as “bullshit” – until she heard about Brooke Castillo.
Continue reading...Covid’s toll on mental health of children and young people laid bare in report citing fears about the future, family and lockdowns
Almost one in five 15- to 24-year-olds around the world say they often feel depressed, according to a new UN report.
The children’s agency, Unicef, and Gallup conducted interviews in 21 countries during the first six months of the year.
Continue reading...‘Stunning’ neuroscientific advance gives hope to those with mental illness not helped with drugs
A woman with severe depression has been successfully treated with an experimental brain implant in a “stunning” advance that offers hope to those with intractable mental illness.
The device works by detecting patterns of brain activity linked to depression and automatically interrupting them using tiny pulses of electrical stimulation delivered deep inside the brain.
Continue reading...As emails loom omnipresent in our connected lives, is the quest for an empty inbox a noble pursuit or an unwinnable war?
Last week, I asked my Twitter followers about their email inboxes.
Author Mohammed Massoud Morsi likened his to a “Kalashnikov on semi-automatic…Nudge, Nudge, Nudge. Nudge. Nudge, Nudge.” Human rights lawyer Diana Sayed replied that hers functions as a to-do list that is emptied on the regular. And when editor Caitlin Chang revealed that her inbox is sitting at over 1,000 and counting (she says she only ever reads the ones at the top, as they’re probably the most important), someone’s response to her was, “I threw up a little in my mouth”.
Continue reading...In 1988, he was at the start of a promising career as a psychologist when his brother killed himself. He explains how the loss informed his work and led him to question the accepted wisdom regarding mental health
In 1988, Richard Bentall was on his way to becoming one of Britain’s most influential clinical psychologists. He was 32 and had developed an early fascination with psychosis, where patients can become detached from reality, often leading to hallucinations, delusions and suicidal thoughts.
While spending time on psychiatric wards during his training, Bentall felt that psychotic patients were poorly treated. The prevailing view was that psychosis was a genetic brain condition that could only be diagnosed and medicated. Life experience, including childhood trauma and social deprivation, was neglected as a possible cause.
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