This Week in Mental Health.. 22nd November

It's another week, another round-up! This week there's mental health news from the Irish Independent's #MindYourself campaign, International Men's Day and blog posts from fellow mental health bloggers. Take a look at my favourites below.


1) Doctors' lack of knowledge about psychological therapies revealed, Eilish O’Regan

GPs are often the first port of call for someone experiencing mental health difficulties. However, this research suggests that they are reluctant to refer patients on to talking therapy.

Irish Independent, 16th November 2015;
“A patient who goes to a GP with mental health concerns is more likely to end up being sent to a psychiatrist than a psychologist because many doctors are unfamiliar with "talk therapies". This is despite the fact that some patients would be more appropriately dealt with by a psychologist or trained counsellor. Part of the reason for the high referral rate to psychiatrists is the GPs' own lack of knowledge about psychological therapies, according to research led by psychologist Veronica Cullinan and the School of Applied Psychology in UCC.”

2) My Best Friend is Suffering with Depression @HarleyCel

Joe writes about what it’s like when your best friend has depression. It’s a touching look at how mental illness shapes a friendship.

Many Expressions of Celyn, 16th November 2015;
“Depression scares me. Depression is spelt with a capital D. I’ve learned that seeing somebody deal with Depression is full of contradictions. It’s part of her but it isn’t part of her. It’s her but it isn’t her. It’s nothing and it’s everything. It doesn’t affect the way I see her in any way at all but of course it affects the way I see her. When I told somebody else that she was suffering with it, they responded that they would never have thought of her having that. In a lot of ways that’s true: she’s so friendly and outgoing and warm that I can’t imagine it ever occurring to most people who come across her that she could be dealing with something so harsh and cold and alienating.”

Portrait of Professor Green, by Scarlet Page, for the Alpha project.

3) 'We must get men to talk': photographers address suicide rates among young men, Hannah Gal

Photographers comes together to address the startlingly high male suicide rate. It's an issue that was raised by Professor Green's very personal and honest documentary on his own father's death.

The Guardian, 18th November 2015;
“Now, for International Men’s Day on 19 November, Professor Green will feature in Alpha, a photography exhibition in aid of the male suicide prevention charity Calm (Campaign Against Living Miserably). To photographer and Alpha curator Helena Berg, finding out the disturbingly high rate of male suicides was a call to action. “I was so shocked and wanted to help,” she says. “I contacted four fellow photographers and we set out to interpret different parts of the male emotional experience. We called the project Alpha to reflect the cultural pressures put upon men to live up to the stereotypical “alpha male” model .”


4) 'It is our thoughts that fuel our stress', Dr Paul D’Alton

A brief look at CBT from Dr D’Alton as part of the Independent’s #MindYourself campaign.

Irish Independent, 17th November 2015;
“It sometimes surprises people to hear a psychologist say that "thoughts and feelings are not facts". I often say to patients that when you really, really believe that something is absolutely true, it's time to doubt yourself. How we think affects how we feel; it sounds simple but this is one of the most important understandings when it comes to our mental health.”

5) How Men Are Looking Out For Each Other This International Men’s Day, Maeve DeSay


Thursday 19th November was International Men’s Day. A number of mental health campaigners, including the fabulous Maeve DeSay, took it as an opportunity to raise awareness of men’s mental health with a series of photos from a Please Talk Day we organised a couple of years ago. Check out her feature below.

Buzzfeed, 19th November 2015;
“Today is International Men’s Day and something that affects us all, in particular men, is our mental health. In March of last year, a group from University College Dublin asked fellow students what they would say if a friend opened up about their own struggles with mental health.”


What have you been reading this week?