Germany now has a Ministry of Happiness and Wellbeing, run by the Gina Schöler (pictured above), who has written that: “The Ministry of Happiness and Wellbeing offers a creative view on the wide field of happiness and wellbeing. As Minister…
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Writing in The Psychologist (Feb. 8th 2018), Esther Ford, a trainee Educational Psychotherapist, questions what is missing from the education system: might aspects of psychoanalytic thought be part of the answer? She says: “Like many, I am increasingly frustrated with our education…
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Written by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, this book (first published in 2009) highlights the “pernicious effects that inequality has on societies: eroding trust, increasing anxiety and illness, (and) encouraging excessive consumption”. It shows that for each of eleven different health…
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“People are so afraid of variety that they try to fit everything into a tiny little box with a really specific label”. So says 16-year-old Rosie King, who here gives a 6 minute, Ted-talk video – “How Autism Freed Me to…
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This book is edited by Prof. Tania Luhrmann & Jocelyn Marrow, and published by the University of California Press (October 2016). The publishers say: “Schizophrenia has long puzzled researchers in the fields of psychiatric medicine and anthropology. Why is it…
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An article in The Guardian Newspaper (by Kate Lyons, July 29th 2016) about the future of mental health treatment included the following about the Bromley-by-Bow Centre in London: “Five minutes’ walk from a tube station in east London, past an abandoned block of flats with broken windows,…
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In this book (a 1964 abridged edition of a book published in 1961) Michel Foucault: “… examines the archaeology of madness in the West from 1500 to 1800 – from the late Middle Ages, when insanity was still considered part…
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Gisela Telis, reporting (March 2014) in the Washington Post , writes: “Jodi Corbitt had been battling depression for decades and by 2010 had resigned herself to taking antidepressant medication for the rest of her life. Then she decided to start a dietary experiment. To…
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This piece by George Monbiot was published in The Guardian (8th October 2013). Although its focus is on schools and children’s education, its essence is also very relevant to children’s wellbeing and mental/emotional health: “A week in the countryside is worth three…
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Why does coaxing seeds into growth or a fierce pruning session refresh the spirits so? In this article in The Daily Telegraph , Sue Stuart-Smith, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, examines the value of gardening as therapy: “Most gardeners would prefer to be busy in the garden,…
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