My medical school tenure was bookended by news of loss. In the early days, when I spent my time in a lecture hall, I listened to somber faculty announce that a resident had died by suicide. I remember sitting near the back of the room because I had come in late, and while the administration’s […]
Diet as a Treatment for Depression?
Around the turn of the fourth century BCE, Hippocrates wrote, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food,” and with this same frame of mind, pondered the nature of mental illness. He believed that depression was caused by an overabundance of black bile and that insanity (hysteria) was, at least in females, due […]
Cognitive Distortions: Med School Edition
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on confronting maladaptive thought patterns and changing behaviors to achieve psychological wellbeing. One of the most common ways that this type of therapy is performed is by consciously labeling these distressing thoughts as ‘cognitive distortions’ with the intent of showing how unrealistic and unhelpful […]
