Metaphorical models - Bipolar Disorders

The Loose Switch Metaphor

Having bipolar disorder is like having a loose emotional switch. Flick the switch up and mood becomes elevated, flick down and mood becomes depressed. The switch tends to flick from north pole to south, or between black and white, without any shades of grey. It is as if there is an absence or a diminution of any inhibitory process to prevent the emotional momentum from building in a particular direction.

(Mood stabiliser) medication is like using glue to stiffen the switch, discouraging the switch from flicking to one pole, and discouraging mood instability.

The F...

ADHD

Full of Beans

Written by Dr Chris Wever and drawn by Dr Neil Phillips

Paperback Shrink-Rap Press

ADHD: Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Children and Adults

by Paul H., MD Wender

Paperback: 277 pages

Publisher: Oxford University Press; First published in 1974; 4th Edition

Delivered from Distraction : Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder by Edward M. Hallowell, John J. Ratey

Hardcover: 416 pages

Publisher: Ballantine Books (January 4, 2005)

ISBN: 034544230X

Aug/Sep 2017 NSW Branch Newsletter

The NSW Chief Psychiatrist is convening a second NSW Mental Health Medical Workforce and Leadership Forum (Forum) in late September. I wasn’t able to attend the first one, held late last year, and this upcoming Forum is occurring during school holidays when I am away again.

The genesis of the Forum was in part a response by the Chief Psychiatrist to the findings of the 2014 and 2015 AMA (NSW), ASMOF (NSW) and NSW Branch joint surveys of public sector psychiatrists, which identified significant concerns about resourcing, workforce gaps and clinician-manager relations causing low job satisfactio...

When a Bex and a lie down isn't enough

Life is never just plain sailing, but in times of emotional crisis you don't have to cope alone, writes Angie Kelly.

Mood Disorders

As Extremes of Normal Emotions

Charles Darwin wrote in 1876:

If all the individuals of any species were habitually to suffer to an extreme degree, they would neglect to propagate their kind; but we have no reason to believe that this has ever, or at least often occurred. Some other considerations, moreover, lead to the belief that all sentient beings have been formed so as to enjoy, as a general rule, happiness. "Everyone who believes, as I do, that all the corporeal and mental organs (excepting those which are neither advantageous nor disadvantageous to the possessor) of all beings have been...