The concept of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is thought to have first emerged in the 1930s via the work of Adolph Stern and to have been formally consolidated via the 3rd edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM; APA, 1980). Contemporary diagnostic criteria as stated in the fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5; APA, 2013), of which five or more must be present for a diagnosis of BPD to be made, are: Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behaviour covered in Criterion 5) A pattern of unstable and intense interper ..read more

By submitting a journal article, you are necessarily opening yourself up to criticism Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash I’ve just submitted my first solo article to a peer reviewed journal. I’ve told myself that I’m now going to put it out of my mind and think about other things, maybe even start writing another paper to keep the momentum going. In the back of my mind though I’m preparing myself for, if not outright rejection, scathing reviewer comments. Although I’ve yet to experience this directly, two things have come up recently that have made me dread the process. Fir ..read more

PhD Voice and PhD Voice Community (2023) 100 Tips for Doing Your PhD on Amazon I’d never heard of PhD Voice, but according to Amazon, it “has become a leading figure for PhD students around the world. It has interacted with 100,000s of PhD students, resulting in PhD Voice having unparalleled experience and knowledge of the problems and challenges PhD students face every day.” I came across this title while browsing for resources for new doctoral students and thought I’d take a look. The format of this book means that it’s not something you are going to sit down and read from cover to cover lik ..read more

In July 2011 I wrote a post entitled, “Ten things not to say to a depressed person.” It was the first piece on this blog to attract a large audience and I own much of my blogging success to that post and its companion piece, “Ten supportive things I’m glad somebody said to me.” I’ve decided the time is right for a similar piece on dealing with suicidal people (although I’m definitely not expecting the same number of readers for this post!). Suicidal thoughts have been a problem for me since around Christmas and the wide variety of responses I’ve received to my blogs and tweets, along with trai ..read more

I certainly received a lot of comments on my last post – many, many more than I was hoping for or expecting! A couple of people suggested that it might be useful and/or interesting to see a similar list of ten things which would be helpful to say to someone experiencing depression. I have also had some interesting discussions in the past 48 hours about whether people can sometimes be unintentionally insensitive, because they simply don’t know what to say and feel awkward and embarrassed about not knowing what would help. So today’s post is a list of the warm, supportive, empathic things t ..read more

Depression is a very common illness.  The World Health Organization estimates that between 5 and 10% of us are, at any given time, suffering from depression which meets the clinical criteria for a mental illness.  Over a person’s life-time, their risk of experiencing clinical depression is 10-20% in women and girls, and slightly less in males.  Yet despite the fact that depression is so widespread, it is apparently still a very misunderstood illness.  That’s the only conclusion I can draw from some of the insensitive, crass and sometimes downright bizarre things people have ..read more

“Diazepam.” A single word tweet. Regular readers or Twitter followers will know what that meant: I had hit an intolerable level of anxiety which I was managing with a prescribed benzodiazepine. One which I am not only authorised but encouraged to take; my new consultant is very pro-benzo, and thinks that I don’t make enough of the diazepam that he recommends. He’s a bit cavalier, even for me, because I know a lot about benzos, I’ve done a lot of reading and a lot of thinking. “Don’t worry about addiction, or anything like that!” he says. “You should be using them before your anxiety gets out o ..read more

So this week Prince Harry made a number of statements on mental health. I am really glad that he feels able to disclose a need for treatment around the death of his mother. It would be very sad to think of him going on and on in his adult life without being supported through grief which must have been incredibly complex, given the awful circumstances of that loss. He can only have had a very tough time facing such an immense loss at such a young age under the scrutiny of the press and the public. But things got a bit murky when he used that as a jumping off point ..read more

Paul Nuttall is a crazy, myth making liar. Donald Trump has a troubled mental status, and we should feel free to used the terms “nut case” and “mentally ill”. Indeed, he probably has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The climax of Piers Morgan’s mental breakdown is imminent and should be sent to The Priory. Not my words, but ones I have pulled from social media the morning. I get where this is coming from. I really do. It’s so tempting to write off repeated bad behaviour as “mental illness”. Because why would a rational, sane person make self-evidently bizarre and aut ..read more

Time to Talk day is here – a laudable attempt by umbrella campaigning organisation Time to Change to get as many people as possible talking about mental health. A quick scan of the Twitter hashtag shows that charities big and small, NHS bodies, celebrities and politicians are all pledging their commitment today to have conversations about mental health. As you probably know, I’ve done work for both Mind and Rethink, TTC’s biggest funders, and indeed have volunteered with TTC myself (and taken the pledge!). One of my very earliest pieces of campaigning was propositioning complete strangers ..read more