Category Archives: cancer

Coping with stress – Final thoughts.

Over the past weeks, I have attempted, to chart something of the history of our present-day usage of the word “stress”; especially in the sense of both its applications to, and implications for healthcare and quality of life. We have … Continue reading

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Stress Can Be Good For You: About Stress Generally.(Cont.d from last week).

The great and persisting worry – indeed, as one patient described it to me, “This clinging and inescapable mire” – amounts to something like this: “I am caught in a trap, knowing as I do that I am (or my … Continue reading

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Stress Can Be Good For You: about stress generally.

Over the past several weeks now we have been focussing our interest quite specifically on snxiety and depression. I hope you might agree that recently posted blogs have provided a detailed and fairly comprehensive coverage of both subject matters. At … Continue reading

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Depression. iv b: “All that glitters is not gold”.

Antidepressant drugs, as we have already seen, are basically designed to target and to deal with biogenic or chemically-induced, depression. Notice that although Angela (see my most recent blog) felt low and “depressed”, as she described it, “most of the … Continue reading

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Depression iv a: “when all that glitters is not gold”.

In this blog, I want if I may, to draw together several important and related points, concerning the diagnosis and treatment of depression. In order to achieve this end, I shall again draw upon actual experience within the clinical scene, … Continue reading

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Depression iiic: When all the joy goes out of living.

Continuing on from last week, it is also important to remember that Geraldine was being treated with a combination of cytotoxic drugs, which have, in some cases, been reported to be associated with chemically-induced depression; although it should be stressed … Continue reading

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Depression iiib; when all the joy goes out of living.

Perhaps I might pause here from my account concerning Geraldine in my most recent blog; this in order to outline in greater detail a little more about chemically (or biogenically) induced depression. As it happens, we all – in the … Continue reading

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Depression iii a: When all the joy goes out of living.

Let me commence this letter with another brief case history used here to further aid understanding, this time of chemically- or biogenically-induced depression. Geraldine was a breast cancer patient being treated with a combination of cytotoxic• drugs, which is known … Continue reading

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Depression iic : Coping with life’s ‘deeper troughs’.

The question now arises as to why I have related the above account concerning Stephen as part of my discourse on depression? Well, it is because it does, in point of fact, provide a very good case record and example … Continue reading

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Coping with Anxiety: an Introduction.

Let me begin this blog with a couple of paragraphs, simply intended to record and reflect upon a truly universal mental and behavioural phenomenon. Human fear and anxiety are as old as is humanity itself. Indeed, our sub- and early … Continue reading

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