To a high extent, the work of a psychotherapist consists of the treatment of the various forms of depression, so I’ve always tried to improve my understanding of this particular form of mental disorder – and of its most extreme form, the idea to commit suicide. So I’ve continuously gathered data on suicide – here […]
Have you recently experienced someone acting completely out of line or losing control over themselves? In Psychiatry, patterns of repetitive behavior during childhood and adolescence where the social norms or boundaries of others are violated are called ‘conduct disorder‘. I am not a particular fan of this term as it reminds me a bit of […]
When I first came to Thailand, I wondered: given the healthy Thai cuisine, why are so many people – especially expats – overweight? Take a look on any street: at least one in three expats is obese. This is a high percentage, comparable only with the ‘fattest’ States in the USA, and is responsible for […]
When they hear the word ‘depression’, many people think of sad or hopeless individuals who can’t cope with a life event, who are living withdrawn and are often crying their existence. But in fact this is only rarely the case. In a U.S. study published in 1996, for example, only a third of the patients […]
Bipolar Disorder: Caught between depression and excitement John always felt that his wife was ‘changeful’ – but it took both of them years to find out that she was in fact suffering from so-called ‘bipolar disorder’. People with what was formerly called ‘manic depressive disorder’ cycle between unusually intense emotional states that occur in distinct […]
Talking about ‘sex addiction’ in certain Asian cities is like talking about alcoholism during the ‘Oktoberfest’ in Munich: a firework of dirty jokes and winking confessions (‘yes, I’m an addict, too!’) are standard elements of these conversations. However, few people seem to know what sex addiction really is or means. Sexual addiction (sometimes also called […]
‘One for the road…’ – pretty much everyone of us has said that at certain occations, like with friends in a cozy round or during a party. If the ‘one’ is followed by another, however, maybe even on a regular basis, a problem exists. Living in a holiday destination, too, I know just as well […]
Research has shown that, for men over 40 and women after the menopause, having one or two small drinks a day can help prevent coronary heart disease. However, it is estimated that most of the people are risking their health by drinking more than the recommended daily amount of alcohol. In the alcohol-related German-lanauge part […]
“Binge Drinking” wird analog zum “Binge Eating” aus dem Bereich der Essstörungen wie folgt definiert: fünf oder mehr Drinks pro Anlass, mindestens einmal im vergangenen Monat. Diese Form des Alkoholmißbrauchs wird häufig im Zusammenhang mit Teenagern und Studenten erwähnt, eine kürzlich im American Journal for Psychiatry veröffentlichte Studie legt jedoch nahe, dass durchaus auch ältere […]
Ab wann hat man nach medizinischen und psychologischem Fachverständnis eigentlich tatsächlich ein Alkohol-Problem? Da sowohl von Klienten als auch im Diskussions-Forum meiner Website diese Frage regelmäßig aufkommt, hier ein kurzer Abriß der Kriterien, nach denen üblicherweise “Alkoholismus” bzw. Alkohol-Abhängigkeit definiert wird. “Alkoholismus” stellt heute eigentlich keinen genauen wissenschaftlichen Begriff mehr dar. In der Diagnostik wird […]