Meditation, Depression, etc.

[peacocks]

Tavi being brilliant

short and sweet. I wish I had a blog or magazine like rookiemag when I was a teen.

[Bernard]

if you have even a cursory amount of self-awareness

you see the problem

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

Tavi being brilliant

short and sweet. I wish I had a blog or magazine like rookiemag when I was a teen.

usually i have trouble reading tavi for a lot of reasons but i did like this.

also think that against all odds rookie has turned out to be kind of quality.

[cold before sunrise]

Haha, Bernard. I see you standing there, shaking that hair.

[peacocks]

if your next session with a therapist is a week away and there is something really bothering you regarding the thing you are in therapy for in the first place do you email her or just wait?

[RoyBiggins]

It can't hurt to email.

[coldforge]

At the very least, writing it down ('journaling', I suppose they call it) can be helpful, even if you wait to bring it up until you see her.

[peacocks]

Ok. I will email her and journal.

[Little Sixes Little Nines]

i would love to hear some people's opinion on this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc&feature=player_embedded#!

[jess]

Jon Kabat-Zinn is awesome. He's pretty much THE mindfulness guy, if I had to pick one, in psychology, given that he was one of the first to secularize it and make it into a clinical intervention (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction or MBSR) which originally was designed for chronic pain but is good for pretty much everything. A lot of the other therapies that have been created since (MBCT for depression, MBRP for substance abuse) are designed after his work. Anyway, I didn't watch the whole video, but I've been to his talks before, and he's great, so I expect it's good stuff.

[Good Intentions]

Researchers at my university have just published this interesting cognitive behavioural therapy study on teenagers with depression, where they conclude that a video game where the kids are tasked with a series of quests which mirror more mindful and constructive thinking is at least as effective as conventional treatment. The CBT was delivered through a computer game in order to make it more appealing and drop-outs less likely for the audience, and it was successful (but not spectacularly so) at that.

This is very interesting for a number of reasons, but we should pay attention to a few features. This study was for teenagers at the milder end of the depression scale: in particular, they aren’t ones with significant risk of self-harm or suicidal thoughts. They also aren’t ones who were already receiving CBT or psychiatric treatment. The teenagers whose depression worsened or who weren’t responding were referred to more involved psychiatric treatment. Since the participants were all school-going, and largely recruited through school counselling services (which, in New Zealand, are performed by trained psycho-therapists), they already have had more access to mental health professionals than people commonly might be. Those playing the game in lieu of the usual treatment also filled out a notebook commenting on their activities and their state of mind while doing so, and this in its own right has been demonstrated to be a useful therapeutic exercise. There weren’t enough participants to perform the size of study to get the highest levels of statistical significance (though the researchers have a sensible and plausible discussion of why their numbers work for what they’re trying to show). Also, some media reports played up where the computerised CBT was better than the usual treatment (in short, the good outcomes were often better), but ultimately the observed outcomes were very similar between the computer-game and the treatment-as-usual groups.

That said, this is an indication of a valuable treatment for teenagers with mild depression. A lot of people, myself included, are very worried about the increasing numbers of people taken up into really quite drastic treatment regimes. This seems like it could be an effective alternative at the lower end of the scale. The researchers kept the option of more involved psychiatric treatment in reserve for if such interventions might be required, so this certainly shouldn’t be seen as a magic bullet.

I've linked directly to the paper in BMJ, because it's straightforward to read (skip over the power calculations if you like) and the standard of science reporting drives me to play video games that help me manage my depression. But if you don't have access to that article, you can try this instead: http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/news/template/news_item.jsp?cid=479960

[Greg Nog]

Also hilarious because I was ideating pretty hard last night, and decided when I awoke this morning to download some video games.  I assume Tactics Ogre is pretty similar to the CBT game.

SCIENCE??????

[peacocks]

my therapist lady and i decided to push it back to once a month since things are going pretty well and I've made a lot of progress in certain areas. Of course tonight something happened that made me momentarily go back to a place I've been trying to get out of for the past year but I was able to cut it out and totally change how I thought about it, just like that. So i was only actually kinda sad for a few minutes instead of whatever horrible things I used to feel and think about for hours/days. weeeeeeeee

[jebreject]

Yeah, good job!

[jebreject]

I mean