Los Angeles Therapy Blog

Gulf Spill Distress

NYT:  Add Psyche of Gulf Workers to Spill’s Toll.

Beyond the environmental and economic damage, the toll of the mammoth spill in the Gulf of Mexico is being measured in hopelessness, anxiety, stress, anger, depression and even suicidal thoughts among those most affected, social workers say.

Clown Therapy

British people hate clowns, get help:  UK Circus Offers Therapy for Clown-Fearing Adults.

A circus touring Britain has launched a unique “clownselling” service aimed at overcoming peoples’ fears associated with its show’s starring duo, a spokesperson told NewsCore on Wednesday.

The free workshops allow those suffering from Coulrophobia — the fear of clowns, rated as Britain’s third biggest phobia behind spiders and needles in a recent poll — to confront their feelings and even access their own “inner clown.”

A Female Sex Pill?

NYT:  Push to Market Pill Stirs Debate on Sexual Desire

[M]any experts say that unlike sexual dysfunction in men — which has an obvious physical component — sexual problems in women are much harder to diagnose. And among doctors and researchers, there is serious medical debate over whether female sexual problems are treatable with drugs. Some doctors advocate psychotherapy or counseling, while others have prescribed hormonal drugs approved for other uses.

Your Best Face

New feature at OKCupid helps ID your most alluring profile picture with the help of other users. Comes alongside this iffy move:  OKCupid Hides Good-Looking People From Less Attractive Users.  Unsavory–though a Consumerist commenter may be onto something re the attractive users thing:

I think it’s just a ploy, I received the same email too and my matches don’t seem to have changed. Probably just a way to draw people back in that haven’t been signing in as often.

Depression and Weight Gain

NYT (again):  Exploring the Links Between Depression and Weight Gain.

In a society enamored with thinness, many assume that being fat is depressing — that if there is a cause and effect relationship, it’s obesity that makes people feel down. But “there is an alternative explanation,” said Belinda L. Needham, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, “and that is that being depressed actually makes you gain weight.”

The Neuroscience of Contemplation

Another from the Google lecture series.

Richard J. Davidson [explores] recent scientific research on the neuroscience of positive human qualities and how they can be cultivated through contemplative practice.

What Babies Know

Study at ScienceDaily:  Babies Grasp Number, Space and Time Concepts.

“We’ve shown that 9-month-olds are sensitive to ‘more than’ or ‘less than’ relations across the number, size and duration of objects. And what’s really remarkable is they only need experience with one of these quantitative concepts in order to guess what the other quantities should look like”…

Patient Voices

At NYT.com, the Patient Voices page features patients talking about a variety of psychological (and other) ailments, including ADHD,OCD, Bipolar Disorder, Eating Disorders, and so on…