Mental Health Therapy
TL:DR – ADHD is mostly about Dopamine. Noradrenaline (Norepinephrine for the USA) is also often important. Understanding how Dopamine and Noradrenaline affect our feeling is key to understanding a great deal about ADHD. Last time we covered that ADHD is a neurological condition that is poorly defined, but does affect a fair percentage of the … Read more
As October is ADHD Awareness Month, we will be taking a detailed look at ADHD – what it is, what it isn’t, what it means, and what to do about it. ADHD is an initialism that translates to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It’s a terrible name that only describes the behavioural characteristics of a few … Read more
I was talking to a client today about “Average Jo Envy”. TL:DR – The most common group is the “average” group. Peer group pressure makes us feel like we have to conform. Not fitting in to the most common group triggers fears of rejection. Fatigue and a lack of guidance on how to fit in … Read more
People can be hard. It can be difficult to work out what who to trust and who to distrust. Some people need special care in handling, some people are just toxic. Here is a series of ideas that helps you to get from meeting with the assumption that they are decent, to a potential recognition … Read more
I’ve heard quite a lot of people state that they think that Autism is overdiagnosed, and a few stating we are in an Autism Pandemic. No. This is not true. Part of the problem lies in comprehending what a diagnosis actually means, because most people don’t understand what Autism actually is. The stigma is that … Read more
When we look at an object, light reflects off that surface, strikes our eyes, goes through our lens, triggers photo-receptors on our retinas, triggers an ion cascade through nerve fibres to our brain, branches through our limbic early warning system and up through to our occipital region to paint an hallucination of the object within … Read more
The standards to which we create things are based on the average wants and comfort levels of people. The biggest group is called “typical”, and since perception is about how your brain perceives things, we refer to their neurology as neurologically typical; shortened to neurotypical. Importantly, all people have a limit to what sensory they … Read more
Rejection Sensitivity is a strong reaction to perceived or actual rejection. It can often be triggered by fearing having done something tenuous wrong that another person will then act upon, or by the perception of negative feedback. It often starts as a result to poor masking. Masking is a mechanism that neurodivergent people, such as … Read more
Introduction Social Scripts are a good way to shape social behaviour and small talk. Social Contracts are agreements that you feel obligated to uphold. Each of these allow society to be civil with low effort. Errors in either of these can cause social awkwardness. Additionally, some people exploit Social Scripts and Social Contracts for their … Read more
Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome. At low levels it prepares us for an experience with low predictability in case the outcome is not good for us and we need to act quickly and decisively to become safe. This is a good thing. Anxiety heightens our … Read more