Mental health

Mental health

In 2019, TikTok announced a " formal relationship" with the National Parent Teacher Association, which describes itself as the largest child advocacy group in America. They published a TikTok Guide for Parents packed with instructions on " digital safety " and how to "decide the best experience for your family." What TikTok did not say, lawsuits filed against the company allege, was that internal documents had begun to reveal that the company knew its technology was harming kids-the short-form video app's target audience.

Music has long served as both a mirror and a refuge-reflecting private pain while offering language for experiences that feel unspeakable. Few songs have embodied this dual role as powerfully as Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful." Released in 2002, when mainstream pop rarely centered vulnerability or marginalized identities, the song and its music video offered something quietly radical: affirmation without conditions. Psychologically, representation matters because being seen supports emotional regulation and belonging.

At the start of this year, I went back to contracting, and then I learned I had prostate cancer. It was stage one, and I was on active monitoring for six months. I did some more contracting up until July, when I was told I needed to have treatment. So, I had treatment, and all the signs were good. In August, I thought, 'OK, I can start looking to go back to work.'

These moments can make the work more visible, but they are not the only times it shows up. Behind all this joy and love is a lot of work. That is why being open about what is required and asking for help can be important. You can still have things the way you want them; you do not, however, have to do them all on your own.

The last 30 years have seen heinous mass shootings of innocents become "ho-hum" events of everyday life - from Columbine (1999) to Sandy Hook (2012) schools; to just-engaged 20-year-old-Israelis walking (2025) in Washington, D.C.; to Laney college football coach John Beam (November 2025). Mental health issues do occur; 100 years ago, such shootings didn't. Grievances exist, but why think cold-blooded murder solves anything?

Leadership today demands more than vision and decisiveness. It requires staying emotionally steady, mentally flexible, and grounded-often while navigating constant pressure and competing demands. Yet many leaders operate in a near-constant state of stress without realizing how much it influences their reactions, decisions, and overall health. Burnout, irritability, poor sleep, and decision fatigue are often chalked up to time management or mindset issues.

But when Ko broke down wellness metrics, from if leaders felt anxious or depressed to mentally present at work, the results were starkly different: 48% of respondents reported being overwhelmed, and a quarter said they were feeling anxiety or depression. Moreover, 34% said they were mentally drained, and 40% reported being unable to be mentally present on the job. Half of the survey participants said they thought of stepping down from their positions.

I get a lot of calls for that topic at this time of year. Sadly, whichever way you cut the demographic mustard-men, women, younger, older, LGBTQ, BAME/BIPOC, neurodivergent, disabled-more and more people report feeling lonely some or most of the time. Sadly, those feelings can be compounded by Christmas, making the festive period difficult for many, for a variety of reasons. The solution lies in being more than a little self-indulgent. It's a call to be selfish, but with good reason.

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself crying in the park. It was supposed to be just a typical summer day. I was enjoying my usual stroll with my dog, Boni. The sun was shining, and the shade of the trees provided a very welcoming shelter from the burning sun. Children were running and laughing, and their joy drew me in. Two of them, tiny three-year-olds, were squealing, all happy, wearing Hawaiian-style skirts and flowers around their necks.

The questions were part of annual research carried out in the summer by pollster YouGov with 7,340 adults of all ages for Ofcom's Annual Online Nation report. Despite their increasing negativity, young adults in the UK spend significantly more time online than older age groups, averaging six hours and 20 minutes a day on personal (rather than work) devices, up ten minutes over the prior 12 months and much higher than the four hours and 30 minutes for all adults.

Coming of age alongside smartphones, however, has been linked to high rates of mental health concerns among Gen Z. A 2024 brief by the National Center for Health Statistics found that half of teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 spent four or more hours on screens per day, and those teens were more likely to experience anxiety or depression symptoms.

Marina vd Roest hadn't faced the man who abused her in decades when she first sat down in front of the laptop. Confronted with his realistic, blinking, speaking face, she felt "scared ... like a little child again." "Sometimes I had to close the laptop and get my breath back before opening it and continuing with the conversation," she says. Vd Roest is one of the first people to have tried out a radical new form of therapy.

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call or visit the Council on Compulsive Gambling: Gamblers Anonymous at 855-2-Call GA or www.gamblersanonymous.org CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV or WY - Call 1-800-GAMBLER AZ- Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP IA - Call 1-800-BETS-OFF KS, NV - Call 1-800-522-4700 KY - Call 1-800 GAMBLER, 18+ MI - Call 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help MA - Call 1-800-327-5050 NC - Call - 1-800-662-4357 NY- Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369)

A psychiatrist said if the accused is unfit to stand trial, he would likely be admitted to the Central Mental Hospital and be reviewed on a six-month basis Riad Bouchaker, who is charged with assaulting a care worker and attempting to murder three children on Parnell Square in Dublin, is suffering from a mental disorder and is unfit to stand trial, his lawyers have argued before the Central Criminal Court.

Taylor is a college student who feels more and more that he watches too much pornography and that it really bothers him, especially because he has been getting worse and worse grades. He started watching pornography in his early teens, but his habits have drastically changed over the past year. Night after night, he spends several hours scrolling through porn websites and binge-watching multiple videos without a break.

The topic of mental health is a crucial one, as security team burnout is a top challenge for many organizations. Those in the industry know stressors can be abundant when working security roles, and without proper mental health practices in place, many professionals can burn out. And when one team member burns out, it's possible that more will follow. "We're pretty much [on] 24/7, being security professionals," says Rodriguez.

Claney (2025) describes autistic masking as "a complex phenomenon in which autistic individuals consciously or unconsciously hide or modify their behaviors and traits to fit within societal expectations." Masking, Claney argues, takes a massive emotional toll on autistic adults and can be devastating to mental health. A substantial body of research supports these findings, with the entire neuroaffirmative movement as evidence of the psychological and physical costs of long‑term masking.

Recently, an acquaintance of an acquaintance (let's call her Dina) heard that I was a therapist and an educator and asked if she could chat with me (she approved this write-up). She shared that she had discovered her therapist was using AI to partially conduct their sessions. While I won't go into how the issue came to light, Dina mentioned that she felt shock and anguish. She was terrified that her protected health information (PHI) and feelings were "out on the internet."

In 1973, an American psychologist called David Rosenhan published the results of a bold experiment. He'd arranged for eight pseudo-patients to attend appointments at psychiatric institutions, where they complained to doctors about hearing voices that said empty, hollow and thud. All were admitted, diagnosed with either schizophrenia or manic-depressive psychosis. They immediately stopped displaying any symptoms and started saying they felt fine. The first got out after seven days; the last after 52.

Today, I want to share a goal-setting process I use in my life whenever I feel a change is needed. I also use it in just about every client session, both at the start of treatment and periodically along the way. This creates a sweet synergy: Using a tool yourself is the best way to learn what it takes to actually apply it.

Given the depth of these symptoms on psychological processes, such as forming and maintaining relationships, a simple evolutionary view would likely have predicted that schizophrenia "should" have been de-selected from the human gene pool. Studies have suggested the (genetic) fitness loss that results from schizophrenia can range from 20 to 70 percent. The ongoing stable global prevalence of schizophrenia is an example of an evolutionary paradox.

Just a few months ago, I wrote about how lucky I felt. My husband is a firefighter with long shifts (and overtime), and I'm a morning radio personality who wakes up hours before the sun rises. Though our work schedules can be difficult, we have a village that includes both my mother and my in-laws, and not only are they close by, but they're also dependable.

"Hi." The 20-something man approached my table, the corner of his mouth curving up. He looked away and rubbed his chin before making eye contact and telling me: "I just wanted you to know that if you'd come in sooner, my girlfriend and I would've invited you to join us." I smiled at him. It was nice of him to want to create community with me, although I was perfectly happy just as I was. But he wasn't quite finished.

Gen Z is never beating the " unemployable " allegations. For Gen Z, a growing confidence crisis means common workplace interactions are now a major source of anxiety. Working with unfamiliar colleagues, making small talk, using the phone, and waking up early were among the biggest anxieties for young workers, according to new research from Trinity College London. ​These fears have also been echoed online.

The audit, commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership and funded by NHS England, found there were more community teams to support children than there were for adults. On average, adults with eating disorders had to wait twice as long as children for an assessment, and more than 10 times as long for treatment, the report found. The eating disorder charity Beat said the growing disparity between child and adult services was particularly worrying.