Resources to support our work together

On anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia:

• This is the American Psychological Association's discussion of panic and its treatment.

• One general idea that we will work with is that your style of thinking is related to your emotions. We will probably work on changing your thought patterns. This is a short description of what cognitive therapy is.

• Here are some examples of ways to talk to yourself that can help you cope more effectively with anxiety.

• Some general issues about bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is a serious biological disorder, but its course can be significantly smoother with regular and consistent coping and self-care. In particular, pay attention to the section on what you and your family can do to cope with bipolar disorder. These suggestions take a very holistic approach to treatment and are also useful for people with other sorts of problems.

• Some general ideas to consider if you have a family member who is severely mentally ill.

On parenting:

• Parenting teens is often very difficult work. Here are some strategies for strengthening and improving your relationship with them.

• One of the best ways of handling problems is becoming proactive and preventing them. This article, also from the American Psychological Association, is on strategies for building resilient teens.

• Trauma happens, even in the best of families. Here are some tips for parenting children who have been traumatized.

On pain:

• This is a good, general (sometimes difficult) discussion on the psychology and treatment of chronic pain.

• Obviously, no one wants to increase their pain, yet many people with chronic pain do things that unintentionally cause themselves more pain. Here are ten such things.

• Pain is often associated with sleep problems. This page from the National Center for PTSD describes things that can cause sleep problems, as well as simple things that you can do to sleep better.

• Lifestyle decisions can make pain better or worse, as can styles of thinking. There is also increasing evidence on the roles of meditation, mindlfulness and yoga in treating pain. Here is a story from NPR on Jon Kabat-Zinn and treatment of psychological and physical pain.

• These pages can help you begin meditating, something that is proving to have positive effects in many different areas, including helping people handle pain well.

On coping well and becoming resilient:

• Often anger feels outside our control. Here's a good discussion of what anger is and effective strategies for coping with it.

• Trauma happens (one of the most common causes is car accidents). Here are some ideas about how to cope with and recover from trauma.

• Regular exercise can be as effective as antidepressants for mild to moderate depression. Consider building some sort of exercise into your life.