Jonathan Haverkampf

Help, I cannot concentrate! Do I have ADHD?

Many people feel they cannot concentrate to accomplish their day to day tasks, affecting their jobs and their personal life. Since ADHD has become a buzzword, many ask themselves if they might suffer from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While this needs to be evaluated by a professional, I want to provide some points that one […]

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Depression and the Emotions

Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person’s thoughts, behaviour, feelings, and sense of well-being. In its extreme form, depression leads to a state where one no longer feels one’s emotions, which is ultimately meant by the term ‘depression’, an overall decrease in feeling one’s emotions, including

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Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): the link between sunlight and health

Sunlight helps to regulate the hormones serotonin and melatonin, it has also been shown to affect brain blood flow. Thus, sunlight may not only affect mood directly, but also via its effect on cognition, because cognitive impairment can underlie a depressive episode. A lack of vitamin D, which is synthetized in the presence of sunlight,

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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition where patients either have repeated intrusive thoughts, perform compulsive behaviours (rituals), or both. The attempt to suppress these thoughts or behaviours leads to heightened anxiety and tension. While patients notice that the thoughts or behaviours do not make sense, they often find it impossible to stop them.

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Psychotherapy to Treat and Manage Depression

Psychotherapy helps people with depression: * Understand the memories, thoughts, emotions and behaviours that contribute to their depression * Understand unresolved emotions and life events from one’s personal history which may contribute to the depression * Understand interpersonal difficulties and maladaptive interpersonal interaction patterns * Better connect with oneself to resolve emotional conflicts and develop

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Therapy for Panic Attacks

A combination of psychotherapy and medication has good empirical support for its effectiveness in the therapy of panic attacks. In more severe cases of panic attacks, when it is no longer possible to leave the house, medication may be needed to make psychotherapy possible. Among the various psychotherapeutic approaches, CBT targets maladaptive thought processes and

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Trauma Therapy: EMDR and PTSD

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a multi-phasic psychotherapeutic approach often used for traumatic memories, particularly in PTSD, but also in anxiety. EMDR is believed to help in the processing of upsetting memories, thoughts, and feelings related to a trauma. By processing these experiences, PTSD symptoms are thought to decrease. EMDR is often combined

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Panic Disorder

Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder with recurring panic attacks. Panic attacks are episodes of intense anxiety and fear, often with heart palpitations, subjective difficulties of breathing, sweating, and other symptoms. They are usually associated with intense fear of imminent death or danger to the individual. Often panic attacks recede quite quickly, before any short-term

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