Mental Health
Psychological health, trauma research, and mental wellness.
Beyond the High: When Daily Cannabis Rewires Your Brain’s Baseline
New neuroscience reveals that daily cannabis use doesn't just build tolerance—it shifts the brain into an adapted operating state that persists beyond intoxication, making users feel 'normal' only because their brain has recalibrated its baseline around THC exposure.
Commercialized Legal Cannabis Linked to Psychosis and Addiction While Decriminalization Keeps Use Stable
A global meta-analysis in The Lancet Psychiatry reveals that for-profit commercial cannabis legal structures, rather than decriminalization, drive rising product potency, addiction rates, and emergency hospital admissions for psychosis.
Beyond the Symptom Checklist: How Bipolar Disorder and the Great Imitator Evaded Psychiatric Detection
An analysis of the dangers of symptom-checklist psychiatric diagnostics, highlighting a case of neurosyphilis and bipolar disorder misdiagnosed as MDD and GAD.
Cannabis and Psychosis: Unpacking the Case for a Distinct Diagnostic Subtype
Recent clinical research suggests cannabis-associated psychosis is a distinct clinical entity rather than just a transient drug-induced event, challenging traditional diagnostic frameworks and calling for urgent, personalized treatment strategies.
Serotonin as a Cognitive Eraser: How One Dose Rewires the Brain’s Belief Updating in OCD
New research reveals serotonin doesn’t just improve mood—it directly slashes belief stickiness, the cognitive failure to update outdated mental models. This breakthrough reframes OCD treatment around a precise 2–4 hour window where a single SSRI dose primes the brain for therapy.
When Words Fail, Scent Speaks: A Leader's Path Back to Feeling
A coaching technique that bypasses the overwhelmed mind by asking a leader what numbness smells like — leveraging olfactory neuroscience to reach emotion before language arrives.
Why Trying to Sleep Makes You Awake: The Backwards Law of Human Effort
Why direct pursuit of sleep, charm, or happiness backfires—and how ironic process theory and obliquity reveal that the path to your goals runs through the edges.
Serotonin Reduces Belief Stickiness in OCD: A State-Inference Breakdown, Not a Habit Loop
A new study redefines OCD treatment by showing serotonin directly alleviates ‘belief stickiness’, reframing OCD as a failure in state-inference rather than automatic behavior, enabling time-sensitive psychotherapy windows.
The Evidence-Based Therapy Landscape: How CBT, DBT, and Family Systems Approaches Actually Work
How do CBT, DBT, trauma-focused therapy, and family systems approaches compare? A research-backed guide to matching the right modality to your needs.
The Paradox of Effort: Why Trying Too Hard Often Undermines Success
Exploring the psychological phenomenon where deliberate attempts to achieve mental states like relaxation, charm, or confidence often produce opposite results due to over-control and self-monitoring.
Cannabis Psychosis May Represent a Distinct Subtype: New Research Challenges Traditional Classification
Recent Yale research suggests cannabis-induced psychosis may be a distinct subtype rather than just drug-induced symptoms, with clinical, cognitive, and brain-based differences from non-cannabis-associated psychosis.
Portland Mental Health Therapy: Trauma, Social Justice & Multicultural Identities
Therapy services in Portland specializing in trauma, social justice, multicultural identities, LGBTQIA+ identities, disability, immigration issues, anxiety, grief, suicide prevention, family system stress, and relationship repair.