As an avid film lover with a paired weakness for the attractive buzz and glamour of the red carpet award shows, I felt completely swept up in the excitement of the film awards season. It was therefore only natural for my friends and I to find ourselves huddled around my…
Children in the UK start primary school in the September following their fourth birthday. This means that summer born babies can start school almost a year earlier than their autumn born peers. In this post, Alison Pike outlines the disadvantages of this system for summer born babies, alongside some possible…
As a developmental psychologist I’m pretty aware of the signs and symptoms of depression and anxiety. However, our school recently ran an evening lecture on supporting well-being in our children and It really made me think about things in a different way – and in particular, to consider how anxiety…
In my recent posts for this blog, I have looked at the portrayal and discussion of mental health in the context of several different media platforms. Here, I review the findings of a recent paper that reveals how users of the visual, idea-collaging platform Pinterest are sharing experiences of and advice about depression.
Information that challenges our own views can make us uncomfortable. As a result, consciously or otherwise, we often go to great lengths to avoid exposure to such information. But maybe being driven to re-examine the evidence behind our beliefs and practices is a good thing – and something we need to…
The 10th of October 2016 was World Mental Health Day. It was an amazing effort by everyone involved, and as I scrolled through post after post on my newsfeed, it made me so happy to see how open everyone was about mental health and how willing they all were to…
In my last post, I highlighted a particularly glamorised portrayal of mental illness – that of the depression suffered by the Lisbon sisters in the film ‘The Virgin Suicides’ – and the potential consequences of this kind of portrayal. The film’s director and producer might argue that theirs was an artistic,…
The availability of cosmetic procedures to enhance our appearance seems to be ever-increasing. I was surprised to discover recently that even my local gym will offer Botox, a chemical peel or lip fillers if you are in the market for more than just a workout. Similarly, when I was looking…
I have always been in admiration of cinema, believing it can be a powerful tool to convey a message to an audience who would otherwise have not been listening. For example, with films such as Erol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line, a criticism on the validity of eyewitness testimonies in court cases, I found…
London’s Royal Academy of Arts is currently showcasing some of the greatest work from the Abstract Expressionism movement. These works are fuelled by a desire to depict the human mind and experience – leading me to consider whether artistic expressions of powerful emotions could be used as a tool for…
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