Depression Related Content

Seasonal Affective Disorder: It’s More Than Just “Feeling Blue”

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a fitting acronym for the condition, involves symptoms such as depressive moods , low energy, increased need for sleep, and irritability. Many factors contribute to developing SAD, including a person’s genetic predisposition, geographic location, and age...

McLean’s Guide to Managing Mental Health Around the Holidays

Elvis once crooned about feeling blue at Christmas time—and we’re here to tell you: It’s perfectly normal to feel that way. There are a variety of reasons why your days may not be merry and bright around the holiday season. It can be the jam-packed social calendar, deadlines at work, the loss of a...

Everything You Need To Know About Older Adult Mental Health

The world is aging. According to the World Health Organization , we can expect the over-60 population to double worldwide between 2015 and 2050. Considering 15% of these individuals struggle with some form of mental health disorder, and that neurological and mental issues account for more than 6% of...

Everything You Need To Know About Grief and Loss

Grief and loss can prove suffocating for those who are impacted by them, especially at first. Most people have at least some experience with grief, whether first- or second-hand, and understand how loss can affect the person who goes through it. Even those of us who have very little personal...

Everything You Need To Know About Depression

Feeling sadness is normal, especially when facing difficult circumstances or dealing with loss. Some of us even feel glum when it’s just a cloudy day. But for many people, this dark feeling can be intense and overwhelming. It can cause you to feel hopeless and helpless and can carry on for weeks...

The Benefits of Taking a Mental Health Day

From time to time, everyone needs what many have coined a “mental health day.” It’s a day off from work, a day away from screens and other obligations, or a little time to escape the pressures and frustrations of everyday life. “We all have a point at which we get overwhelmed, we’re engaging in...

Myth Busting: Spreading the Truth About ECT

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been around since the late 1930s, and it has been clear from the beginning that it is an effective treatment for patients with certain types of mental illness, including severe depression , severe mania, and catatonia. Despite this potential to provide dramatic...

Why ECT Is Becoming a Preferred Depression Treatment

Brian Neville had a good life. A one-time bodybuilder, he was 43, a successful businessman in the tanning industry, with a home in Massachusetts and a vacation condo in Florida. Then one morning in 2006 he woke up with the blues . It developed into a persistent darkness that just would not go away...

ECT Treatment: A History of Helping Patients

Dr. Stephen Seiner, ECT expert, and Terry A. Bragg, MSLS, MA, McLean Hospital historian and archivist, share the history behind electroconvulsive therapy. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is used to treat patients with certain types of mental illness, including severe depression , severe mania, and...

Staff Profile: Beth L. Murphy, MD, PhD

Beth L. Murphy, MD, PhD, is medical director of the LEADER (Law Enforcement, Active Duty, Emergency Responder) Outpatient Clinic’s Mood, Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma Track. Within the clinic, she is responsible for the oversight of the policies and procedures of the clinic and is committed to...

Staff Profile: Elif Engin, PhD

Elif Engin, PhD, grew up in Ankara, Turkey, and earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara. She completed her doctoral work in the laboratory of Dr. Dallas Treit in Edmonton, Alberta, and was awarded a PhD Thesis Award from the Canadian...

Staff Profile: Steven E. Gelda, MD

Steven E. Gelda, MD, focuses his clinical interest and expertise on ways to help stabilize psychiatrically hospitalized patients who enter the hospital in crisis due to environmental and interpersonal factors as well as those experiencing an episode of major mental illness. His skills include the...

Staff Profile: Charles F. Moore, MD

Charles F. Moore, MD, completed his combined pediatric, general psychiatry, and child and adolescent psychiatry residency at Tufts-Floating Hospital for Children. He has been medical director of the Boston Emergency Services Team, a psychiatry attending and medical director of Tufts-Floating...

Staff Profile: Jacqueline A. Samson, PhD

Jacqueline A. Samson, PhD, is a clinical associate at McLean Hospital and an assistant professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, part-time, at Harvard Medical School. Her chief research interests involve understanding the biopsychosocial underpinnings of depressive illnesses...

Staff Profile: Andrew M. Stromberg, MD

Andrew M. Stromberg, MD, is the medical director of the McLean-Franciscan Child and Adolescent Inpatient Program located at Franciscan Hospital for Children. He has been involved with the program since 1992. Dr. Stromberg works with the Massachusetts General Hospital/McLean Hospital Child and...

Staff Profile: Ipsit Vahia, MD

Ipsit Vahia, MD, is a geriatric psychiatrist, clinician, and researcher. He is the interim chief of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and director of Digital Psychiatry Translation at McLean Hospital. He is also director of the Technology and Aging Laboratory. His research focuses on the use of...

Staff Profile: Poornima Kumar, PhD

Poornima Kumar, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an assistant neuroscientist at McLean Hospital. Her research interests focus on investigating the mechanisms through which humans learn and process reinforcements (both rewards and punishments) and how these...

Staff Profile: Emily L. Belleau, PhD

Emily L. Belleau, PhD, completed her doctoral studies in clinical psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee under the mentorship of Christine Larson, PhD. After completing a clinical internship at the University of Mississippi Clinical Psychology Consortium, she joined the Laboratory for...

Staff Profile: Munya Hayek, MD

Munya Hayek, MD, is triple board-certified in child and adolescent psychiatry, adult psychiatry, and pediatrics. She is the associate medical director of the Belmont Adolescent Partial Hospital Program at McLean Hospital and serves as associate program director of the MGH/McLean Child and Adolescent...

Staff Profile: Robert C. Meisner, MD

Robert C. Meisner, MD, is the medical director of the Ketamine Service in the Psychiatric Neurotherapeutics Program at McLean Hospital and an attending psychiatrist in the Acute Psychiatric Service at Massachusetts General Hospital. He graduated from Princeton Summa cum laude and attended Harvard...