Page 10 – Therapy Institute

Learning Points: Labelling kids as anxious will not help them to cope

One of the most prevalent issues I encounter in the therapeutic setting is that of teenage anxiety. It can take the shape of many forms, from social anxiety to school refusal to general feelings of not wanting to go outside to a complete paralysis due to excessive worrying or ritualistic behaviours. Living with a child that is…

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Front Page Teenagers

Learning Points: Troubled child can undermine whole family

It is important that everyone in the family has a chance to express their feelings about what is happening in the house, writes Richard Hogan TEENAGE mental health has received a lot of media attention recently. There has been debate about how best to promote our children’s mental health and what strategies parents should utilise. And this has been…

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Education

Learning Points: Testing times for parents and pupils alike

For many parents of teenagers, this time of year can be quite stressful. There are only 12 weeks to the Leaving and Junior Cert examinations. Many of the conversations I have with parents, as we move towards the summer months, are around how to motivate their son/daughter to study for the upcoming exams. Parents can feel incredibly…

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Front Page Teenagers

Learning points: When suicide occurs in our community, it cannot go unspoken about

I still remember, vividly, the last conversation I had with a childhood friend of mine. I was out one Saturday night in Cork and happened to bump into him, writes Richard Hogan. He was slightly younger than me and I had always felt a little protective of him. He was a sensitive, beautiful soul. We had…

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Front Page Teenagers

Learning Points: What to do when it smells like teen spirit

Oscar Wilde said ‘to win back my youth, there is nothing I wouldn’t do — except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community’, writes Richard Hogan. While at first glance this seems like a flippant comment, I think Wilde is touching on something we all experience as parents of teenagers. They…

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Front Page Psychiatry journals Teenagers

Are we in danger of endorsing teen depression?

In my work as a school psychotherapist, I have been alarmed by the increasing number of students coming to me because they are experiencing difficulties in their personal life. Teenage depression seems to be reaching almost epidemic proportions. A UK study found that the number of adolescents prescribed anti-depressants rose from 6,000 in 1994 to 345,000…

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Adult Mental Health Front Page

Learning Points: If you make one resolution, be kinder to yourself

New Year, new you, right? But what if I told you that most of the resolutions you will make this year are designed to fail so that you can achieve the self-fulfilling prophecy that you are just too weak to be able to accomplish it in the first place? Or that, resolutions are often set into…

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Education

We have to look at the points system and question the impact it is having on our children

Thomas Kinsella has a wonderful poem called, ‘Model School Inchicore.’ In the poem Kinsella explores the notion that the old traditional educational system of Ireland shrank creativity rather than promoted it, writes Richard Hogan. The opening line is the longest in the poem and the final line is the shortest, representing the reductionist impact our…

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Comments on society

Equal treatment is at the heart of a healthy society

It’s time we stand up for how women are treated in society, writes Richard Hogan And so this is Christmas, and what have we done this year? In the Chinese calendar, 2017 was The Year of the Rooster - perhaps The Year of the Sexist Pig would be more apt. After the same sex vote of 2016,…

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Psychiatry journals

PUBLIC HEALTH ALCOHOL BILL RETURNS TO THE SEANAD AFTER A YEAR

The Public Health (Alcohol) Bill will return to the Seanad for debate tomorrow after the legislation was stalled for over a year reported the Irish Times last week. “The legislation was stalled in the Oireachtas last year due to a number of concerns raised by Fine Gael TDs and Senators, in particular about the requirement…

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