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LATEST NATIONAL FIGURES put the number of homeless people in Ireland at almost 4,000 and those working to reduce the problem say it’s only getting worse.
As part of TheJournal.ie‘s series on homelessness, we’re looking at all aspects of the homeless crisis, and all day today, we’ve been asking what you have to say about it. We’ll be using your feedback later as part of the series.
Here are a few questions to start you off:
Over to you – answers in the comments section below…
Pic: Andrew Bennett via Flickr/Creative Commons
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It’s like everything in life different things work for different people I firmly believe in positive thinking and as a person that suffered a lot of anxiety I constantly remind me self every day that all in good for me .i gave up drink stop taking drugs it took a year to properly sleep but now 3 yrs on I’ve never felt better no anxiety no panics attacks so I welcome any new studies that might give someone back there life it ain’t easy but I definitely say it’s well worth
Were the drinks and the drugs causing the anxiety,Neil?
*drink
@ Tomas Mac ya big time I was a regular drinker and drug user coke yolks and blow drank every night I was 35 and sick of it all my docter was brilliant spoke to me like a mate and told me to pack it all n and c if it made a difference took an antidepressant for fees weeks didn’t agree with me so I took up running eating proper and I’m serious when I tell you I couldn’t sleep properly for a year best decision of me life I feel like the last 3 yrs I have only started living
Fair play Neil, great to hear lad…wish you all the best!
Good for you,Neil ..By the way,I wasn’t being smart ..
Don’t worry about that Thomas, there are some gobshiites on here who take the tone wrongly!
Good for you Neil
This is gonna sound unpopular but being someone who suffers with depression and anxiety, I think it is something to do with how Irish people are raised, growing up feeling a guilt and sad feeling. The irish parenting style is one that inflicts fear and sadness, with a mentality of don’t let them get too above their station. I currently live in london and therapy has helped me understand why I feel down. Our collective destructive relationship with alcohol is from a sadness deep in our souls.
Totally agree – Irish catholic guilt and also a generation of parents who didn’t know how to emotionally express themselves or their love for their children.
My problem was constanly being put down. Now I realise its actually ok to be me and not conform to what someone else says or wants. I was also guilt tripped and bullied as a child and it manifests itself today with feelings of low self worth, anger and sadness. My therapist (who is half Irish), was shocked at some of the examples I gave her, and I always thought this behaviour of ridicule and bullying was normal.
If I didn’t emigrate, I don’t know if I’d be alive today.
I suffered far too long. But ihave to say, the help i got from nortg kildare health service was brilliant. They referred me to a specialist therapist. After a year of theraphy i felt a different person. Subconsciously now i am well able to deal with stress, anxiety and depression.
thats great to hear truth, the problem for me is alcohol, shiftwork amd depression all feeding into each other. I have done 10 weeks of thearapy free via the NHS. Unfortunately its some coming to an end :(
I can’t find the link just now, but apparently there’s a link between the Irish predisposition towards depression and the Famine. It became so ingrained in our psyche that it has been passed on from generation to generation. That kind of psyche would explain a lot. Not just us, but Israel, the native Americans and Armenia amongst a lot of others.
Most people in the early stages of depression/anxiety do not
want to participate in group work as their illness does not
allow them to do so.One glove does not fit all,this is a complex
illness,even psychiatrists struggle will treatment regimes,ECT
Is a prime example as it is given,usually after other treatments
without any knowledge whether it will work.
Not so good news for people who don’t want the whole town to know their private business.
That’s not what mindfulness therapy involves. It’s not group counseling – more a group meditation – focusing on your own feelings and senses, it’s quite private.
Also beneficial as a stop gap when waiting lists for individual counselling are long, which they always are.
Good news for the HSE. What about the recovery principles of choice,control,& empowerment. Naw lets save money and put everyone into group therapy
I’ve been lucky in that I’ve never suffered with depression or anxiety
The important thing is that for people who do suffer and people that don’t suffer, remember both are involved in fighting it…
Talk to your friends or family and let them know you’ve an open mind and your there if they wanna chat…
Yeah but CBT is a terrible way to treat depression or anxiety and is designed for phobias. It’s obviously not working at the moment so trying to get the same results as CBT with group mindfulness is pissing in the wind and a complete depersonalisation of people with mental health issues. Forcing loads of socially anxious people into an emotionally charged group setting is also blatantly counter intuitive. Perhaps more funding, better therapy methods and a conversation on how to fix the underlying social problems that cause mental illness in the first place are what we need?
CBT can be an effective treatment for depression, but only on an individual basis. What works on one may not work with another. The type of depression and the severity of it is also a factor to consider.
Yeah I’ll concede that it works sometimes but nowhere near often enough to be our prescribed means of dealing with depression or anxiety.
@ Freddie antidepressants help u sleep when u sleep well u feel better that’s the concept but what about the problems that are causing the anxiety I think some docters wil fob u off with these depressants it’s not there fault that we have not enough councellers to help but I guarantee you if they done a study on people who have got rid of there anxiety it’s thru talking positive thinking no drink no drugs eating properly exercise ,and I’m not saying don’t take antidepressants if they help ,you have another option to make the head stronger
There are a few options alright that are worth talking about. ECT seems to be making a comeback, although I am a sceptic about the long term benefits of ECT. Nature versus nurture is a big debate, but I have not aware of any particular studies on this. I think genetics is a big factor in depression. Dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin production within the endocrine system.
Many GP’s will prescribe anti-depressants to lift the mood temporarily while encouraging the patient to seek alternative methods to deal with the depression on a long term basis. But I am not a fan of prescribing anti-depressants on an indefinite time period.
Individual basis Patrick. If it wasn’t for them i don’t think I would be alive
The problem with anti depressants is that while they’re only supposed to be used as a last resort, they are frequently handed out as the first type of treatment.
Not everyone has a serotonin imbalance. In fact, when you put all of the trial data submitted to the FDA on SSRIS drugs together and analyze them, you come up with results that state they perform no better than placebo.
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050045
Worse still – if you take these drugs and you *don’t* have a serotonin imbalance, then the drugs can actually cause one, which can have some pretty serious consequences.
Really, you should need a clinical test to ascertain whether you require a prescription for these drugs – as they are literally intended to alter your brain chemistry, something we don’t truly understand in its entirety yet.
Depression and anxiety are complex demons, much like the mind itself. Mindfulness is intended to give you greater insight into your own mind and how it works, the “physician heal thyself” approach, so a group session would be no more emotionally challenging than a group meditation.
It’s not going to fix everyone, but best practice says you should be exhausting all non medical methods of treatment first. Because not everyone’s cause is the same – if you eliminate or repair the cause the symptoms disappear, if all you do is treat symptoms then you will continue to need to treat them indefinitely.
I agree Shanti. SSRI’s are/were prescribed to frequently and handed out like smarties. While as I have previously said they can be used short term as a path to receiving more beneficial treatment, they can indeed cause more problems than they solve. Seroxat being one of these. There was a study carried out a number of years ago when it first came to light that Seroxat (apart from being highly addictive) was causing a number of users to have suicidal thoughts, even though they may never have had these thoughts before. This was partially caused by patients suddenly stopping usage of the medication as opposed to weaning themselves off the drug. There were too many side effects.
CBT is a great starting point for treating depression, but it may not work for everyone. Environmental factors, mindset, self image etc, which CBT can be of help with.
Oh great! ONE study with a small sample size got positive results. Let’s change the way we do everything…
Makes reference to improvement at 8 weeks. Was there any longer term follow up? As this is a life long condition – what is the evidence for long term effectiveness of group mindfulness therapy? All research has to be taken with a pinch of salt and not automatically adopted.
Health professionals are obliged to operate in evidence based practice which is a triad of best available evidence, expertise and patient values.
As mentioned by others, if patients are adverse to group therapy this should be taken into consideration as part of evidence based practice. It’s good news for HSE as it is another avenue to explore, not because it’s cost efficient but as it is an effective intervention.
More importantly as part of the research who delivered the mindfulness programme? If psychologists – how many of them exist in the community??? Very few.
Massive consideration needed before we tout this as the wonderful solution you appear to be.
The evidence shows that when it comes to treating depression we are shooting in the dark.
The most popular mode of treatment is SSRI medication, but the *evidence* (as in the meta analysis of trial data) says that they are outperformed by placebo and that the increased responsiveness amongst the most severely depressed patients was borne out of a reduced response to the placebo rather than any positive effect of the drug.
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050045
Yet they continue to be prescribed with alarming frequency, given that they carry some very serious side effects.
Best practice states that all non medical modes of treatment should be exhausted first, but this is rarely what happens in reality.
Yes – health care professionals are supposed to base treatment on that which has sound evidence to back it up – so why is there an almost dogmatic reliance upon proven non effective treatment?
What about transcendental meditation? Anyone tried that? Supposed to be good for anxiety and stress.
Arthur Ashe a famous tennis player had some inspirational quotes:
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can”
”Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you’re behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory”
Just a passing phase that will benefit no-one in the long run! Stick to the tried and tested ..CBT and if you need them ,antidepressants.
I’m going to set up an online reiki healing page ..Just upload your photo onto my page and I’ll hover my hands over it .$$$$$$$
Is it gluten free?
If you are suffering from depression, I recommend the http://destroydepression.com system.
Written by a former sufferer of depression, it teaches a simple 7-step process to eliminate depression from your life.
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