Living the Truth (LTT) stems from this belief: Humans have the capacity to dramatically change their lives (for the better) by honestly looking at the past events and relationships that have contributed to their present thoughts and behavior patterns.  
 
This unearthing of key lessons about who we are deep in our souls also unlocks the most important secrets to what we can become.  Because when we feel authentic and grounded, when we feel, we dream with true hearts and clear minds. Then, we can become what we want to be.  

LTT also is founded upon the certainty that humans underestimate their own capacity for self-knowledge and needlessly fear their core thoughts and feelings, when those very thoughts and feelings have the power to liberate them from self-defeating behavior patterns.  That’s why one of the LTT mottos is: “Everything you need to change your life is already inside you.”

One of the ways LTT gives you access to your internal wisdom is by helping you bring into awareness the most important “pages” and “chapters” of your life story, elements of which almost all of us keep from consciousness because we think of them as painful.
 
Creating your own MyTruth page is a good way to begin this process.  It is also an excellent way to connect with others engaged in a journey of self-knowledge, who can help you with your own.

Here are some success stories of LTT:
* A 44-year-old woman who, in the past, continually chose controlling men, none of whom made her feel loved. She finally realized her father was controlling in many ways, and she did not feel loved as a child. Reclaiming her reality allowed her to stop “living” in the past and start acting as an empowered female - so that next time, she can pick a man who treats her as an equal.

* A 37-year-old man felt isolated and was addicted to alcohol. He realized he was dulling the pain he felt from losing his sibling when he was a teenager; he had never fully grieved. Allowing himself to feel emotions he denied for decades, he freed himself from the need to anesthetize himself and take a chance again on a close friendship.

* A 29-year-old man with panic disorder, whose symptoms included debilitating heart palpitations and a sense of impending doom, recalled how frightened and powerless he felt when his father was diagnosed with cancer – also at the age of 29.  By “connecting the dots,” his anxiety medicine suddenly begins to work, because it is now powered by more than chemistry.  Insight has taken hold.

* A 24-year-old woman binged and purged food as a way to distract herself from her core emotions. She realized those emotions included deep sadness about having moved from three separate cities and schools and groups of friends as her parents tried to find stability in their own lives.  She embraces how alone she felt at times, how she has come to distrust interpersonal connections and how she has kept a man she loves at a distance, fearing he will “move on,” too. Feeling more and more helps her binge and purge less and less.  She starts to believe in herself and in others and sees her relationship flourish.
 
The four core principles and eight-step programs that form the foundation of LTT were developed by me, Dr. Keith Ablow.

My clients have included celebrities, politicians and Fortune 500 business leaders, but they have also included people from every walk of life.  What I realized in the course of working with so many people was that we all have a remarkable ability to create success for ourselves, in our personal and professional lives, but only once we achieve personal authenticity.   
 

I realized this authenticity is well within reach for each and every one of us.
 
People needlessly hold up shields against internal truths that could be empowering, life affirming and even life saving for them.  These shields can include distracting, tumultuous relationships, overeating, overspending, overusing alcohol, smoking, using illicit drugs, gambling, and on and on.
 
 LTT helps individuals put down these shields, and look past them into the mirror, which reflects their true selves. Then, they can build authentic and powerful existences, putting their dreams within reach.

Over the course of the next eight weeks – every Friday – I will bring you the eight steps you need to “Living the Truth.”

There will be real-life examples, insights, stories, goals and, above all, hope.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com.

The suicides of two stunningly successful individuals in two days should be enough to do away with the notion that great beauty or professional achievement or a treasured family and good friends can immunize anyone from the potential ravages of desperation and major depression. 

On June 28, supermodel Ruslana Korshunova plunged nine floors to her death from her apartment in Manhattan’s financial district.  She had just come back from a modeling gig in Paris.  A friend said she was “on top of the world.”

On June 30, Dr. Douglas Meyer, an esteemed physician at Manhattan’s Beth Israel Medical Center, described by a co-worker as “full of life,” leapt 17 stories to his death.

As a practicing psychiatrist for 15 years, I can tell you that these tragedies were a long time in the making.  The complete wearing away of self-esteem or shutting down of the ability to see any future other than darkness is more like a curtain slowly closing than a door swinging shut.  Indeed, the fragile sense of self that can give way to a free fall may be decades in the making.

Why did no one see it happening in these two cases?  Or why, if someone intuited that it could, was it not prevented?

One reason is that we don’t like to think of ourselves—whether as associates or friends or family members—as parts of personal dramas that could be so dark.  We deploy a kind of denial about the lives of others that suggests things will “turn out alright,” that terrible tragedies of the kind that have visited the families of Korshunova and Meyer happen to other families, that the light in the lives of our loved ones could never be extinguished.

Another reason is that we mistake the ability to do one’s work in this world, and do it well, for well-being.  I have treated executives and politicians and health care providers who went to work on time and performed admirably, even brilliantly, while battling major depression and even delusional (psychotic) thinking.

And yet another reason is that we may fear that opening up a discussion about whether someone is actually “on the edge,” or “unsure of whether he or she can go on” will put us in a kind of psychological no-man’s land where we will be lost, over our heads, not knowing what to say or do. 

Here are a few things you can do:

1.      Be alert for major depression in people you care about.  The symptoms include low moods and tearfulness, but they also include trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping, changes in appetite, low self-esteem and dwelling on personal losses, even ones that took place in the distant past.  And, remember, major depression affects people of both genders, every age and every socioeconomic group, without exception.

2.      Listen a little like a psychiatrist.  That means if someone says something about life being “too hard” or the future not being “worth it,” it’s okay to pause and ask a nonjudgmental follow-up question.  No one will hold it against you.  “Are you saying you don’t see any sense in living?”  “Are you telling me you’ve thought about hurting yourself?” 

3.      Listen even more for the person’s answer.  Your patience and openness can literally be a lifeline.

4.      If someone opens up about feeling desperate, you can offer to take a walk over to an ER, to make a call for an appointment with a psychiatrist who comes highly recommended or to schedule a “right now” appointment with the person’s internist or family physician.

5.      Remind the person that he or she cannot judge, while depressed or desperate, where he or she will be, or how that person will feel, just a few weeks or a few months from then.  Depression is, arguably, the most treatable condition in all of psychiatry.  The vast, vast majority of patients get completely well—which is why it is so important to keep them safe when they can’t keep themselves safe.

6.      Share your own frailties.  Depressed or desperate people often feel completely alone.  They won’t be dragged further down by you speaking to times you’ve felt like all was lost, or like hiding or like you really needed help; they’ll be sustained by your openness.

7.      Don’t feel like you have to keep quiet about what feels like an impending crisis.  Call the person’s family or physician or both.  You’ll be forgiven, because you’ll be acting in good faith, trying to do what’s right.

Being a supermodel doesn’t make you too beautiful to hate yourself, and being a great doctor doesn’t make you stronger or smarter than mental illness.  No one is immune.  These couple of days reminds us of that, as they cost us two great talents and two good, vulnerable people.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com.

With Hillary Clinton set to concede the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama, supporters of the former First Lady have a difficult transition to make. 

Their aspirations to elect their candidate to the corner office took an increasingly divisive tone over the past weeks. Sen. Clinton unconsciously connected her rival to a presidential candidate assassinated while campaigning in the month of June (Robert Kennedy), and her campaign charged that the Obama campaign had a gun to her head to force her to quit the race.

Talk about politics as a blood sport. How does a Hillary Clinton loyalist line up behind her nemesis?

From a psychological perspective, the answer to that question is:  Not right away and not necessarily shoulder-to-shoulder.

Clinton supporters will need a little time to let the final chapters of their candidate’s campaign echo in their minds. They’ll need to grieve the loss of what looked like a sure thing and which has the language of death so closely associated with it.

They’ll need to date the political process for a little while before falling in love again — with the real potential to advance their ideas, if not their candidate.

To rush this process would be to short-circuit it. The wounds inflicted by each candidate on the other are too deep. They can’t be magically healed with a photo op or a raised hand. 

Pretending Clinton support translates in a wholesale way to Obama needlessly inserts falsehood into a movement that all of us, regardless of our politics, would have to admit is fueled by passion.

Hatred of John McCain will not immediately galvanize Democrats into a united force. McCain is, simply put, hard to hate. The most unsympathetic of biographers would not question his patriotism or bravery or character or commitment. 

Not even Obama choosing Clinton for his running mate would bridge the psychological divide here. That would create the immediate specter of a dysfunctional marriage in need of emergent counseling. It would look and feel like a shotgun wedding. And there’s that image of a gun again. Best to steer clear.

No. This will take a little time. And giving voice to that fact, actually verbalizing the idea that Clinton supporters can gravitate into Obama’s orbit, not rocket there, is the best way that Democrats can make it happen, in due time.

Dr. Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel. He is the author of Living the Truth: Transform Your Life Through the Power of Insight and Honesty. Visit his Web site at www.livingthetruth.com.

It’s a new frontier for psychiatric illness: Brain pacemakers that promise to act as antidepressants by changing how patients’ nerve circuitry fires.

Scientists already know the power of these devices to block the tremors of Parkinson’s disease and related illnesses; more than 40,000 such patients worldwide have the implants.

But psychiatric illnesses are much more complex and the new experiments with so-called deep brain stimulation, or DBS, are in their infancy.

Only a few dozen patients with severe depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder so far have been treated in closely monitored studies. Still, the early results are promising. (Continue)

The news is, ultimately, about people—individual life stories that make up the story of America.  Nowhere is that fact more evident than in news of economic pressures that translate into personal stress and even psychological disorders.  When those pressures include foreclosures, the stress can “hit home” especially hard, bringing insomnia, marital discord, major depression, even suicidal ideation.

Our homes are more than financial assets.  They have deep emotional meaning.  For those of us fortunate enough to have grown up in houses owned by our parents, they were the backdrop for our childhood memories—the places we played and argued and hung our artwork and marked the door jamb with pencil lines as we grew taller.  For better or worse, the houses of our childhoods represented to many of us a good measure of the success our parents had attained, an outward expression of how hard work had paid off in comfort and safety and the respect of the community.   The lawn got cut.  The paint got freshened up.  Maybe a pool was added out back.  When things went well, our houses grew with us.

With the home foreclosure rate in America skyrocketing, our economic conditions translate into a true public health concern.  Losing one’s home can feel like losing one’s self.  Those being foreclosed upon can feel they have let down their families, that they have been “exposed” as failures in the eyes of the community and that the road back to stability is too full of twists and turns to even begin to think about navigating it.

This perfect storm of lowered self-esteem and perceived loss of face is indeed the growing place for divorce, panic disorder, major depression and stress-related medical conditions like hypertension.  That’s why a national program that would offer a kind of “outplacement” psychological counseling to those who are losing or who have lost their homes is needed.  Our community hospitals, academic medical centers, family physicians and community mental health centers should be prepared in a special way for the special burden that home foreclosure represents.

During my 16 years practicing psychiatry, I’ve worked with many people facing financial reversals, including home foreclosure.  Some were anxious or felt hopeless.  Some had developed symptoms of major depression.  Here’s some of what I learned. I hope can be of help to those who have lost their homes or are at risk of losing them:

·         Trying to white knuckle your feelings and fears can leave you feeling alone with them.  Voicing them puts them in context—as things happening in your life, not life itself.  Talk more about your feelings and fears, not less.

·         Every difficult chapter of one’s life story offers the chance to rise above it by showing grit or grace in the face of uncertainty.  Our loved ones and the community measure us by assessing our characters, not by calculating our finances.  The way you react in adversity is what defines you, not adversity itself.

·         Our financial circumstances are never entirely under our control.  The economic realities of the day truly impact what is possible for many of us.  Millions of Americans are losing their homes.  If you would not judge them as weak or unwise, try not to judge yourself.

·         Seek more information about the economy, not less.  You’ve learned the impact that financial markets can have, in personal terms.  Become an even better student of them.

·         When people look back at their lives, almost all can identify periods of great turmoil, personally or professionally or financially.  If this is one of yours, you are in pain now, but the overall arc of your life story can still be in the direction of success and happiness.  Abraham Lincoln, for example, suffered severe financial reversals and several political losses before his great successes.

·         No patient has ever described the real assets provided by his or her parents by the kind of house or apartment the family lived in.  To a person, the accounting has always been emotional:  Did he or she feel well-loved?  Was he or she listened to?  Were his or her dreams encouraged?  If you want to put something that lasts “in the bank” for your kids, tell them that whether you live in a big house, a little house or an apartment (or even in temporary housing) that you will always be a family and that you will think about them every day and kiss them goodnight wherever they go to sleep.

·         There is great power in shifting from seeing oneself as a victim to seeing oneself as a survivor.  Thinking like a survivor helps you marshal the resources needed to sure up your family now and your finances over time.

·         Conditions like major depression and panic disorder and symptoms like insomnia are among the most treatable in psychiatry.  If you are suffering in these ways, tell your family doctor or a mental health care provider.  Psychotherapy and medication (when indicated) work in over 90 percent of cases.

·         It’s important to take stock of your “assets.”  Are you healthy?  Are your children healthy?  Are they attending school without serious difficulty?  Again, while home ownership is a wonderful part of life, it pales in comparison to other gifts of stability your family may be enjoying right now. 

·         You can train your vision to look past today’s crisis to a better future.  Start planning how you are going to own a home again—today.  This can mean something as simple as opening a new savings account with a tiny deposit.  The concrete intention to begin rebuilding your financial position can help you feel like you have psychological momentum on your side, or will again soon.

If you know someone who is facing home foreclosure (or whose home has been foreclosed upon), please print out this blog and share it with him or her.  I hope the words I’ve written will be helpful, but I am certain that your show of concern will be.  Ultimately, the news is all about people.  And, ultimately, it turns out to be about help and hope and seeing that a better future is always possible in America.

A study out of the New England Journal of Medicine finds that people suffering from migraines and depression need to be careful when mixing medication for the two.

Researchers from Georgetown University and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration detailed 11 cases of serotonin syndrome associated with the use of triptans.

This syndrome happens when more than one medication is taken that affects the level of serotonin. Symptoms include mental status changes, overactive reflexes, muscle spasms, fever, heavy sweating, nausea, nausea or vomiting.

Those especially at risk are people who take a class of medications known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro and Prozac, along with migraine medications such as Imitrex, Zomig, Maxalt, Axert and Frova.

During my sixteen years practicing psychiatry I have treated dozens of men experiencing major depression after fathering a child.  These men have come to my office with symptoms like low mood, tearfulness, decreased self-esteem, impaired sleep and decreased concentration.  Some have even struggled with suicidal ideation.  It was enough to make me suggest to my publisher a year or so ago that we consider my writing a book on male postpartum depression.

Now, my clinical experiences have been borne out by a scientific study from the Center for Pediatric Research at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.  Dr. James Paulson and his colleagues found that about 10 percent of new fathers displayed symptoms of major depression, far more than the three to five percent of men in the general population who suffer with the condition.

For the men I treated, becoming fathers represented far-ranging changes in their views of themselves.  Many felt ill equipped psychologically or economically or both to be valuable to a child.  For some, the birth of a child had made them dwell on their own fractured relationships with their dads.  For others, becoming a father made them feel as though their sex lives would be forever changed or even non-existent, lost in the translation from coupling to parenting.

More study is needed here, but one thing is clear:  It’s time for family physicians, obstetricians and pediatricians to be aware that post-partum depression affects mothers and fathers.  That means that children can be impacted early on in ways not previously understood or even considered.  The bonding necessary between mother and child has its counterpart in father-child bonding.  When depression interferes, the man isn’t the only one who suffers; so, too, does his son or daughter.

Here’s the good news:  Depression, including the postpartum variety, is highly treatable.  The vast majority of patients recover fully.  So lots of growing families can be helped by finding fathers for whom the joys of parenting are obscured by the shadow of a mental illness once thought to afflict only mothers.  

Watch Dr. Ablow discuss this topic on America’s Newsroom.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel. His book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty,” is a New York Times bestseller. Check out Dr. Ablow’s Web site at www.livingthetruth.com.

Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday.

A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Click here to read the full report

A British television executive committed suicide two months after he started taking the smoking cessation drug Champix, which is marketed as Chantix in the United States.

Omer Jama, 39, of Bolton, England, was a Sky Sports video editor who was taking the drug to try and kick his pack-a-day habit; it is being reported by London’s Daily Mail.

What do you think? Do you or someone you know take Chantix?