Theravive Home

A new memoir by environmental journalist Jeremy Leon Hance, incorporates travel, humor and mental illness. “I didn’t want to write a book about mental illness that was a downer or defeating, but rather I wanted to tell the story of how people actually live with chronic mental illness day by day, because so many of us do,” author Hance told us. “And sometimes, especially when you’re ten thousand miles from home, chasing endangered species through rainforests, it can be funny. I don’t shy away from some of the dark places our mental health struggles can take us, but try to tell a story of how a person moves forward, even if hesitantly, and does what’s important to them.” [More]

Teenagers experienced less anxiety and felt more connection to school during lock down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A study from the University of Bristol examined how 1000 teenagers across 17 schools in the South West of England coped during lockdown when they weren’t attending school in person. [More]

About 55 million women in the United States use oral contraception and 98 per cent of U.S. women have used birth control at some point. Most women use oral contraception as their method of birth control. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers oral contraception as an essential medicine. Some women stop taking birth control because it affects their moods. A new study recently published in Scientific Reports aimed to look at the effects of oral contraception on hormones and how that may affect mood. [More]

A study by researchers at Purdue University found that of all the tasks service dogs perform for their veteran owners with PTSD, disrupting anxiety was the most helpful. [More]

The large majority of young people who experience suicidal thoughts or self-harm experience only mild or moderate mental distress. Researchers from Cambridge University found that young people who thought about suicide or engaged in self harm were at medium risk for mental distress, rather than having obvious symptoms from a diagnosable disorder. [More]

A survey from the American Psychological Association (APA) found the pandemic is taking a toll on the mental health of parents. Almost half of parents with children aged less than 18 report their stress relating to the COVID19 pandemic is high. [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics looked at the number of times children visited emergency departments in the U.S. for mental health care. The purpose of the study was to describe the trends in pediatric mental health emergency department visits on a national scale. We know from other studies that often times, low pediatric volume and/or emergency departments located in non-metropolitan areas tend to be less prepared to treat children, as they may only see a few children a day. [More]

The pandemic pushed much of medical care to online, virtual platforms, virtually overnight. But is Internet-based health care, particularly mental health care, a safe and viable option? A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry looked at the effects of Internet versus face-to-face cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for health anxiety. [More]

On May 6th, maternal mental health organizations around the globe will be joining forces to raise awareness during World Maternal Mental Health Day which falls on the first Wednesday of May each year. Advocates say there is a lack of universal screening and access to treatment for pregnant women, new mothers, and also new fathers and partners who may also be suffering from a perinatal mental illness. [More]

Health authorities have emphasised the importance of social distancing to keep the community safe from COVID19, but for some, the social isolation can be challenging. But new research from the University of Buffalo suggests that there are other ways of fulfilling social needs without being physically close to others. [More]