Mental Health Misinformation: Why is Online Anxiety "Science" So Confusing? | EP 334
The Anxious Truth - A Panic, Anxiety, and Mental Health PodcastShow Notes
Send in a question or comment via text. If you've been searching online for ways to deal with your anxiety, you've probably noticed there's an avalanche of information claiming to be "science-based" or "evidence-based." But here's the problem. That isn't always true. This week I'm joined by Dr. Birthe Macdonald, a research psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist, to talk about why online mental health information is so confusing and full of misinformation. We discuss why things that aren't...
More from The Anxious Truth - A Panic, Anxiety, and Mental Health Podcast
Send in a question or comment via text. If you have OCD, you've probably heard that it can never be cured, only managed. That can leave you wondering what happens if it comes back. This week I talk with Jess Marriner, an OCD therapist in the UK who also has OCD, about what that actually looks like and what she does when it happens. A few days before we recorded, Jess had a morning where she fell down the rabbit hole of ruminating about one of her classic themes. She's open about that because ...
Send in a question or comment via text. "How do I stop scanning and checking myself all the time?" If you struggle with anxiety or OCD, you've probably asked some version of that question. Scanning your body for sensations. Scanning for bad thoughts. Checking whether a thought or emotion is the right one. I get asked how to make it stop almost every day. In this episode I tell you the honest answer. You can't turn it off. Even my therapist brain scans and checks. I get migraine aura, an...
Send in a question or comment via text. "I almost passed out." "I almost made a scene." "I almost ruined everything." If you have an anxiety disorder or OCD, you probably recognize that sentence. The word almost shows up constantly, and treating it like a fact is one of the things that keeps the cycle going. In this episode I want to talk about what I call the almost story: the narrative anxiety and OCD write after a difficult moment to give your escape behaviors and compulsions credit for pr...
Send in a question or comment via text. Every time you give in to an avoidance or a ritual, it seems reasonable. Skip one social event, spend a few extra minutes on a compulsion, take one "me day" instead of pushing through. In isolation, none of it feels like a big deal. What's the harm? That's the trap. Not the individual behaviors themselves, but what happens when you add them all up. In this episode I want to talk about what I call negotiated avoidance: the process by which each individua...
Send in a question or comment via text. Anxiety disorders and OCD are what you get when a perfectly functioning brain applies its usual problem-solving strategies to the wrong problem. Your brain is good at solving things. The trouble is it keeps trying to solve something that isn't actually the problem, and that's what keeps you stuck in the loop: trigger, fix, feel better for a while, repeat. In this episode I want to introduce the concept of strategy mismatch. The things that seem to need ...