How Not to Beat Depression

Monday, July 1, 2024

This week from The Walrus:

You Can’t Talk Your Way Out of Depression

The best way to heal your mind is by paying attention to your body

BY MISTY PRATT

Against a black background with grey clouds, a hand pokes through to a sliver of bright blue sky.

[Cognitive behavioural therapy] doesn’t ignore physical feelings, but the therapist helps to break down problems into separate parts: the anxious thought (“I’m scared that I’ll faint”), the physical sensations (“My heart pounds and my hands get sweaty”), and the action (“I leave the situation as quickly as possible”). The goal is to change the thought, which creates a domino effect of changing the physical sensations and behaviours. CBT is very much focused on the here and now, so there’s no exploration of past relationships, trauma, or family dynamics (with the exception of CBT therapies that have been adapted to focus on trauma). It also doesn’t address wider societal or environmental problems that may be affecting a person’s well‐being.

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Faith and Access: The Conflict inside Catholic Hospitals

Revisiting our story on religious limitations in hospitals amid new reporting on MAID

BY WENDY GLAUSER

A photo of Narendra Modi standing before an orange background.

India’s Election Shake‐Up Will Impact Canada

Narendra Modi’s weakened third term forces Trudeau’s government to rethink its complicated relationship with India

BY THE WALRUS STAFF

A vintage thermostat on a wall with faded, dotted wallpaper.

In a Province Where Electricity Is Cheap, How Do You Get Consumers to Use Less Power?

Quebec has to conserve energy in its push to electrify everything

BY SANDRINE RASTELLO

Colonization Has Made a Taboo Out of Menstruation

My blood and how it speaks to me have become sources of my courage, my decisiveness, my quelling of self‐doubt

BY LAAKKULUK WILLIAMSON BATHORY

A view of the earth from space, bisected to show a Pride flag.

“Nature’s Not Judging Us”: On Being Out, Outside

The modern way of understanding our living planet has failed us. It’s time for something queerer

BY KC HOARD

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This newsletter was produced by CIBC Digital Journalism Fellow Makda Mulatu. Email us at letters@thewalrus.ca and your letter may be included in a future issue of The Walrus.