Jane Chin, Ph.D.

I Blog About Mental Health to Save My Own Life

by Jane Chin, Ph.D. As part of American Psychological Association’s effort to help people recognize the importance of good mental health, overcome stigma, and seek out professional mental health services when needed, here is why I have been blogging about mental health since 1998: To Save My Life from the Death Grip of Depression. If [...]

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Teenagers Sleep Deprivation Corresponds with Increased Rates of Depression

This morning on NPR I heard a segment that didn’t surprise me (since I’ve lived through the teenager depression years)! Today’s teenagers are chronically sleep deprived. They should be getting about 9.5 hours of sleep – but they would get on average only 7 hours of sleep per day. The cumulative sleep debt that teenagers [...]

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Beware of Grapefruits and Pomelos in Drug Interactions

Grapefruits and pomelos may cause accumulation of the drugs that have to be cleared (metabolized) through the liver enzyme CYP450 3A4. Many psychotropics and antidepressants used by psychiatrists to treat conditions including depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety are metabolized through CYP450 3A4. This means you have to be very careful if you are used to [...]

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Abilify in Bipolar Disorder: Doctors say, “We Need More (Good) Data!”

Medical researchers are asking for better data on aripiprazole (brand name, Abilify) based on the latest PLoS publication, “Aripiprazole in the Maintenance Treatment of Bipolar Disorder: A Critical Review of the Evidence and Its Dissemination into the Scientific Literature”. Basically the title is translated as, “objectively looking at Abilify’s use long term in bipolar disorder.” [...]

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What It Feels Like to Live With Depression (and the Difference from Bipolar Disorder)

I’ll provide some of the “old scripts” that I’ve lived with personally when I suffered from clinical depression in the 1990s. These have included: “If I were to disappear from the world today, no one would notice or even care. So what’s preventing me from turning my car off the side of the ramp.” “I [...]

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“Jane for Windows” – A Window Between Worlds Fundraising

A Window Between Worlds (AWBW) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded to use art as a healing tool to help victims of domestic violence find their “voice” so they can express what words cannot say. I will be using this donation thermometer for the next few months to track my progress in helping AWBW raise [...]

Quora Posts on Depression and Bipolar Disorder

I’m active on Quora these days, since it’s become one of my favorite “thinking places” with a rich diversity of people and very bright and curious minds. There are various topics relating to depression and bipolar disorder on Quora that you may find interesting. I don’t answer all of them, but if I wrote an [...]

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Why I Wrote “The Youngest Light”

When I first set out to write this book, I thought I was writing a different book. I thought I would write about my journey through clinical depression, how I was helped by medication and psychotherapy, and specifically, how the strange dreams (often spiritual with animal themes) I was having played a large part in [...]

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