Charlotte Walker

Author: Charlotte Walker

  • Borderline personality disorder (BPD)

    The concept of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is thought to have first emerged in the 1930s via the work of Adolph Stern and to have been formally consolidated via the 3rd edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM; APA, 1980). Contemporary diagnostic criteria as stated in the fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5; APA,…

  • How to cope with reviewer feedback

    Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash I’ve just submitted my first solo article to a peer reviewed journal. I’ve told myself that I’m now going to put it out of my mind and think about other things, maybe even start writing another paper to keep the momentum going. In the back of my mind though I’m preparing myself…

  • Book review: PhD Voice and PhD Voice Community (2023) 100 Tips for Doing Your PhD

    PhD Voice and PhD Voice Community (2023) 100 Tips for Doing Your PhD on Amazon I’d never heard of PhD Voice, but according to Amazon, it “has become a leading figure for PhD students around the world. It has interacted with 100,000s of PhD students, resulting in PhD Voice having unparalleled experience and knowledge of…

  • Why don’t people with mental health problems just get a job?

    Last week I went to the House of Lords, something I found quite intimidating. Thankfully I was supported by a member of Rethink campaigns team in giving oral evidence to a Parliamentary Review. Chaired by Lord Low of Dalston, the Review was set up to assess the likely impact of a proposed benefit cut. The cut would affect the…

  • Ten ways to make service user participation more meaningful

    I’ve been to a few events in past months as a patient/service user representative. Some events have had a specific mental health remit, others have looked at the wider NHS, but either way the focus has been on improving individuals’ treatment journeys. So why is it that some of these events have left me, the…

  • Ten things not to say to a suicidal person

    In July 2011 I wrote a post entitled, “Ten things not to say to a depressed person.” It was the first piece on this blog to attract a large audience and I own much of my blogging success to that post and its companion piece, “Ten supportive things I’m glad somebody said to me.” I’ve…

  • A Mind Media Award winner – thanks to you

    This is a  quick post just to say a huge thank you to anyone who nominated this blog for the Mark Hanson digital media award at the 2013 Mind Media Awards. When the email came to say I’d been shortlisted I was astonished because I hadn’t known I had even been nominated in the first…

  • Ten supportive things I’m glad somebody said to me

    I certainly received a lot of comments on my last post – many, many more than I was hoping for or expecting! A couple of people suggested that it might be useful and/or interesting to see a similar list of ten things which would be helpful to say to someone experiencing depression. I have also…

  • Ten things not to say to a depressed person

    Depression is a very common illness.  The World Health Organization estimates that between 5 and 10% of us are, at any given time, suffering from depression which meets the clinical criteria for a mental illness.  Over a person’s life-time, their risk of experiencing clinical depression is 10-20% in women and girls, and slightly less in…