Links
Links to Other Resources
Therapists
This is a link to therapist colleagues who we think do remarkable work.
Dr. Teleki is a young psychologist of great integrity who we have worked closely with for years. She graduated from what we think is one of the best clinical training programs in the country for psychologists - the Palo Alto University / Stanford combined PsyD program.
General Health Information
Medical Symptoms: This is a very useful general reference that talks about common medical symptoms and helps you to gather information that your doctor may want to know, and that also will allow you to determine when a problem is an emergency, and when getting help is less urgent.
General Mental Health Information
Mental Help Net : home of the oldest and largest online mental health guide and community.
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill : a grassroots, self-help support and advocacy organization of families and friends of people with serious mental illness, and those persons themselves.
National Mental Health Association : This organization has a helpful list of organizations involved in providing support to those with mental health conditions, as well as for family members.
American Psychiatric Association : a medical society, recognized world-wide, whose 40,500 U.S. and international physicians specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional illnesses and substance use disorders.
Pubmed : the National Library of Medicine's search service that provides access to over 11 million citations in MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, and other related databases, with links to participating online journals.
Expert Consensus Guidelines: Guides for Patients and Families
This website has the most comprehensive and up to date guides for patients and families with a variety of psychiatric conditions, including depression, bipolar disorder, various anxiety disorders, PTSD, etcetera. Some of them are even in Spanish.
Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Other Mood Disorders
MoodSurfing - This is a site devoted to living creatively with moods. Check it out, we think that you will like it.
The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) : DBSA was formerly the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association (National DMDA.) DBSA publishes more than two dozen educational materials about living with mood disorders, all available free of charge.
Jim Phelps PsychEducation website is a wealth of information on bipolar disorder, especially the "softer" bipolar spectrum of cyclothymia and bipolar type 2. It includes absolutely free the entire text of his great book: "Why Am I Still Depressed?".
Tom Wootton's Bipolar Advantage is dedicated to the idea that there are benefits to the experience of mood swings and that an important part of coming to grips with a mood disorder is understanding those benefits. He is a thoughtful person who has learned a lot from his own experience. Several patients at Gateway have attended seminars he has put on and found them to be very informative as well as inspirational.
Dr. Ivan's Depression Central : the Internet's central clearinghouse for information on all types of depressive disorders and on the most effective treatments for individuals suffering from Major Depression, Manic-Depression (Bipolar Disorder), Cyclothymia, Dysthymia and other mood disorders.
Recover Life from Depression is a very personal but extremely useful blog devoted to cataloging resources that are helpful for anyone dealing with chronic depression.
McMan's Depression and Bipolar Web
More than 250 articles on all aspects of depression and bipolar, plus news, FAQs, books, forums, and newsletter.
The Bipolar Disorder Sanctuary features suggested reading as well as bipolar criteria, self-care information, a chat room, personal stories and support.
Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety and Panic and Mindfulness Meditation
This is a very useful and interesting site that talks about the use of mindfulness techniques (see below) to help people with anxiety disorders. Lots of information and links.
Amy Saltzman has created a website that is a wonderful resource for those interested in exploring mindfulness meditation. I particularly value the work that she has done bringing the concepts fo mindfulness to children. She has a great CD which I often recommend which has short meditation exercises that you can listen to with your children... or by yourself... they are that good.
Forensic Psychiatry
Doctor Mark Levy, an expert in forensic psychiatry, has compiled an extensive set of resources on the topic. Topics include the standard of care for psychiatric practice, the Americans with Disabilities Act, employment discrimination and harassment, among others.
Self Help Resources
Dieting and Fitness
American Heart Association Fitness Center
This site by the American Heart Association provides all the resources you need to keep physically fit. Tools available include an 'Exercise Diary,' 'Fitness Resources,' and 'My Fitness' that helps you learn what fitness type best describes your lifestyle and how to get the greatest benefit from physical activity in your life.
eDiets.com
The most extensive site we reviewed, eDiets, is flexible enough to fit just about anybody's needs. You'll find an avalanche of articles, questions and answers, and success stories. Members start by picking one of 16 diet plans, (we recommend the excellent eDiets plan) and an exercise regimen. You get weekly meal plans, recipes with shopping lists, and caloric breakdowns. eDiets also makes it easy to synchronize a partner with your diet plan. The exercise program has animations that show how to do exercises correctly. The community area is equally wide ranging. On top of chat rooms, scheduled online group meetings, and forums, there's a buddy program called "circle of winners" that lets experienced members volunteer as mentors for newbies or for anyone who needs encouragement. Experts in a number of fields are available to answer members questions. Pricing is a bit complicated. One common scenario is to pay 5 dollars per week for a diet plan and then purchase fitness and recipe options, each costing an additional dollar a week.
Spark People
This is a site that a couple of our patients called to our attention. It is a well thought out application that is web based and works with your PC and with any smart phone so that you can keep track of food and exercise easily. But what really distinguishes it from other approaches is that it provides lot of support for change. Well thought out followup emails and messages. Awards. And a chance to join a group of folks like yourself who are trying to make changes. Try it.
www.yogalearningcenter.com
Although you can find a lot of information about yoga on the web, the yoga learning center is the first online yoga studio. This site adds a spiritual element to physical health that's refreshing to those who don't care about washboard abs and counting carbs. The YLC has video and audio practices suited to people of all skill and fitness levels.
A library of streaming audio and video content comes courtesy of yoga instructors. You can search by teacher, experience level, media type (audio, audio meditation, or video) and benefit, such as weight loss, back pain relief, or stress reduction. Sessions can be up to an hour long. The site also offers a handful of informative articles and a fledgling forum section. For $17.95 a month you have unlimited access to the site and all its contents. You won't find dietary advice or log calendars, but compared to the cost of attending regular yoga classes or amassing a yoga DVD collection, the YLC's approach is very reasonable.
www.weightwatchers.com
Weight watchers online serves up simplicity and easy to achieve results in large portions. You can use this site as an accessory to weight watchers traditional meetings or as a standalone service. You won't be isolated from peer support. When we dropped into a chat room, the fourteen visitors there were discussing how to make diet friendly tacos. The foundation of weight watchers is the point system. Every food has a given number of points, based on calories, fat, and fiber content. Depending on your age, weight, and height, weight watchers tells you how many points you should consume in a day. In addition, you get a number of flex points each week, for when you have to fudge (sometimes literally). You can also earn activity points with exercise to supplement your food points. Weight watchers online is easy to navigate, with practically no commercial clutter. The recipe and restaurant resources are useful, but there is no option for generating a weekly shopping list.
Other Resources
A recent article in the British Journal of Psychiatry reported on excellent results using this telephone and email therapy resource for people suffering from panic, anxiety or phobias. It costs about 500$ for 13 weeks of treatment. This is certainly an excellent resource for those who can't find good quality cognitive behaviorally based therapy for these common disorders.
The Mood Gym - Online Psychotherapy
Having tried internet and telephone therapy, we still think that in person is much better, but for those who can't find a therapist nearby that is good, it might be worth trying. We have been through a bit of what is available at this website and we were impressed. If you are pretty motivated and you are looking for alternatives, try this. And let us know what you think.
Queendom - Online Psychotherapy
We don't really know much about this resource. But we do know that the website that this link comes from is well regarded. If you do try it we would love your candid comments.
Complementary and Alternative Medicine Approaches
This website provides helpful and balanced information about alternative approaches to the treatment of a number of health conditions, including mood and anxiety disorders.
This is a very elegant resource that outlines the basic principles of Aikido. Included are some remarkable video clips that demonstrate powerful relaxation and breathing techniques.
A very useful site for those interested in learning more about meditation tecniques.
Mindfulness Meditation Downloadable Instruction
This Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA has downloadable (and free) meditation guides of various lengths and in various formats.
This site provides a fair amount of free information on how breathing exercises can reduce anxiety. It also provides access to an excellent manual available for purchase.
Progressive Relaxation Program
This is an excellent resource for developing a program of Progressive Muscle Relaxation, which is the foundation of treatment for many anxiety disorders.
This is another good site for information about relaxation exercises.
This commercial website offers a surprising amount of useful information on how to control anger, and also on the high costs of not doing so.
Answers for Those Dealing with Loss: Beyond Indigo
This is a remarkable internet site that deals in a comprehensive and compassionate way with all of the things that those who are dealing with loss. Beyond Indigo, is the web's leading source of information on grief, grieving, death and dying. Beyond Indigo offers detailed and heartfelt support and well-managed information. It facilitates chat rooms and discussions on various topics.
Carol Kearns this is a deeply personal and moving website about grief and the process of recovery from one of the bay area's experts on the subject. Carol Kearns has spoken to audiences nationally and internationally about the process of moving through grief. She began her work in this area after her daughter died as the result of a freak wave on the Oregon coast. I recommend the site and her book to everyone who has experienced grief and everyone who has an interest in the topic.
This website was highly recommended by a group of national mental health experts. It is comprehensive, thoughtfully laid out, and answers legal and psychological questions that come up in the context of this turbulent and potentially traumatic event.
OA is modeled on the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-Step program of recovery . OA is not a diet-and-calories club. It is a worldwide organization -- men and women, young and old -- who are seeking relief and recovery from addiction to food.
AASF - The AA website with the comprehensive meeting schedule for San Francisco and links to other Bay Area counties meetings. Very complete.
SFNA - The Narcotics Anonymous website for SF. Also a very complete meeting schedule
womenforsobriety.org - We think this is really worth reading. Women for Sobriety is a peer support groups for women in substance abuse recovery. It is non-12-step oriented, but has a very empowering message.
Prescription Medication Savings
This is a site that allows you to compare costs of medications from different internet sources.
This is one of the best of the prescription drug savings cards, it costs about 45.95$ per year for an individual or 49.95$ for a family and allows you to go to any one of 52,000 pharmacies and pay prices that are about the same as the lowest warehouse store price.
This site is a nice source of information about the various programs provided by different manufacturers of medications.
San Francisco Department of Health Website
SFDPH has just created (June 2004) a new webpage with information about purchasing prescription medications from Canada. Note that Canadian pharmacies are not all the same price and neither are they necessarily less expensive than a US online pharmacy.
Granville Pharmacy - This Canadian pharmacy comes with a strong recommendation from one of our patients who is pretty knowledgeable about good customer service.
Insurance Resources
Here are a couple of sites that have useful information about health insurance resources:
NAMI San Francisco An affiliate of NAMI the National Alliance on Mental Illness