Dr. K Psychiatry

12/28/2025

Here are some important words paraphrased and excerpted from today's Stoic Wisdoms email:

You’ve been working on yourself for a long time now. "Reading the books, doing the practices...Some days you feel transformed. Other days you feel like you’re exactly who you’ve always been, just with better vocabulary for your limitations. Are you actually getting anywhere, or are you just moving in circles at a higher altitude?"

"But understanding isn’t the same as transformation. Knowledge isn’t wisdom."

"Most people judge their progress by how they feel. If they feel more confident, they assume they’re progressing. If they feel anxious or uncertain, they assume they’re regressing. But feelings are terrible measures of development because they fluctuate based on sleep, blood sugar, recent events, and a thousand other variables that have nothing to do with actual growth."

"You can be making tremendous progress while feeling terrible because growth often feels like confusion, uncertainty, and the discomfort of outgrowing old patterns. You can be completely stagnant while feeling great because familiar patterns feel comfortable even when they’re limiting you."

Progress can falsely look like stagnation on the inside because your automatic thoughts are still there. Accept that those negative thoughts will never be gone. Otherwise, its more all or nothing thinking. This is a normal part of being human. But by paying attention and practicing, you can reduce the amount of time and the amount of depth in these negative mind states.

Don't give up, keep practicing.
-Dr. K

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12/22/2025

Why do people resist in psychotherapy? Because "I've been wrong about my beliefs all this time" is one of the most difficult things to accept in life. (And can be one of the most unburdening at the same time!)
- Dr. K

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12/17/2025

This was forwarded to me by one of my clients. This might not resonate you right now, and for some people it might even feel invalidating...We may feel that we're entitled to be angry about feeling wronged in the past, or to be damaged by past trauma. But the meme is right, change is our own responsibility regardless of where the problem originated. Therapy can help but it starts with willingness to examine what you're doing that might be maintaining the problem, and being willing to make changes.
- Dr. K

12/17/2025

If you could press one button to get better, would you? What about two buttons? Three? Ten? Where do you draw the line? How much effort is worth the results? The recall of past attempts to do positive things is coloured by bias when you are depressed, making it feel not worth the effort. Studies show that recall of pleasure weeks later is not the same as pleasure endorsed in the moment. We need to accept this, and challenge our own estimation of the value of the efforts we make, while we are feeling down. Do the thing anyway and check the results.
- Dr. K

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12/16/2025

No surprise here to me, but a recently published study reviewing 15 years of data shows very little evidence of benefit for medical cannabis beyond cancer pain and chemotherapy induced nausea. Translated: Overall, for psychiatric patients, the potential harms outweigh the potential benefits. Here's the article: https://futurism.com/health-medicine/huge-study-medical-marijuana?utm_campaign=website&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nautilus-newsletter
and here is a link to the original publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2842072
For my patients, I see a clear link between chronic cannabis use and anxiety getting worse, not better, and it interferes with treatment for ADHD.
- Dr. K

This review discusses current evidence about the therapeutic use of cannabis and cannabinoids in adults, potential harms, and evidence-based clinical guidance, including pretreatment screening and addressing preexisting cannabis use in clinical settings.

12/10/2025

A client did a thought record about a Christmas party that she was avoiding because of anxiety. She felt disappointed in herself for not going, and the duration of the disappointment far exceeded the duration of the anticipatory anxiety that would have been there before going. Other rational responses: people are not there to make you the centre of their attention, whatever they notice about you will be transient, you don't have to look perfect, just put on a Christmas hat and sweater, the cookies don't have to be perfect, make them messy on purpose and they still taste good, other parties you went to were fun enough, maybe do something while there to make someone else feel good, people aren't at the party to judge you, face the fear and do it anyway, consider it a novel experience which is what makes life interesting.
- Dr. K

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12/10/2025

Christmas can be a hard time for lots of people, especially if you've lost a loved one recently. Ask yourself, would that loved one want you to stay at home feeling sorry for yourself, or would that person want you go go out and do your best to enjoy the life you have? If its rational for you in your own grief to stay home feeling sad, wouldn't that be true for everyone else who has ever lost anyone? And if that was true, what would the world end up being like? If there is a way for others with losses to still keep going, there must also be a way for you to do the same.

- Dr. K

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12/09/2025

I am accepting new referrals for psychiatric assessment and care, with a physician or nurse practitioner referral to my office. I have capacity to see new patients for virtual visits (Zoom or OTN) as early as within one week. Unlike some other virtual providers, these are NOT only one-time assessments, and I am able to provide ongoing follow up for pharmacotherapy and CBT, if indicated.

Although I prefer not to do hour long consults face to face at this time, I do have some time for shorter face to face follow up visits, if that’s preferable for some patients.

- Dr. K

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12/06/2025

A very important message from Sam. You might not agree with his politics but as a neuroscientist, he nails this. Reflect on it.
Dr. K

12/05/2025

One of my clients is reading a book by a psychotherapist named Jokobec. She pointed out our tendency to keep looking for the lost keys under the streetlight, because that's where we can see the best, but why do we keep doing that if we know we already looked there and didn't find the keys? Do we do this a lot in life, keep repeating the same failed approach to a problem? CBT says nothing changes till you make the change yourself. It's true. Perhaps your frustration is coming from not making the change you need to make. We tend to keep looking for the easy solution but when that's not working it could be that we have to look somewhere else, and do the harder work to find what we want.
- Dr. K

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11/27/2025

I read that eating a sour candy may help abort a panic attack. Can anybody verify whether that works?
- Dr. K

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11/23/2025

This might be a Buddhist concept, but it’s also found in Stoicism. Still, you don’t have to be a stoic or Buddhist to understand the truth in this.
Dr. K

Every minute you spend trying to change what’s outside your control —
people’s behavior, their opinions, the past, the weather, the outcome —
is a minute taken away from what actually lies in your power.

And you only get so many minutes in this lifetime.

The Buddha taught this through the principle of right effort and mindfulness:
✨ Focus your energy where it can create change,
not where it will only create suffering. ✨

Most of our stress comes from trying to rearrange the external world.
But peace comes from managing the internal one.

Instead of fighting what you can't control, invest your time in what you can:

🌿 Your reactions
🌿 Your attitude
🌿 Your habits
🌿 Your discipline
🌿 Your mindset
🌿 Your compassion
🌿 Your choices
🌿 Your personal growth

These are the places where transformation begins.

Every minute you stop wasting on the uncontrollable is a minute gained for healing, progress, clarity, and purpose.

Life is short.
Your minutes are limited.

🌼 Fill them with actions that truly make a difference —
within you and around you.