Editor Liz Spikol writes the column "The Trouble With Spikol" for Philadelphia Weekly, and maintains the blog by the same name. Her column and other writing have been honored by the Keystone Press Association, the Chess Journalism Association, the National Mental Health Association, the Mayor’s Commission on Access and Disability, the Philadelphia Psychiatric Association, the Society for Professional Journalists and others. She has appeared in Style Weekly, the Painted Bride Quarterly, and has been featured on National Public Radio’s The Infinite Mind and Radio Times, on the Discovery Channel, Not for Tourists, the Jewish Exponent, Alternet.com, Mind Hacks, Beliefnet, the New York Times, and others. Her blog, www.thetroublewithspikol.com, was a Webby Award Honoree, won a Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society for Professional Journalists as well as a top honor from Psych Central. She was in the documentary Murder Hotel and hopes that won’t be her last imdb entry because her YouTube channel doesn’t count.

Blog Entries by Liz Spikol

Tips From Real, Live, Breathing, Non-Professional People on Dealing With Stress

Posted April 30, 2009 | 03:26 PM (EST)


You've seen them -- the lists, tips, tricks, tools telling you how to make your life better. Some are great. They're fun. And sometimes useful. And sometimes, not so much.

They're especially prevalent in the context of mental health newsletters and websites, which is understandable. After all, those of us...

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Sarah Palin Wears Fake Glasses?

Posted September 9, 2008 | 05:53 PM (EST)


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The London Telegraph's Celia Walden had herself done up like Sarah Palin. She writes:

As a former beauty queen, Sarah Palin has a point to make: she's a female Clark Kent wishing to distance herself from the spandex and big hair of her...
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Some Books Just Shouldn't Exist

Posted August 1, 2008 | 05:52 PM (EST)


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Mental Recession: Like Manna From Heaven

Posted July 11, 2008 | 02:55 PM (EST)


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Phil Gramm, how you've cheered me. Here I was, feeling sad about my $4-per-gallon gas prices and $20 bunch of bananas and now I hear I have nothing to worry about. Because the recession is actually just "mental"!

You can't imagine what this...

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Is Suicide Preventable?

Posted July 8, 2008 | 05:42 PM (EST)


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There's No Excuse for Overmedicating the Elderly

Posted June 24, 2008 | 04:35 PM (EST)


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The elderly in nursing homes have long been treated poorly, as so many guilty adult children (cf. The Savages) can attest. But because of societal prejudices and pervasive ageism, little attention has been paid by the mainstream media. Now, however, one of the...

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Gay Brain, My Brain, Your Brain...

Posted June 18, 2008 | 10:36 AM (EST)


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A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says gays and lesbians do, in fact, have biological differences that suggest homosexuality is determined during fetal development. Gay men's brains are configured more like heterosexual women's brains, while lesbians' brain...

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New Technology and New Clothing for People with Autism

Posted May 27, 2008 | 11:42 AM (EST)


Recently Brian Mullen, an engineering student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, won the school's Technology Innovation Challenge by inventing a new kind of Deep Pressure vest. Autistic children, their parents, and adults with mental illnesses may be inclined to rejoice. Says Mullen, as quoted on ScienceDaily.com:

"People...

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(Manic) Depression Confessions: Christina Ricci and Mel Gibson

Posted May 19, 2008 | 03:30 PM (EST)


In 2007 and 2008, many celebrities have come out of the closet about struggling with mental illness.

Just a brief rundown:

- Delta Burke (serious clinical depression)

- Patrick Dempsey (depression, for about two days)

- Alicia Keys (depression)

- Drew Carey (depression)

- Fall-Out Boy's Pete Wentz (manic-depression -...

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