Mental Health MOC
This cluster is unusual in that it straddles two registers that most knowledge systems
keep separate: clinical reference material and personal experience. The diagnostic and
therapeutic concepts here are not purely academic — they are frameworks that have been
applied to an actual life, and the notes in this cluster reflect both the textbook
definition and the lived texture of what these things feel like from the inside.
Publishing this cluster is a deliberate choice. Writing about bipolar disorder, mood
tracking, and psychological tools from the position of someone inside the experience
rather than observing it from outside is one of the more distinctive things this garden
has to offer. The clinical notes are accurate; the personal notes are honest.
Entry Point
A relatively small but clinically significant term that should be understood in its own right in order to fully understand. The subtle yet meaningful diagnosis between Bipolar I and II
A skill that is a heavy component of Dialectical Behavior Therapy and necessary when doing introspective work. It is a large part of my personal toolkit and I reference it (directly and indirectly) a ton so should be an easy way to get a path into notes of this cluster
Diagnostic Concepts
Short notes of definitions that are particularly ubiquitous or important
- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition
The DSM-5. The Bible of psychology diagnostics and bane of therapists everywhere. - Hypomanic Episode
The defining feature of Bipolar Disorder and usually not well understood. - Major Depressive Episode
The depressive pole. Diagnostic criteria and what it actually looks like in practice.
Therapeutic Tools & Frameworks
Skills and frameworks from evidence-based therapeutic modalities. Backed by peer reviewed studies, these are known to be effective for people managing symptoms/disorders
- Radical Acceptance
A DBT skill that teaches us how to accept the things we cannot change. - Dialectical Behavior Therapy — The therapeutic modality that radical acceptance
and many other skills in this cluster come from. Hub note for the framework.
Memory, Affect & Psychological Experience
Notes that live in both the cognitive science cluster and the personal experience
cluster. The science of memory and affect is also a science of how we experience
our own histories.
- Fading Affect Bias — Negative emotional memories fade faster than positive ones.
Relevant both as cognitive science (MOC_LearningCognition) and as a lens on
personal psychological experience. - Malleability of Memory — Memories are reconstructions. Relevant here for what
it means about how we interpret our own past. - Doom Box — The container of nostalgia objects that resist being discarded. More
psychologically interesting than it first appears — it's a physical manifestation of
how we relate to memory and identity over time.
Threads & Open Questions
- The daily mood tracking data exists in the vault but hasn't been reflected on as a
dataset. A note synthesizing what the mood logs show over time would be worth writing. - The connection between hypomania and the creative/productivity surges described in
the long-form writing hasn't been made explicit as a clinical observation. - No note yet on the specific relationship between ADHD and the PKM system — the vault
itself is partly a response to executive function challenges.
Related MOCs
- MOC_LearningCognition — Memory and affect science connects directly to the
cognitive architecture cluster. - MOC_Writing — Much of the personal narrative in the long-form cluster is written
through the lens of mental health experience.