Is there such a thing as a finite and innate capacity to learn? Is it at all possible to measure it? Is there any point, and what could be the possible motives in doing so?

Is postnatal depression a label slapped onto the discomfort caused by the sudden change in a woman’s life when she has a baby, or is it a useful diagnostic category covering many and varied experiences, all of which can be significantly helped by treatment?

“Mommies who drink: Sex, Drugs and other Distant Memories of an Ordinary Mom” reveals just how judgmental we can be can be when it comes to motherhood, how deeply the expectations run that women transform overnight when they become mothers, losing not only half their brains but all their previous adult tastes, becoming wholesome and somewhat childlike themselves.

“The world is much more than can be formulated by our theories, but when we approach it with a particular theory it responds in a particular way. Our theories can draw out different aspects of the world.” This quote comes from The Focusing-Oriented Counselling Primer, which I have just finished reading.

A study which has been all over the press reports research findings from the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, that children with one particular version of a particular gene scored higher in IQ tests, between the ages of five and thirteen, if they had been breastfed.

As we swam in the covered pool, I looked through the windows at people walking to the shops wearing coats, hats and scarves. Outside, at four o’clock in the afternoon, it was dark, and freezing. Inside, just on the other side of a thin pane of glass, it was bright and steamy, and we moved around in the water freely. It made me wonder about the different worlds we all live in.

Is there some kind of division between ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ suffering, noble sufferers and self indulgent rich kids?