Renato D. Alarcón, MD, MPH

How do Eastern religions, spirituality, and cultural psychiatry shape our understanding of mental health?

What are the cultural psychiatry perspectives on personality disorders? Don't miss this APA session!

“This book is an original piece of psychiatric treatment didactics that has very useful characteristics for the benefit of well-motivated patients and conscientious mental health professionals.”

"This volume is a fascinating incursion into a field that everybody talks about, but few examine in depth."

An expert reviews Thomas Insel's book and reflects on what its insights mean for our field.

Thomas Insel, MD’s, book contains several highly valuable lessons for psychiatry and beyond.

This new work examines faith and tradition versus medical and scientific knowledge in the psychiatry-Christianity equation.

Mental health: a crucial component of the new global reality.

We are seeing a rise in hatred and lack of empathy in the face of COVID-19.

Conceived as a needed sequel of Islamophobia and Psychiatry, this volume reflects not only the intellectual cogency and scholarly vision of its Editors but also a solid presentation of multiple perspectives on a complex social phenomenon.

The COVID-19 pandemic has gained its place on the dark side of world history for a variety of reasons: sudden onset, speed of global transmission, mistakes in recognition and management, politically inspired neglect or minimizations.

The goals of psychotherapy education in medical school should be based on these seven ideals.

A diminished interest in psychotherapeutic interventions runs the risk of missing patients' emotional, social, and practical needs (including medication-modifiable symptoms) and, thus, less clinically responsible care.

This book focuses on Islamophobia’s multifaceted nature, its broad and specific clinical challenges, and its connections with the current political realities of a convulsed world.

Ten points to consider on the social phenomenon of migration of millions of people across the globe.

Culture is far from having outlived its usefulness for psychiatry.

Suggestions for what psychiatry can do to alleviate, contain, and eventually prevent or avoid the demolition of culture and health.

To neglect the cultural components of any given diagnosis or behavior, to ignore the role of culture-based individual attitudes, beliefs or practices in the face of adversity, would be a disservice.

A Q&A on the emerging field of positive psychiatry.

I appreciate Drs Spitzer and Frances’ prompt response to my article, which was published in the July issue of Psychiatric Times. I also thank them for their good wishes and thoughts about what we are doing as members of the DSM-V workgroups-membership whose rules we all knew and freely accepted.

Being a member of 1 of the 13 working groups of the DSM-V Task Force is, indeed, a unique experience. Having a large number of respected colleagues working diligently on areas that they have mastered with indisputable authority over the years is an intellectually fascinating experience.

The setting of a fast-paced emergency department (ED) or psychiatric emergency service makes it especially difficult to sensitively elicit and address an individual patient's needs and concerns. When considering the myriad differences in culture that come into play between a patient and a psychiatrist or other mental health care clinician, optimal diagnosis and treatment can be even more challenging, as the cases described here illustrate. The important influence of culture cannot be stressed enough. Taking the time to understand "where the patient is coming from" can prevent an already stressful, highly emotionally charged situation from becoming even more convoluted.