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Involuntary Treatment and the Use of Jails to Treat the Mentally IllAll physicians need to be aware of the medicolegal aspects of practicing medicine, but because emergency psychiatrists must sometimes treat patients against their will or act as consultants to determine capacity, they must be especially vigilant when dealing with the overlap between law and medicine.
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We in Psychiatry Are Freedom Fighters for the MindWhat relevance does freedom have to psychiatry?
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Malingering: Key Points in AssessmentThe assessment of malingering presents a significant challenge for mental health clinicians.
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Pet Technology Sheds Light On Tobacco DependenceTypical smokers need to have brain nicotine receptors almost completely saturated throughout the day. This need creates an almost uncontrollable urge to keep smoking, commented Nora D. Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), addressing a study by NIDA researchers on nicotine addiction.
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Violence in Bipolar DisorderWhat is the association between bipolar disorder, trauma, and violence? Here: a guide to assessing violence potential in bipolar patients.
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Biomarkers for Mental Disorders: A Field Whose Time Has ComeBiomarkers for mental disorders is a field whose time has come. Optimists will say within a few years, pessimists might say a decade or beyond.
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Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: An Update on Diagnosis and TreatmentPremenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a distinct cyclical disorder in which women experience distressed mood and behavioral symptoms in the late luteal or premenstrual phase of their menstrual cycle. PMDD is the most extreme or severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS).
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Neoplasm or Demyelinating Lesion?A 32-year-old left-handed woman presented with a 4-week history of progressive left hand numbness, tingling, and clumsiness. Symptoms worsened until she found it difficult to write and perform fine motor tasks. She reported having no transient neurological symptoms in the past. Her medical history was significant only for Dengue fever acquired several years ago while on a visit to Southeast Asia. She was taking no medications, and a review of systems was noncontributory.
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Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy: Should We Be Worried?The term “CTE” was introduced recently to describe progressive neuropathological changes and diffuse neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with a history of TBI. Here, a clinical overview of TBI and CTE.
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Mini Quiz: Suicide Risk StratificationWhat are the core components of a therapeutic risk management framework for a suicidal patient? Find out in this quiz.
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Psychiatric Epigenetics: A Key to the Molecular Basis of and Therapy for Psychiatric DisordersThe major challenges for epigenetic therapies are target specificity of the drugs-an issue that is also true for most of the currently used drugs in medicine, especially in psychiatry.
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The Rise and Fall of the Biopsychosocial ModelUltimately, Dr Ghaemi endorses a pluralistic approach and a “method-based psychiatry” in contrast to the eclecticism of the BPS. This method-based approach recognizes that one method may be more correct than others on the basis of empirical data and conceptual soundness (the “less is more” view), versus the BPS model, in which all methods can be equally correct (the “more is better” view).
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Essential Issues in Pediatric Psychosomatic MedicinePediatric psychosomatic research shows that emotional, behavioral, and psychiatric symptoms are found more often in children and adolescents with chronic illnesses than in healthy children.
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Treating Mental Illness Before it StrikesPsychotic episodes are devastating for the individuals who have them, their friends, and families. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if individuals could receive treatment before the first psychotic episode strikes, so that it could be avoided altogether?
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New Approaches to Juvenile Delinquency: Psychopathology, Development, and NeuroscienceNew findings in epidemiology, developmental psychiatry, and neuroscience offer the opportunity for a new perspective on the problems of juvenile delinquency and bring to bear the insights of modern psychiatry in the treatment and successful rehabilitation of juvenile offenders.
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Defending a Malpractice Suit: Lessons LearnedAfter being sued for psychiatric malpractice and enduringa 4-year roller-coaster ride of fear, hope, hard work, anxiety, and detachment, the author passes along lessons learned.
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The Conundrum of Psychiatric ComorbiditySince the revision of DSM-III, high rates of co-occurring psychiatric disorders have been observed, particularly in cases of moderate and severe psychiatric illness. The reason lies in the design of the diagnostic system itself: DSM-IV is a descriptive, categorical system that splits psychiatric behaviors and symptoms into numerous distinct disorders, and uses few exclusionary hierarchies to eliminate multiple diagnoses.
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Improving Mental Health Care in America: An Opportunity for Comprehensive ReformThe authors outline the ingredients for the transformation of mental health care in America.
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Adverse Effects of Antipsychotics and Mood StabilizersAlthough psychotropic medications have revolutionized the treatment of many psychiatric disorders, the benefits sometimes come at a price.
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The Once-Forgotten Factor in Psychiatry: Research Findings on Religious Commitment and Mental HealthAs previously discussed, new research has made us look much more closely at the influence of religion and spirituality on overall health. Now more than 30 psychiatric residencies including Harvard, Baylor, and Georgetown provide focused training on addressing patients' religious/spiritual beliefs.
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Patients Versus Therapists: Legal Actions Over Recovered Memory TherapyThe debate over the accuracy of memories of childhood sex abuse that are recovered decades later, usually during the course of therapy, has led to the polarization of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. There are those who claim that -recovered memories are, in the main, accurate, and there are others who believe that most, if not all, recovered memories are false.
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Fostering Resilience After Trauma: A Clinical Conversation"I refuse to see sexual violence as a 'women’s issue.' It is a human issue and should be addressed as one."
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Psychiatry Residents: Best of Luck!My advice to residents is that you remain open to the opportunities that surround you every day as you continue your education and professional training.
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Illicit Drug Dependence Across the Globe: Results From the Global Burden of Disease 2010 StudyHow prevalent is dependence on amphetamines, cocaine, opioids, and other illicit drugs across the world? What is the associated disease burden? Insights here.
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Protecting Yourself and Your PatientsGood risk management is part of, but also distinct from, good clinical practice. The principles of risk management evolved in the 1960s as a way to defend businesses from loss of financial assets from tort claims
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End-of-Life Care and the ElderlyEvery life ends with death. For the elderly, death is the end of a long life that has been shaped by personal history and world events, various relationships, well-set personality characteristics and, of course, happenstance. Each of these, in addition to the specific circumstances that herald death, shapes the experience of dying in old age.
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Transit: Already in HellChristian Pitzold’s haunting 2019 film, based on Anna Seghel’s masterful 1942 novel.
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How Psychotherapy Changes the BrainPsychotherapy outcomes and the mechanisms of change that are related to its effects have traditionally been investigated on the psychological and social levels, by measuring changes in symptoms, psychological abilities, personality, or social functioning.
