Couch in Crisis

Three mountains must be climbed to emerge unscathed.

Dr Gabrin said not to forget about the most powerful drugs we have in the pandemic-tolerance, kindness, empathy, compassion, and patience.

"There is a great deal that ails psychiatry-over-diagnosis, overtreatment, misallocation of resources, consistent breaches of patients’ fundamental human rights, and so forth," says Dr McLaren in this interview.

In these uncertain times, many look to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s quote “The only thing we have to fear is . . . fear itself.” But what does that really mean?

We often push thoughts of death far out of our awareness, but at the present time they unavoidably re-emerge. Can we learn something helpful from this?

Reports of verbal and physical aggression toward Chinese-American people have undeniable ripple effects, and if left unmonitored, turns into full-fledged Coronasiaphobia.

We thought it may be useful to have a frequent, but temporary (hopefully very temporary), series of brief pieces on the psychological aspects of the news, along with the occasional longer reflection pieces and podcasts.

Not that long ago I read a news story about three women who had reported that the psychiatrist treating them had insisted on sex.

These are hard times, but they get a little easier when we make the decision to unite and go through them together.

Many of us are now managing outpatients via phone and telecommunication. While the transition has been relatively painless, one can't help but wonder what the future will bring.

You would think that psychiatrists are well-versed in religion and spirituality, but the reality is that they are barely touched upon during our training.

It can be disheartening to hear about the pervasive culture at many medical centers and health care systems to ostracize the pharmaceutical industry, and not uncommonly, to threaten to fire employed physicians and clinicians who would like to attend educational programs about new medications on their own free time.

An introduction to the March issue.

How have the pharmaceutical industry and academic guild interests shaped the evolution of psychiatry? Lisa Cosgrove, PhD, has something to say about it.

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

A hypothetical first conversation with a non-binary person . . . One of us would be feeling nervous and the other certain-a phenomenon not unfamiliar to a psychiatrist, only here the roles would be reversed.

With the help of psychotherapy, something from the deep unconscious helped cure her depression, forge her character, and guide her to a sense of peace.

How can a human being commit such acts without being under the influence of some powerful “alien” force? How can they not be "mentally ill"? Here's how.

Editor in Chief John Miller, MD, shares his insights on the upcoming Psychiatric Times World CME Conference in October.

We are privileged to hear and are trusted with our patients' darkest secrets. Our availability for whatever is needed that is not addressed in the rest of medicine makes us invaluable to society, and this will undoubtedly be the case in the 2020s.

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.

In this 4-part collection, the author shares his experience and provides guidance to all involved in the mental health field-patients, physicians, families, and policymakers.

The passing of some elder psychiatrists in the past year demonstrate that love-and psychiatry and psychiatrists-can be “many splendored things,” as the song goes. Here are some models to prove that point.

A Conversation in Critical Psychiatry with Peter J. Whitehouse, MD, PhD.

Early on, psychiatry accepted the idea that unconscious psychology affected the body to cause disease. By the 1970s, the rise of psychiatric drugs pushed the field in a biological direction, and by the 1980s, psychoanalysis was in full retreat, at least in the halls of psychiatric power. S. Nassir Ghaemi, MD, adds to the debate.

The author shares some thoughts on the current state of biopsychosocial model as well as the new proposed reinterpretation of BPS as a theory of causality.

A reformulated biopsychosocial paradigm can be clinically useful. How? Keep reading.

Recognizing violent incidents as “acts of domestic terrorism” contribute nothing toward our understanding of the mental processes that drive such behavior. More in this commentary.

There is too much to learn from extreme behaviors, including those of psychiatrists.

Since a disappointingly large number of people equate the critical psychiatry movement with the antipsychiatry movement, two psychiatrists shed light on why that is not the case.