June 25th 2024
How does climate change affect mental health in individuals and communities?
Insurance Practices: This Insanity Must Stop
May 20th 2011By now, insured Americans are familiar with the routine “cost-saving” measures created and implemented by insurance companies. What is probably not known to most people, however, are the routine oversight procedures that intrude on patient care, aggravate “providers,” and consume untold amounts of time.
The Epidemic of Attention Deficit Disorder: Real or Fad?
May 20th 2011Attention Deficit Disorder is now two or three times more common than it was just twenty years ago. A recent study reported that a whopping 10% of kids in the general population would qualify for the diagnosis. There has also been an incredible explosion in the use of medication in treating it.
Psychiatry Should Stay Comfortable In Its Own Skin: No Good Comes From Overselling Our Science Base
May 14th 2011Psychiatry is a wonderful specialty. We have highly effective medication and psychotherapy tools. Forty years of accumulated clinical research have given us a pretty clear idea of optimal treatment guidelines. With an accurate diagnosis and an appropriate treatment, most of our patients benefit greatly and many recover completely.
DSM-5 Rejects Coercive Paraphilia: Once Again Confirming That Rape Is Not A Mental Disorder
May 12th 2011The proposal to include "coercive paraphilia" as an official diagnosis in the main body of DSM-5 has been rejected. This sends an important message to everyone involved in approving psychiatric commitment under Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) statutes.
Most Rapists Are Not Sadists: How To Tell The Difference and Why It Is So Important
May 2nd 2011Rape is always a heinous, ugly, violent, and cruel crime. But the violence and cruelty that are part of all rapes should not be confused with the specifically motivated violence and cruelty that distinguish sexual sadism...
The Personality Follies Keep Marching On
April 22nd 2011The personality proposals are certainly not the most dangerous part of DSM-5-but they do win the prize for being absolutely the silliest. They offer a riot of impossibly intricate detail with a level of complexity that could never be of any use in any real world setting.
Tales from the New Asylum: The Valediction
April 12th 2011Whenever a suicide happens in the New Asylums, a palpable, muted dread descends over the institution. It stays there in full force for weeks and months afterwards, sometimes longer. After that, it is added as another sedimentary layer to the strata and culture of the particular institution. Before things get too deeply buried, it is important to excavate.
Tales From the New Asylum: Lose-Lose
April 7th 2011II would have to wait until the next day, when K’s internal flames of resistance had died down, to learn why he had burned so fiercely. When we finally sat across from one another, his embers still glowed, and I learned that the source of his combustion had been the classic lose-lose scenario.
New Mental Health Reform Plan to Be Unveiled at APA Meeting!
April 1st 2011On April 1, a secret source let me in on a special addition to the new “Obamacare” healthcare reform law, which just had its 1-year anniversary. It will be released by the new Convocation speaker at the upcoming annual American Psychiatric Association (APA) meeting in May.
Psychiatry: Awaken and Return to the Path
March 22nd 2011Addressing a few subjects that may have the potential to create a more insidious and enduring form of misrepresentation ... namely, the implications that psychiatrists must now “play the game,” and resign themselves to a bleak future of harried pill dispensing.
The Suicide Prevention Contract: Contracting for Comfort
March 1st 2011I recently shared a research article on “no-suicide contracts” with a colleague who is very knowledgeable about suicide. That article concluded--as virtually all the previous literature had-that use of suicide prevention contracts (SPC) remains a questionable clinical practice intervention.
Who Can Forgive Jared Loughner?
January 25th 2011Is it possible to “forgive” Jared Lee Loughner for what he is alleged to have done? Is it morally justifiable to do so? There are serious ethical problems with the notion that anyone other than the survivors of this horrific shooting can “forgive” the assailant.