Psychiatric Times Vol 29 No 3

Psychiatrists cannot, with impunity, disregard an important domain of man’s personality makeup. He ought to remain a searcher of the soul at large.

Does an early diagnosis of schizophrenia really make a clinical difference?

Three twin studies published between 1977 and 1995, which provided the main body of knowledge on heritability of autism, showed a concordance rate of 72% for a total of 36 monozygotic pairs and a concordance rate of 0% for 30 dizygotic pairs.

In this article the topic addressed are the primary reasons for the American public’s disenchantment with psychiatry; how the profession ought to address these issues; and how we need to replace the DSM’s categorical system with one that is clinically useful for both clinicians and patients.

While SSRIs and SNRIs are valuable in the treatment of major depression, partial response or nonresponse occurs in many patients. Research has found that bupropion was the most frequently chosen agent for addition to an SSRI after inadequate response.

What is often forgotten, however, is that things such as client-centered therapy, “mental hygiene,” and “self-help” were also responses to another phenomenon-the charismatic physician.

This article aims to provide a glimpse of recent developments that are relevant to cultural and ethnic influences on psychopharmacological responses.

The articles cover a broad array of controversial and advancing topics in psychiatry. We hope you will enjoy them.

The plain fact is that nothing that has been claimed in the name of defending our country can justify cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of another man or woman. Torture, in any form-light or heavy-is not a tool of interrogation or useful for gathering good intelligence.

Effective, early intervention and appropriate support for and treatment of the caregivers of these vulnerable children will improve short-term outcomes and also may provide positive lifelong benefits.

Knowing from the start how a personality is organized, especially as theorized by Karen Horney-appreciating the primary and repressed moves of the patient, inner dictates, claims, idealized image, and intrapsychic defensive maneuvers-makes the help we offer most likely to succeed.

Although the adverse-effect profile of older, conventional (typical) antipsychotics has discouraged many clinicians from using them, they remain widely used in elderly patients with dementia.

Body and soul-brain and mind: two complex worlds mutually dependent and yet in many ways self-governing.

Studies of mammalian species suggest that they possess awareness of self and even more subtle “human” qualities associated with empathy and social joy.