News

Concerns are raised about DSM-5 revisions in the definition of depression. Many worry that eliminating the bereavement exception in the guidelines for the diagnosis of major depressive disorder represents a dangerous move.

It has moved PFAMC from the back of the book (where it is not a mental disorder) to front and center in the chapter on Somatic Symptom Disorders (where now it will be a mental disorder).

A recent symposium brought together some of the nation’s leading experts to talk about promising advances in psychiatry and to address areas where progress has faltered.

Astrocytic signaling to adenosine receptors results in the robust reduction of depressive-like behaviors associated with sleep deprivation.

Major depression is a common chronic illness within the general US population. What is the approximate prevalence for MDD in the US population?

PTSD is a psychiatric illness resulting from a physical or psychological trauma that is sometimes related to warfare, but of course occurs in the case of civilian trauma as well. However, wars have been a propitious time for studying PTSD.

Diagnosing rape as mental disorder is an improper use of psychiatric diagnosis and promotes the abuse of psychiatric commitment to further what would otherwise be an unconstitutional form of preventive detention.

Chronic exposure to addictive drugs like cocaine produces a progressive pattern of synaptic plasticity in reward circuits that can continue to develop well into periods of drug abstinence.

The American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry welcomes all psychiatrists interested in psychotherapy and psychodynamics and has as its mission keeping psychodynamic therapy as an integral part of the psychiatric profession.

The Embassy of Italy in Washington, DC recently hosted the first of 2 workshops on “Leaders and Terrorists: Psychological Perspectives on National Security.”

Childhood has so many conflicts and worries, so many triumphs and disappointments-how can one reduce it to a notion of normality?

This week's news stories: intimate partner violence, gun control and mental illness, eating disorders, and more.

About a year ago, I wrote the blog “Are Dogs Man's Best Therapist?” To my surprise, it turned out to be a very popular one. Since then, dogs continue to be in the news for their therapeutic effect, including being brought to Newtown right after the mass murder there.

Psychiatric disorders, such as primary sleep disturbances, depression, substance abuse, mania, sexually inappropriate behaviors, and psychosis, can complicate the care of patients with dementia.

The Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS) is an effective tool in measuring negative symptoms in schizophrenia, according to a recent study.

DSM-5 must emphasize that physical symptoms deserve the respect of a thorough work-up before assuming their cause is psychiatric. And people with defined medical illnesses should not be casually mislabeled as also mentally ill just because they are upset about being sick.

A multimodal treatment program that centered on a cognitive-behavioral approach using exposure and response prevention was effective in treating OCD comorbid with eating disorders.

Demonstrating the importance of psychiatric advance directives and the benefits and obstacles involved in implementing them.

It is clear that the prognosis for schizophrenia is much better when patients achieve drug abstinence, including in the domains of depression, quality of life, and community integration.

The news media has always been in the business of searching for "the right sort of madness" to capture the public's imagination.

According to the CDC's latest published report, there were 38,364 suicides in the US in 2010-an average of 105 each day. Globally, an estimated 1 million suicides occur annually.

Refractory psychiatric illnesses are no different from complicated infectious diseases in that they both require multiple concurrent medications and treatment modalities.

I pictured him at his waiting room door . . . clutching a chart, catching eyes, . . . calling out a name, bewildered

Karl Doghramji, MD, Sleep Disorders Section Editor for Psychiatric Times, is Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Medicine at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, and Medical Director of the Jefferson Sleep Disorders Center at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, in Philadelphia. Dr Doghramji is also Chair of the Albert M. Biele, MD Memorial Lectureship in Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Jefferson Medical College.

The team psychiatrist for Super Bowl Champs, the Baltimore Ravens, draws on his own professional career of working with athletes of all ages and levels and provides a comprehensive presentation of the literature in the emerging field of sports psychiatry.

Gun owners and non-gun-owners alike support gun control policies that account for mental illness, according to a study published in a recent issue of NEJM.

Perceived relationship power helps to explain the association between intimate partner violence and mental health issues.

Mindfulness training is a viable treatment tool that rivals psychopharmaceutical agents for the treatment of addiction, anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric disorders.

For patients with treatment-resistant depression-especially geriatric patients-ECT is a viable treatment option . . . one that should no longer be relegated to the option of last resort.