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During their time in Ayacucho, these visiting psychiatrists learned that American psychiatric training has wide-reaching cultural value.

After the 20th European Psychiatric Association Congress we made our way home with a detour in Karlovy Vary-Karlsbad-famous for its therapeutic hot springs.

Can you name an important part of good sleep hygiene? The use of which short-acting sedative-hypnotics to treat sleep disturbances in patients is associated with Alzheimer disease? These questions and more.

He wasn’t the first person I met days before I was to start my psychiatric residency, but as I walked about in my new city, he caught my attention much more than most. As psychiatrists, we typically assume that we will hear the inside stories, even if in bits and pieces, that will help us better understand and help patients. But perhaps we are too expectant . . .

This list serves as a guide when treating persons of diverse cultures and backgrounds.

With DSM-5 scheduled for publication a little more than a year from now, we may safely assume that, barring unannounced surprises from, say, the APA Scientific Review Committee, what we will see on the DSM-5 Web site is what we will get. With that in mind it’s time to review what we will indeed get.

As things wind down at the 20th European Congress of Psychiatry, a presenter discussed procedures available for treating patients with mental disorders.

In a symposium on ICD-11: Progress and Prospects, Dr Geoffrey Weeds started off with an explanation of the WHO field studies on clinicians' conceptualizations of mental disorders.

The two sides of Prague: Out one window are red roofs, ancient church steeples, and castles. Out the other, you see highways, high rise buildings, and fast cars.

Music therapy is quickly emerging at a very fast pace. Scientists are undertaking more and more studies on the effects of music on the brain and the data are showing very positive effects.

The debate on whether the concept of mental health is misleading turned on a much deeper premise than simple terminology.

This elderly man no longer has decision-making capacity. What legal resource does he have?

Today's presentations were all cme sessions with the opening ceremony in the evening and a welcome reception.

Prof Möller provided several points for co-medication in psychiatric disorders; Prof Leucht explained that his concern is with doctors who have a "magic potion" of combined medications and use this as treatment across the board

With several good presentations going on today at EPA 2012, the hardest part was deciding which to attend. The sessions started at 8 this morning, and I decided to go to the Treating Schizophrenia Beyond Antipsychotic Drugs: Cognitive and Metacognitive Interventions.

Of all the misconceived DSM-5 suggestions, the one touching the rawest public nerve is the proposed medicalization of normal grief into a mental disorder.

I just came out of the symposium on common factors of therapeutic change in psychiatry and psychotherapy. This was an update on the ongoing Taxonomy project

The responsibility for improvement was placed on psychiatrists: diagnostic skills had to be improved and patients and their families and caregivers as well as the general public needed to be better educated about the disorder and treatment options.

Educated and successful individuals, Mr H's children seem able to understand that their father can no longer make his own decisions, but they continue to defer to him for medical and disposition decisions stating, “whatever he wants to do.”

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.