Grief and Depression: When Science and Terminology Get Confused
September 15th 2010In his ongoing critique of the DSM-5 process, Dr Allen Frances started a brushfire recently in challenging the DSM-5 Mood Disorders Work Group proposal to remove the bereavement exclusion from the diagnostic criteria for a major depressive episode. Here’s a summary of the debate.
Psychosocial Interventions for Depressed Older Adults With Cognitive Impairment and Disability
September 15th 2010Depression, cognitive impairment, and disability often coexist in older adults. Therefore, to effectively treat late-life depression, clinicians need to evaluate the presence and degree of the patient’s cognitive deficits and level of disability.
Who’s Haunting Whom? The New Fad in Asylum Tourism
September 15th 2010Photography has been a part of the history of psychiatry and mental illness since at least the last quarter of the nineteenth century. French clinicians Henri Dagonet and Jean-Martin Charcot were among the first to use photography in the 1870s to aid in establishing reliable diagnostic criteria for particular maladies. Charcot especially was renowned for taking photographs of patients suffering from hysteria in order to analyze their hysterical episodes, breaking down their postures and gestures into discrete stages in order to enable a more accurate diagnosis.