July 8th 2024
The 2024 American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology Annual Meeting brought together researchers and clinicians to engage in discussion, education, and dissemination of research findings and new methodologies.
Southern California Psychiatry Conference
September 13-14, 2024
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Updates on New and Emerging Therapies to Improve Outcomes for Patients With Major Depressive Disorder
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PER® Psychiatry Summit
November 7, 2024
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5th Annual International Congress on the Future of Neurology®
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2023 Annual Psychiatric Times™ World CME Conference
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Clinical Consultations™: Managing Depressive Episodes in Patients with Bipolar Disorder Type II
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Patient, Provider, and Caregiver Connection™: Exploring Unmet Needs In Postpartum Depression – Making the Case for Early Detection and Novel Treatments
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Medical Crossfire®: Understanding the Advances in Bipolar Disease Treatment—A Comprehensive Look at Treatment Selection Strategies
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'REEL’ Time Patient Counseling: The Diagnostic and Treatment Journey for Patients With Bipolar Disorder Type II – From Primary to Specialty Care
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Real Psychiatry 2025
January 17 - 18, 2025
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More Than ‘Blue’ After Birth: Managing Diagnosis and Treatment of Post-Partum Depression
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Patient, Provider & Caregiver Connection™: Reducing the Burden of Parkinson Disease Psychosis with Personalized Management Plans
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Expert Perspectives in the Recognition and Management of Postpartum Depression
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Atypical Antipsychotics for Dementia-Related Behaviors
October 1st 2007Conventional antipsychotic drugs such as haloperidol have been supplanted by newer, atypical antipsychotics (risperidone [Risperdal], olanzapine [Zyprexa], quetiapine [Seroquel], ziprasidone [Geodon], aripiprazole [Abilify]), although no medication has an FDA indication for the treatment of behavioral symptoms in patients with dementia
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The Complex Issue of Attachment Disorders
October 1st 2007Attachment may be defined as a composite of behaviors in an infant, toddler, or young child that is designed to achieve physical and emotional closeness to a mother or preferred caregiver when the child seeks comfort, support, nurturance, or protection.
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Clinical Depression: Complexities of Diagnosis and Management
September 15th 2007Major depression is at once simple and complex. At one level, the treatment of this disorder is straightforward. Yet, at a multitude of other levels, it is a complex condition for which available treatments remain suboptimal.
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A New Adaptation of Integrated Psychological Treatment for Patients With Schizophrenia
September 15th 2007Integrated psychological treatment (IPT)--which was developed by a research group in Bern, Switzerland, for patients with schizophrenia--is a distinctive and practical approach to rehabilitation.
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Complementary Therapies for Schizophrenia: Expanding the Clinician’s Toolbox
September 9th 2007Given the burdens of living with schizophrenia, and the increasing focus on patients' quality of life, it’s no wonder clinicians are seeking other treatment options for the disorder. Here, a discussion of the most promising nonconventional therapies and how to use them.
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Sexual Offenders With Mental Illness: Special Considerations for a Special Population
September 1st 2007Whether or not sexual offending behavior-or the predisposition to such-is a mental illness, there are patients with traditional mental illnesses who also present with sexually inappropriate and even sexual offending behavior.
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Exploring OCD Subtypes and Treatment Resistance
September 1st 2007Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a heterogeneous disorder with a variety of phenotypic expressions. Delineation of clinically distinct subtypes of the disorder may be valuable in predicting treatment response and resistance.
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Toward an Improved Nosology of Sexual Dysfunctions in DSM-V
August 1st 2007Sexual dysfunctions as distinct syndromes were first identified in DSM-III in 1980. At that time, sets of criteria were specified for inhibited sexual desire, inhibited sexual excitement, inhibited female orgasm, inhibited male orgasm, premature ejaculation, dyspareunia, and functional vaginismus.
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Antipsychotics in the Treatment of Comorbid Anxiety in Bipolar Disorder
August 1st 2007The comorbidity of anxiety disorders with bipolar disorder is a rule, not an exception, with a negative impact on both course and treatment outcome. So far, there are no guidelines or consensus for the treatment of this comorbidity.
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Hume's Fork and Psychiatry's Explanations: Determinism and the Dimensions of Freedom
August 1st 2007An item in the Boston Globe recently caught my eye. Apparently, a man who was fired by a large corporation for visiting an adult "chat room" while at work is suing the company. The man is claiming he is an "Internet addict" who "deserves treatment and sympathy rather than dismissal." Another item reported recently concerned a lawyer who argued that her client was not responsible for a rampage that he had committed because he "had been obsessed with comic book superheroes as a kid."
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Making Treatment for Bipolar Disorder a Family Affair
July 16th 2007Mounting evidence shows that patients with bipolar disorder benefit significantly when their families are involved in treatment. Despite the challenges entailed, clinicians can successfully implement a family-focused approach if they’re willing, flexible and patient.
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Schizophrenia Research Congress Highlights
July 1st 2007Twenty years after the initial meeting of the International Congress for Schizophrenia Research (ICSR), this year's biennial ICSR remained true to its mission to serve as a venue for active researchers. ICSR hosted investigators in neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, basic and clinical psychopharmacology, psychosocial interventions, and genetics.
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Medication Discontinuation Difficult in First-Episode Schizophrenia
July 1st 2007Medication adherence is a particular challenge for patients with first-episode schizophrenia. In addition to physician and patient concerns about adverse effects of antipsychotics, many patients at this stage are particularly resistant to continuing medications over the long term.
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The Crisis of Overdiagnosed ADHD in Children
July 1st 2007This commentary arises from my concern about the superficiality that characterizes the process of diagnosing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children--usually followed by the prescription of one of the most powerful drugs on earth, methylphenidate.
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Mental Health Courts Reduce Incarceration, Save Money
July 1st 2007Figures from the US Department of Justice indicate that more than half of prison and jail inmates have a mental health problem. Mental health courts (MHCs) were designed to divert mentally ill persons convicted of nonviolent crimes to supervised treatment instead of incarceration, but while the number of MHCs has grown substantially over the past decade, limited information has been available about outcomes and costs.
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No-Suicide Contracts as a Suicide Prevention Strategy
July 1st 2007The role of no-suicide contracts is but a small tactical piece of the larger strategic approach to the assessment and prevention of suicide. Its many obvious limitations-to some degree in assessment, but primarily in suicide prevention-should have driven serious discussion of no-suicide contracts out of consideration as a practical measure in clinical practice and a legal talking point in the courtroom.
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Prodromal Schizophrenia in Adolescents: Role for Antidepressants?
June 1st 2007Early intervention in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia can have a wide range of effects on patient symptoms and outcome. A recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry reported improvements with antidepressants and atypicals in adolescents in the "prodromal" stage of schizophrenia, although a psychotic disorder later developed in a quarter of the adolescents treated with atypicals.
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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in All Its Manifestations
June 1st 2007In 1980 DSM-III created a new diagnostic entity-posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although this condition had been described for centuries, it was always within the context of a particular stressor, most often war. The term shell shock was applied to World War I soldiers who seemed to have been struck senseless in the heat of battle. The horrors of World War II produced not only robust psychiatric morbidity in its combatants but also devastating emotional symptoms in the civilian victims of concentration camps and atomic bombs.
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The field of psychopharmacology is evolving rapidly. New research and medications appear, and practice changes. This book was up-to-date when it went to press; however, it does not include the most recent findings from the CATIE, STAR*D study, and CATIE-AD study. There is no mention of paliperidone, intramuscular aripiprazole, selegiline transdermal system, varenicline, or depot inject- able naltrexone. One wonders whether books are becoming obsolete as a medium for communicating the state of the art.
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Integrating Psychosocial Treatment for PTSD and Severe Mental Illness
June 1st 2007Patients with severe mental illness (SMI), such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, are more likely to have experienced trauma in childhood, adolescence, and throughout their adult lives than the general population. This high exposure to traumatic events such as physical and sexual abuse and assault takes a heavy toll.
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Methamphetamine Abuse: Consequences and Treatment
June 1st 2007Methamphetamine (MA) abuse is not a new problem in the United States, but the current epidemic is more widespread and presents with more pernicious consequences than in the past. MA, frequently called "speed," "crystal," "crank," "ice," or "tina," is a potent psychostimulant that can be swallowed in pill form or administered via intranasal, intravenous, or smoking route.
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Grand mal convulsive seizures are characterized by the sudden loss of consciousness and motor inhibition, followed by tonic flexion and extension, repetitive clonic movements, and motor relaxation and lassitude. Seizures are elicited in all vertebrates that have been tested. The loss of both vigilance and the defenses of fight or flight incur life-threatening risks to the individual. In evolutionary history, we would expect this behavior to be extinguished. Its persistence prompts the query: What are the benefits of seizures?
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He was young, schizoid, and had experienced brief periods of psychotic-like disorganization. We worked together in psychotherapy for many years. None of the then available psychotropic agents were helpful. He believed, however, that marijuana was helpful, and, if he smoked a joint in the hours preceding a session, his way of relating to me was different. He was less "there," more deeply into himself. His descriptions of the marijuana experience never varied. "I am," he would say, "at peace. I feel connected to everything. I am part of the universe, part of nature, part of God." He was, I thought, a person with significant ego boundary problems who, for the most part, maintained his basic sense of self by distancing himself from both the world and inner turmoil. Marijuana appeared to lead to the internal experience of greater connectedness and peace, although I felt he was less available to me after using it.
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Informed Consent and Civil Commitment in Emergency Psychiatry
May 1st 2007Medical school graduation usually involves taking the Hippocratic oath, in which physicians vow not to intentionally harm their patients. Keeping patients safe is another basic principle of patient care. Physicians are charged with ensuring that their patients are in a safe environment and minimizing risks to their patients by carefully selecting treatment options.
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Biopsychosocial Model: Helpful or Hindering?
May 1st 2007The points made by Dr G. Scott Waterman in his article, "Does the Biopsychosocial Model Help or Hinder Our Efforts to Understand and Teach Psychiatry?" are right on target. Unfortunately, the biopsychosocial model of psychiatry is not merely conceptual; it is woven into the delivery of care at every level. Institutions of government, insurance, and hospital and outpatient services separate "behavioral" medicine from all other medicine and further separate substance abuse disorders from those deemed "psychiatric."
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Psychiatric Evaluations in Emergency Departments
May 1st 2007In the article by Drs Kunen and Mandry, "Should Emergency Medicine Physicians Screen for Psychiatric Disorders?" (Psychiatric Times, October 2006), no mention was made of formally assessing a patient's mental status to diagnose delirium.
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