Tales From the New Asylum

The Sandy Hook Promise . . “To do everything in our power to be remembered-—not as the town filled with grief and victims; but as the place where real change began.”

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.

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

Mental rigidity can occur at any age, while wisdom and experience are hard-won—over time.

In early September 2012, a psychiatric colleague and friend passed away. Thomas Stephen Szasz, MD, was Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. Here is a personal reflection of the man I met, learned from, and considered a friend and colleague.

This tale involves a “clever” inmate. He enjoyed the respectable rung of bank robber, but found he had suddenly descended to approximately the level of a sex offender. The reason for his slippage was the inmate code, which demands allegiance to other inmates under virtually all circumstances. “Ratting out” a fellow inmate may cost one his life, or at the very least, result in a decidedly anxious, paranoid existence.

Here we present the case of Mr P, a 40-year-old man with bipolar disorder and substance use disorder, including his symptomology, treatment subsequent to hospitalization, concerns for risk, and the outcome.

Dr James Knoll offers a brief update on SLIDs—what they are, what they do—and how to treat their adverse effects.

An increasing number of patients brought to the emergency room as a direct result of using the “legal” substances known bath salts and/or herbal incense.

Inpatient suicides are viewed as the most avoidable and preventable because they occur in close proximity to staff. Early in the admission is a clear high-risk period, but risk declines more slowly for some patients. Included here are factors that may guide the clinician in treating these at-risk patients.