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Carve out a career in the area of psychiatry that interests you. If you’re drawn to specialized topics, such as atypical bipolar disorder, club drugs, glutamate transporters, or genetic links to autism, then pursue those avenues. Here, advice to psychiatry residents.

The liveliest debate in psychiatry today is where to draw the line between mental disorder and mental health. So much rides on the decision—who gets treated and how, who pays for it, whether a criminal is deemed mad or bad, whether someone gets damages in tort cases, who qualifies for disability payments and eligibility for extra school services, whether someone can adopt a child—and there's a whole lot more.

In our time, it seems that the number of psychiatrists who believe in a God are increasing, parallel with the decreasing influence of Freud’s ideas.

When critics of psychiatric diagnosis insist that terms like “schizophrenia” or “bipolar disorder” are inherently stigmatizing, they are unwittingly perpetuating the very prejudice they wish to end. It is time to shine a bright light on this self-fulfilling prophecy.

While the diagnostic categories of DSM-III and DSM-IV (and soon DSM-5) have provided the basis for much useful research, little has been written about how much of DSM—and how much “evidence-based medicine”—is built on a foundation of fantasy.

Outpatient psychiatry is a critical experience in becoming an independent psychiatrist.

The day began on a high note. As I sat and talked with an elderly patient sitting in her wheelchair, quiet, not remembering much, she suddenly broke out in song.

The 3% to 5% of kids who are particularly gifted are also at special risk for being tagged with an inappropriate diagnosis of mental disorder. Caution is necessary when diagnosing.

I imagine there’s a little man inside the elderly patient's head. It is dark all around him, but to the front some light gets in through the eyes. Sounds come to him from a distance, muted, like in a heavy fog at night. If too much sensory information reaches the little man, he becomes overwhelmed and confused.

After each violent tragedy, politicians mourn and harrumph, but they wind up buckling under pressure from the NRA, fiscal constraints, and the prison and gun lobbies. Repeated dramatic events can shake the complacency and cowardice of a stalemated Congress and state legislatures.