H. Steven Moffic, MD

I can just sense the uproar now. Dr. Moffic wants state hospitals again? Has he lost it? Well, yes. I do, sort of. Here’s why.

What are the psychological aspects of “going green”? How should we address what some call climate instability and global heating?

Dogs, indeed, may be man’s (and woman’s) best therapist at certain times and in certain situations, with important implications for mental health.

In many climates, a cold February is relieved a bit by the Super Bowl and then by Valentine’s Day-a symbol of hope for falling in love, sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly.

Maybe the “Occupy Wall Street” movement suggests a different kind of protest for this year’s APA meeting. What about “Occupy Medicine” for us psychiatrists?

Have you heard the news that citalopram should no longer be used at doses greater than 40 mg? Steven Moffic, MD, explores the issues surrounding this recent recommendation.

In psychiatry, it seems like our traditions are often ignored or discarded as being outdated. Do we not have some time-tested literature that is still relevant to our psychiatric times?

Although memoirs have become all the rage, they are rarely written by anyone in the field of psychiatry . . . and for good reason.

“Love and work are the cornerstones of our civilization.” This quote, rightly or wrongly attributed to Freud, simply and succinctly indicates the importance of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.

With all the justifiable concerns about our next DSM, I frankly have more concerns about treatment. After all, diagnosing is really most important as far as it leads to the necessary treatment to help the patient.

Although his plays are suffused with dynastic and generational issues, Shakespeare hardly wrote anything about grandparents per se.

Many will recall “The Decade of the Brain,” when President George H.W. Bush declared that the 1990s would be dedicated to research on neuroscience. If there were landmark findings from that decade, I’m not sure what they were.

I just attended the 40th year reunion of my medical school class at Yale. As is common at these 5-year reunions, we compare our careers and the progress of medicine, although this time more of the focus seemed to be on our personal lives and our new Medicare cards.

The challenge to learn enough relevant information about a patient in brief medication (and evaluative) sessions still exists. And there is also the challenge of picking a medication that will be acceptable and valued-both from a symbolic and biological standpoint.

If Blake were alive today, maybe he’d start one of his famous stanzas with something like, “To see meaning in a 15-minute med check…” If not, I will. Here’s how I’ve come to justify this.

In addition to receiving birthday cards, on this birthday, one of our bloggers, Dr. Moffic, decided to send out a card to all those he loved. It is being reprinted here. "If you are what you love, There is no longer reason to be most modest, so step aside Muhammad Ali, for I Am The Greatest!"

See if you can tell if the following quote comes from religious wisdom or a CBT therapist: “To defeat depression, you must introduce a fresh perspective to your thinking. You must begin to replace troubling, destructive thoughts with positive, constructive ones.” To this, we say, “Amen.”

When my clinic manager told me that prison may be the best place to practice psychiatry nowadays, I didn’t believe him. After all, prisons often seem like a world apart, often in isolated rural areas or in windowless, nondescript urban buildings.

On April 1, a secret source let me in on a special addition to the new “Obamacare” healthcare reform law, which just had its 1-year anniversary. It will be released by the new Convocation speaker at the upcoming annual American Psychiatric Association (APA) meeting in May.

Watson, as many will know, is not necessarily the name of a human, though the Watson of DNA fame may come to mind. Rather, in this context I am referring to IBM's artificial intelligence computer system.

A reporter asked, "Can you do psychotherapy in a cage"? What immediately came to mind was the sociopathic psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter in the movie Silence of the Lambs.

Sometimes, when I recommend an antidepressant, patients will ask if it will make them happy. No, I usually eventually answer. I try to gently and empathically point out that what we have are called antidepressants. They are not called happy pills for a good reason.

We've just had Thanksgiving and I have been in a most thankful mood. I'm still feeling that way after returning to work--and even after an email from a colleague reminded me of one of the many problems facing our field.

Would you be surprised to find out that Freud is gaining a foothold in China? As psychoanalysis and related therapies are slipping in the USA, psychoanalysts from the US are beginning to train a cadre of interested clinicians in China.

The preface explains why Prime Time is so needed. It provides a refreshing, nonjudgmental summary of how and why we’ve arrived at the 20-minute hour. This is important for disgruntled clinicians from the “good old days” as well as for early-career clinicians who have not learned anything better.

For some, creating art may be a displacement of issues and conflicts that we encounter in our work and personal lives. It can express things that can't be formulated in verbal content, as has been shown in art therapy with patients.

Just imagine. If you are not a transgender individual, what must it feel like to always think, as far back as you may remember, that you should have the body of the opposite gender? That you were “born in the wrong body”.

It is easy to claim the presumed high ethical ground when one is not involved in the real life situation at hand. It is also easy to project and proclaim strong positions in order to cover our own inadequacies and anxiety.

It is probably self-evident that to be a celebrity doctor requires at the minimum certain characteristics. The doctor needs to be comfortable being an authority figure and, at the same time, convey humanistic concerns. Being telegenic helps if you are on television a lot.

A quarter of a century ago, E. Mansell Pattison provided the invocation for the opening of the 1985 annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. It was called “A Prayer for Psychiatrists” and was so well received, that it was reprinted in [Pastoral Psychology (1987;35:187-188,), a now defunct journal. Dr Pattison, both a psychiatrist and a minister, died shortly thereafter, in 1989.