Strategies to reduce aggression in psychiatric treatment settings.
Psychiatrists, like the rest of America, continue to have trouble with alcoholic and other addicted patients. We are comfortable when patients want to get better, tell us the truth and come to treatment of their own free will, but alcoholics often don't fit this profile. We respond angrily when patients manipulate us. We are surprised when their sincere desire for help evaporates after we suggest a plan that will bring about real change.
Genetics seems to be a subject of particular interest for everyone. This article explores how the current state of knowledge regarding genetics might be used to help psychiatrists diagnose psychiatric disorders or predict their onset.
Despite the high prevalence of depression among youths, there are empirically supported treatments that have been shown to reduce depressogenic symptoms, including the 3 therapies outlined in this article.
The clinical presentation and functional impacts of ADHD in adults vary greatly from their child and adolescent counterparts.
New findings provide powerful evidence that inhibition of inflammation or its downstream effects on mood may open up a host of new approaches to treatment for depression, especially for patients with treatment-resistant depression.
Strategies to decrease the chances that individuals will fall through the cracks in the college years.
Micronutrient deficiencies can bring about a range of mental health complications. Take the quiz and learn more.
What are the most effective assessment practices for ASD during the developmental stages of early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, and adulthood?
In the neuropsychiatric disorders PANS and PANDAS, we observe childhood illness with relationships between psychiatric symptoms, infection, and inflammation. Here are keys to early identification and treatment.
Case-based dialogues illustrate some virtues required in psychiatric practice.
Nearly half of children who present to emergency departments with self-harm receive no mental health assessment. What are the essential elements needed to interview children and adolescents in the context of a psychiatric emergency?
In this article we discuss psychoneuroendocrine influences on sexual orientation and the psychodynamics of internalized homophobia. Because of space limitations, we focus on homosexual orientation, although research in this area sheds light on heterosexual and bisexual orientation as well.
"There is an urgency for competent, thoughtful mental health care for women—not only because the differences have been ignored in the past, but because women’s mental health so often affects health and mental health outcomes for their children."
Diagnostic assessment of psychiatric disorders and their comorbidities is a challenge for many clinicians. In emergency settings, there is no time to conduct lengthy interviews, and collateralinformation is often unavailable.
A review of smartphone tools for suicide prevention and recommendations for clinicians.
The case for training residents to conduct evaluations of impairments in patients with chronic mental health issues.
This review provides an overview of the efficacy, safety, and mechanisms of action in the treatment of depression.
Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do is a controversial, opinionated book that discusses the effects of computer gaming on children.
Drs differ on the advisability of reading a certain famous French psychoanalyst.
The topics in this Special Report provide a broad picture of the issues psychiatrists face as they take a clear-eyed look at the opportunities and challenges in the emerging health care system.
Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent psychiatric disorders in the United States. Although effective treatments are available, such as the SSRIs and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), it is estimated that in about 40% of patients, anxiety disorders are partially or completely resistant to first-line treatment.
Computerized information resources are being introduced into psychiatric practice settings, but some psychiatrists question whether they are really needed.
This case of a 14-year-old female patient with end-stage cystic fibrosis illustrates the psychiatrist's critical role in ensuring quality end-of-life care.
DSM-5 presents psychiatry with a potential “reset button” for diagnostic reliability.
Medical training is awash in catch phrases and shibboleths. Some can be useful (“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras”); others, perhaps overly simplistic (“If it’s not in the chart, it didn’t happen”). A current divination clinging to medical consciousness is the concept of evidence-based medicine (EBM).
To improve validity, we proposed extending the current MDD bereavement exclusion-which excludes “uncomplicated” (relatively brief, lacking certain severe symptoms) depressive bereavement from diagnosis-to also exclude uncomplicated reactions to other major stressors, such as romantic breakups, job loss, and serious medical diagnoses.
This article highlights several features of medical and social importance that are somewhat unique to the Somali refugee community in the US.
More details on the APA Assembly meeting in Washington discussing Desmond Tutu being designated as convocation speaker for the American Psychiatric Association’s recent annual meeting.
Compared with the many recent articles addressing medications' multiple meanings for the patients who take them and the psychiatrist-therapists who prescribe them, there has persisted in the literature and in clinical practice a curious literal conception of the prescription itself. This article challenges the idea that the only medication that can be prescribed comes in the form of pills or tablets; on the contrary, ideas constitute some of the most potent "medication" known.