Commentary

Articles

Patients and care providers often call themselves lazy. But what are the clinical consequences and cultural meanings of this term? 

Laziness Does Not Exist

Although existential and religious issues may be distinguished in clinical care, the human condition’s complexity and the Dark Night of the Soul cannot.

Can Existential Issues Really Be Divorced From Clinical Practice? From Our Readers

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many diagnoses can it make? The photographer and psychiatrist Hugh Welch Diamond, MD, shares insights into the humanity and stigma of mental illness in Victorian England. 

The Faces of Madness

Dr Pies is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Lecturer on Bioethics and Humanities, SUNY Upstate Medical University; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine; and Editor in Chief Emeritus of 

 (2007-2010). Dr Pies is the author of several books. A collection of his works can be found on

What role does denial play in the collective American psyche?

Denial, The Capitol Takeover, and a Tragic American Legacy

When we finally open a trap door to explain or further understand a hypothesis, the answer often includes a house full of hallways.

A Quick Primer on the Serendipity of Psychopharmacological Development              

The scientific method has delivered vaccines and other life-saving medicine, but not everybody trusts it. 

Vaccines at the Dinner Table 

Is there a way to find balance in discussing the chemical imbalance theory of depression?

What We Tell Patients about Depression, and What They Say They Have Been Told

How can the best insights of mainstream and critical psychiatry be brought together? 

There and Back Again: Joseph Pierre, MD

There is much to look forward to in the realm of improved treatments for patients with psychiatric illness.

The Psychiatric Pipeline: 10 Agents to Watch

Our basic science knowledge of the brain continues to explode beyond what science fiction of the past has predicted.

Couch in Crisis