Reports of 1 in 5 military service members returning from Iraq or Afghanistan with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression and rising suicide rates have led researchers and military leaders to warn civilian psychiatric care providers of a “gathering storm”1 headed their way.

Untreated Vets: A “Gathering Storm” of PTSD/Depression

Drs Pope and Gutheil correctly admonish psychologists who partake in detainee interrogations (Psychiatric Times, “The American Psychological Association and Detainee Interrogations: Unanswered Questions,” July 2008, page 16).

Detainee Interrogations: Important to Remember Our Past

In “SSRI Prescribing Rates and Adolescent Suicide: Is the Black Box Hurting or Helping?” (Psychiatric Times, October 2007, page 33) Gibbons and associates primarily use data from their American Journal of Psychiatry article that appeared in September 2007, in a not very veiled attempt to influence doctors and the FDA to roll back the “black-box” warning on the prescription of SSRIs for adolescents.

SSRIs, Adolescent Suicide, and the Black Box: Lingering Questions

In the Valley of Elah is an improvised explosive device that writer-director Paul Haggis has set to go off in the hearts and minds of Americans who still support the war in Iraq. Haggis, who earned an Oscar (Best Picture and Screenplay) for Crash, has aimed his second film at the hardworking, churchgoing, flag-flying, decent Americans who cannot imagine that the country they love would engage in an unjust war.

In the Valley of Elah

Over the past decade, NSAIDs have been on a roller-coaster ride almost as wild as that now being experienced by this country’s housing and financial markets. The selective COX-2 inhibitors-first celecoxib (Celebrex) and then rofecoxib (Vioxx) and valdecoxib (Bextra)-promised to revolutionize the treatment of pain.

Topical NSAIDs: Old Wine in a New Bottle

Recent research has raised concerns about the adequacy of psychiatric diagnostic evaluations conducted in routine clinical practice, particularly the detection of disorders that are comorbid to the principal diagnosis.

Is Diagnosis of Comorbidities Obsolete?

Recently, I was involved in a discussion with several other mental health writers and editors regarding the most appropriate term to use for those we treat: patient or client. Our lack of consensus reflected that in contemporary medical and psychiatric literature.

Patienthood: A Different Form of Being

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.

Underdiagnosing and Overdiagnosing Psychiatric Comorbidities

Emergency medicine provides care to a vast number of patients each year. In 2005, 115.3 million people visited emergency departments (EDs).

Psychiatric Comorbidity in Emergency Department Patients

Gambling has become a major recreational activity in the United States. Formerly confined to a few states such as Nevada and New Jersey, legal gambling opportunities have exploded across the nation in the past 2 decades.

Psychiatric Comorbidity Associated With Pathological Gambling

A strategic plan to guide research priorities and resource allocations of the NIMH was released recently by NIMH Director, Thomas R. Insel, MD. The plan is intended to provide direction over the next 5 years toward the institute’s stated vision of “a world in which mental illnesses are prevented and cured.”

NIMH Plans Accelerating Research to Remedies

The high rate of comorbid substance abuse in women with bulimia nervosa (BN) has remained consistent in the literature. This article reviews the prevalence of substance abuse in BN and summarizes treatment approaches for persons with BN and comorbid substance abuse.

Psychiatric Times Vol 25 No 12