 The only question is whether Congress will cut the mental health block grant again, in 2012-and by how much. 

Severe State and Federal Funding Shortfalls Likely for Local Mental Health Programs

 In this column, we explore how the judicious use of neural stem cells (NSCs) has led to a research Holy Grail: the creation of research-ready, patient-specific neurons. 

Custom-Made Neural Stem Cells

 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.” 

The Judaic Foundations of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

 Richard Berlin, M.D.: “There is something about the condensed pressure of poetry that feels very natural to me.”  

Expert Witness

 The demand for security/privacy insurance is growing rapidly as health care practitioners realize that traditional insurance does not address privacy exposures. 

Data Breach Insurance

 Risk analysis is an ongoing process that should provide an organization with a detailed understanding of its risks and information necessary to address those risks in a timely manner, and the means to reduce associated risks to reasonable and appropriate levels. 

Risk Analysis: Tips for Health Care Practitioners

 Psychosis at any phase of the illness can be extremely distressing, disruptive, and potentially dangerous for patient and family.  

Antipsychotics and the Shrinking Brain

 If ketamine is able to turn off a patient’s depression, even for one day, you have accomplished something important, whether or not you can maintain it. This is because you have at least given the patient hope . . . that in itself is very significant from a therapeutic perspective. 

Ketamine: A Possible Role for Patients Who Are Running Out of Options?

The evidence-based approach to bipolar depression symptoms includes treatment with lithium, conventional unimodal antidepressants, lamotrigine, or divalproex.

Novel Treatment Avenues for Bipolar Depression

Antidrug vaccines represent an exciting area of development in the pharmacological treatment of chemical dependency. In addition to the clinical trials being conducted on vaccines for cocaine and nicotine dependence, preclinical development of vaccines for methamphetamine and heroin is ongoing.

Antidrug Vaccines

The focus of this Special Report is on some future-oriented aspects of psychopharmacology. First, it is an eclectic set of articles that cover treating resistant depression, using currently illegal drugs to treat psychiatric problems, and finally the potential of using vaccines to treat substance use disorders.

Introduction: Looking to the Future of Psychopharmacology

Mixed depression is defined as a major depressive episode (MDE) with concurrent manic or hypomanic symptoms that are insufficient in number for a patient to meet the criteria for mixed hypomania.

Mixed States in Their Manifold Forms: Part 2

United Press International recently reported that construction workers in Hall, Austria have exhumed what may be turn out to be grim remains of the Third Reich’s Action T4 program that sought to exterminate mentally and physically disabled men women and children.

Excavation in Austria Uncovers Mass Grave Thought to Hold Nazi Victims

Following trends in medicine, psychiatry is faced with limited resources and third-party administration of resource allocation. This has affected psychiatric practice in many ways and altered the doc-tor-patient relationship. Trends toward resource-sensitive, third-party–related psychiatric practice may be accelerated by the current social concerns regarding the economy. Thus, an awareness of social context and the growing recognition that autonomy-enhancing alternatives to paternalistic care are fundamental to improve both the effectiveness and accessibility of care in limited-resource environments are each becoming vital for an informed clinical and risk-management practice perspective.1

Psychiatric Times Vol 28 No 4