Even though I’ve read these stories a number of times, I still have an intense emotional response to each of them. They remind me that our work is of incredible personal importance to our patients and of such emotional meaning to us too.

Powerful Stories-Winners of Our Writer’s Contest

"You don’t have the hands of a surgeon, or the demeanor. It’s a good thing you are a psychiatrist.” 

The Mirror

I will always remember her. I was honored and inspired by a very beautiful, strong, and unusually graceful young woman. 

Preconceived Notions

When you have been neglected, made to feel so unimportant, passed around from place to place as though your life doesn’t matter, any genuine caring attention you can give that young person means the world. 

Foster Care

Here: basic concepts behind sexual consent capacity and guidance on how to pursue capacity assessments.

Discussing and Assessing Capacity for Sexual Consent

The road to recovery for human trafficking victims is intense and requires intervention and care on multiple comprehensive levels.

Recognizing and Treating Victims and Survivors of Human Trafficking

There has been much progress in both the conceptualization and the treatment of vaginismus in the past 15 years. Details here.

Vaginismus: “Gone” But Not Forgotten

“Once a pedophile always a pedophile” is so 30 years ago. The author updates the realities about sex offenders and why psychiatrists should be more optimistic about their patients’ prognoses. 

Pedophilia: Interventions That Work

Today’s psychiatrists rarely have the luxury of time enjoyed by our fin-de-siècle forebears. So a few quick questions for the right patients can offer a big payoff. Here's a case in point. 

Soul and Soma: Let’s Drink (Tea) to That!

The most basic human principles of humility, reliability, unwavering respect, and being kind and approachable are the most effective qualities a Street Medicine practitioner--and any psychiatrist--can have.

Psychiatry in the Streets: Unique Services for People Experiencing Homelessness

Do psychiatrists add value to primary care health teams compared to non-psychiatrist mental health providers? 

Psychiatry and Primary Health Care: Beyond Integration, Toward Fusion?

The authors parse myths and facts about decisional capacity, with the goal of preserving patients' dignity and autonomy and helping you mediate conflicts, meet bioethical challenges, and provide compassionate resolutions.

Bioethical Challenges for Psychiatrists: Determination of Decisional Capacity

There are striking parallels between the work of the Supreme Court justices and that of psychiatrists. 

Diligence

Dead into a wall of wind, they cliff jump with parabolic wings curled over pilots cradled in goose down and canvas.

The Hang Gliders

The authors suggest what may be a way forward for thinking about the conceptualization of personality disorder. 

Update on Diagnostic Issues for Borderline Personality Disorder

The ability to diagnose pedophilia is key to preventing child sexual abuse: it makes possible accurate risk assessment and informed decisions regarding who is safe to work with children-and who is not.

Psychiatric Spotlight on Child Sexual Abuse

The Prisoner’s Dilemma reveals a clear distinction between the 2 conditions.

Borderline or Bipolar: Objective Data Support a Difference

There is a paucity of information on complementary and integrative therapies, especially when they pertain to the topic of mental health and aging. But that's all changed.

Complementary and Integrative Therapies for Mental Health and Aging

Did this woman have (untreated) postpartum psychosis when she became pregnant a second time-- or was this a separate, rare case of prepartum psychosis? 

Vol 33 No 7