News

We do not need psychiatrists who fit people into categories and slots and treat them as if they are robots, according to the dictates of a recipe book called “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.”

Of the 3 informative articles included in this special geriatric collection, 1 offers a perspective on the treatment of depression that does not focus on somatotherapy. The others remind us of 2 additional geriatric Ds of importance: drugs and driving.

This article provides a practical overview of the available evidence-based treatment and discusses circumstances in which certain interventions may be preferred over others.

As we are faced with a growing population of older adults, a better understanding of the issues that they confront is crucial.

Medical professionals may be reluctant to initiate a discussion about driving with older patients in anticipation of a negative impact on the physician-patient relationship.

Apathy is our enemy. Pain, paradoxically, is our ally because it is one of the most powerful fuels we have to impel us to a different and better tomorrow.

SAMHSA is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a set of 8 new strategies to support and address the needs of patients with behavioral health disorders.

Ethics in the field of mental health is a concern for every psychiatrist, but what happens when past patients reenter a retired clinician's life in a personal setting?

Our current diagnostic system is based more on subjective clinical judgments and less biological psychiatry. There is not one way to develop symptoms of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or autistim or OCD.

The current system of payment for mental health care in the US can lead, or even incentivize, clinicians to focus on and code for Axis I disorders and their more readily reimbursed psychopharmacological treatment approaches.

The side effect of persons with psychiatric illness like bipolar disorder going off medication can be destructive. This patient had been in trouble with the local police, who saw her as a troublemaker and a menace.

DSM-5 better captures the essence of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) than previous versions did. The hypervigilant NPD subtype is the least understood but seen the most often in patients.

And while the spotlight admires . . . the soloist’s passion, I love . . . the page turner even more,

After scoring high on the Panic Disorder Severity Scale, this patient sought panic-focused psychodynamic therapy.

As the end of this psychiatrist's intern year approached, a chief resident told her that second year is the year “you really become a psychiatrist.”

The FDA Neurological Devices Panel met to consider the Agency’s proposal to reclassify cranial electrotherapy stimulator (CES) devices to Class III with premarket approval.

It’s a pleasure-and an honor-to welcome Dr Nada Logan Stotland to our Editorial Board.

A bill banning mental health providers from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with patients passed the California Senate just weeks after prominent psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, MD, apologized to the gay community for his 2003 study.

There is rapidly escalating interest in drugs that target the glutamatergic neurotransmitter system, especially NMDA receptor modulators. The hope is that they will fill the large unmet need for rapid-acting antidepressant medications with efficacy in treatment-resistant depression.

Sleep-disordered breathing is common in patients with mood and anxiety disorders. This article explores the implication for practicing psychiatrists whose patients have sleep disorders.

Melatonin has a role in psychiatric illness and the treatment of circadian rhythm sleep disorders, insomnia, and comorbid depressive disorders.

Are patients with borderline personality disorder at a significantly increased risk for suicide when in the angry victim state? This question and more in this quiz.

Psychiatrists, physicians, and mental health professionals are often asked to treat patients facing issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. Here are quick Tips for trans-inclusion of LGBTs.

Weight gain is a known side effect of some medications for schizophrenia. Here: strategies to prevent and manage weight gain.

Propranolol therapy at a relatively low dose can cause anger and rage behaviors to subside in some patients. This case describes a man with Down syndrome who, after an accident, sustained minor brain trauma. Subsequently, he regressed to a rage state he had experienced when he was younger.

Importantly for lay and clinician readers alike, the book Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety reads as humor-laced triumph with many lost battles along the way rather than enduring unrelenting tragedy.

The California Supreme Court’s decision in the Tarasoff case over 30 years ago has become a standard part of mental health practice. This case influenced the legal requirements governing therapists’ duty to protect third parties in nearly every state in the US.

Grief is the psychological, behavioral, social and physical reaction to a loss that is closely tied to a person’s commitment to heal.

“If physicians cannot control what happens to them, then it’s going to be difficult for laypersons to control what happens to them.”

Cases that come to our attention as malpractice claims, ethics claims, or Board of Registration complaints raise the question: why did the treating clinician not terminate the treatment before things got so out of hand?