Prime Time: Maximizing the Therapeutic Experience-A Primer for Psychiatric Clinicians
October 29th 2010The preface explains why Prime Time is so needed. It provides a refreshing, nonjudgmental summary of how and why we’ve arrived at the 20-minute hour. This is important for disgruntled clinicians from the “good old days” as well as for early-career clinicians who have not learned anything better.
Tales From the New Asylum: Machiavelli Part 1
October 28th 2010He had returned to a familiar place, and his peers welcomed him back. The word "recidivist" comes from the French word "recidiver," meaning to "fall back." This was not the first time he had fallen back. He would surely tell you that his return was not by choice, but sometimes such things are hard to determine.
Opiate Substitution Treatment Found to Reduce Mortality Rate in Addicts
October 28th 2010A recent study reports that patients have a greater chance of survival when given opiate substitution treatment (OST) for over 12 months. Although there has been a 2-fold increase in opiate prescriptions in the past 10 years, the mortality rate from OST has fallen, making it a viable treatment for opiate abusers.
“Morality” Professor Responsible for Research Misconduct
October 26th 2010Harvard professor, Marc Hauser, PhD-whose views on the evolution of morality have been widely accepted by many psychiatrists and others-was recently found by a university investigating committee to be “solely responsible for 8 instances of scientific misconduct.”
Tales from the New Asylum: Yesterday
October 26th 2010As I came closer, I could see Mr P more clearly. He was in his own world, wearing a Walkman with earphones on. I puzzled for a brief moment over this-was this to shut out attempts to talk him down? I could also see more clearly the rivulets of blood dripping from the incisions on his wrists to the concrete ground below.
DSM is a Many-Dimensioned Thing
October 19th 2010In a recent issue of Psychiatric News, members of the DSM-5 Task Force reported on the dimensional measures being considered for DSM-5. These take 2 forms: severity scales for individual disorders, and “cross-cutting” measures that cut across disorders. For this brief piece, I will focus on the latter, the more interesting and controversial of the proposed dimensions.
The Impact of Screen Media on Children
October 18th 2010In essence, screen media constitute neurologically potent, arousing input to the developing brain. Unlike conventional toxins, their effects are mediated by sense organs. However, they have demonstrable effects on brain activity, and on behavior and function.