News

The majority of the literature focuses on prenatal and postnatal depression in mothers, and little attention has been given to the incidence of prenatal and postpartum depression in fathers.

Humans have just these 2 ways of sorting things--giving them a name or a giving them a number. We have been naming things since the days of Adam.

Here’s why it is painful to see a man cry: he's not supposed to. Emotions are arresting when society tells us they should not be expressed. In the case of a grown man crying, there are some thousands of years of cultural training laying down the prohibitive regulations.

Marsha Linehan is the creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)-the best available method for helping self destructive people help themselves. I have never been more admiring of her than I am at this moment.

There are not enough participating psychiatrists to accommodate all who would seek treatment if it were affordable. This is not a good situation.

There should be no quarrel over the reality of severe CFS as an instantiation of genuine disease, just as schizophrenia and major depression constitute real disease.

"Einstein’s happiest moment...occurred when he realized...a falling man falling...beside a falling apple..."

In the sixth edition of his famous 2-volume textbook Psychiatrie, which appeared in 1899, Emil Kraepelin introduced the by now well-known distinction between dementia praecox (soon to be called schizophrenia) and manic-depressive illness.

I just attended the 40th year reunion of my medical school class at Yale. As is common at these 5-year reunions, we compare our careers and the progress of medicine, although this time more of the focus seemed to be on our personal lives and our new Medicare cards.

If telling patients they have “pre-clinical Alzheimer’s” or “MCI due to Alzheimer’s Disease”-absent effective treatment-produces more emotional suffering than it relieves, a difficult ethical question arises; namely, can such a disclosure be justified under the foundational principle of non-malfeasance?

The model in which young doctors acquired their medical skills by working unsupervised on poor patients at county hospitals is, fortunately, a thing of the past. Is today's model better?

Amidst sexting congressmen, philandering French IMF directors, and gallivanting governors, I suspect many psychiatrists have been accosted with questions from friends and colleagues. Such questions generally conform to some permutation of “What makes a person do that?”

I teach doctors and nurses how to assess, treat, and prevent delirium-an acute confusional disorder caused by multiple medical problems that mimics mental illness-but is actually a medical emergency.

Not long ago, we posted a survey on our website that included a series of questions about ethical dilemmas mental health professionals face in daily practice.

As the Apple iPad (and competing devices) gains popularity among healthcare professionals, are psychiatrists using it and if so, why?

Two perspectives regarding the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology’s (ABPN) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program.

Gene therapy (sometimes called gene replacement therapy) attempts to ameliorate genetic-based disorders by introducing corrected genes into affected patients.

When it comes to analgesics, many options and various factors must be weighed to make the best choice for each patient.

Depression and alcoholism treatment requires the proper use of medication and psychosocial interventions, as well as a solid doctor-patient relationship and a commitment to treat both disorders.

Advances in the fields of neuropsychological assessment and neuroimaging have enormously expanded our knowledge about the profile and severity of cognitive deficits in patients with substance use disorders.

In our survey, we found videophones a surprisingly understudied and underutilized tool in spite of the fact that they are easy to use and do not require any technical support.

Nonadherence to treatment by patients represents one of the most prevalent and important challenges to the practice of psychiatry.

The COMBINE study was only one trial designed by academics to maximize internal scientific validity. It excluded individuals with other significant psychiatric and medical illnesses (more often the rule than the exception in some clinical settings)-individuals deemed too severely ill or who needed hospitalization.

Given Dr Liberman’s remarkable productivity and his amazing capacity to keep his finger on the pulse of the field, I expect to find practical guidance in such circumstances in the next edition of Recovery From Disability.

More details on the APA Assembly meeting in Washington discussing Desmond Tutu being designated as convocation speaker for the American Psychiatric Association’s recent annual meeting.

In this Special Report, Helen M. Pettinati, PhD, and William D. Dundon, PhD, discuss prevalence, assessment, clinical features, and treatment issues with respect to individuals with co-occurring major depression and alcohol dependence.

John Ioannidis, MD, of Stanford University has published a paper with wide implications for medicine and also for psychiatry. He finds that many influential studies have made exaggerated claims purporting to find connections between biomarkers and medical illness.

I just received a very important email from Dr Dayle Jones who chairs the DSM-5 Task Force of the American Counseling Association (ACA). The ACA has provided a much needed wake-up call for the American Psychiatric Association.

A charismatic psychiatrist, Patrick McGorry has recently gained heroic status. First he was chosen to be Australia's Man Of The Year. Now, he has convinced the Australian government to spend more than $400 million over 5 years to fund his plan for a nationwide system of Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centres.