In his ongoing critique of the DSM-5 process, Dr Allen Frances started a brushfire recently in challenging the DSM-5 Mood Disorders Work Group proposal to remove the bereavement exclusion from the diagnostic criteria for a major depressive episode. Here’s a summary of the debate.
Depression, cognitive impairment, and disability often coexist in older adults. Therefore, to effectively treat late-life depression, clinicians need to evaluate the presence and degree of the patient’s cognitive deficits and level of disability.
Photography has been a part of the history of psychiatry and mental illness since at least the last quarter of the nineteenth century. French clinicians Henri Dagonet and Jean-Martin Charcot were among the first to use photography in the 1870s to aid in establishing reliable diagnostic criteria for particular maladies. Charcot especially was renowned for taking photographs of patients suffering from hysteria in order to analyze their hysterical episodes, breaking down their postures and gestures into discrete stages in order to enable a more accurate diagnosis.
What's the rate of bipolar spectrum disorder in children who have one parent with bipolar disorder? What methods are used to test for cognitive deficits in patients with bipolar disorder? These and more in this week's quiz.
Dr Stone's vivid description of the military's abusive use of ECT 50 years ago -- while compelling to read from an historical perspective -- should in no way be confused with ECT today.
During my residency training at Harvard’s McLean Hospital from 1956-1959, the treatment of choice for all of our patients was intensive psychodynamic psychotherapy.
Results from a study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology suggest that MDMA combined with psychotherapy may be a safe and effective treatment for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The DSM-5 Work Group that first suggested the inclusion of “Psychosis Risk Syndrome” has halfway come to its senses. It has dropped this stigmatizing name in a last ditch repackaging effort to salvage the proposal.
With the availability of drugs for ADHD and Alzheimer disease, more and more healthy people who have no mental health condition have been asking their psychiatrist to prescribe neuroenhancing medications in the hopes of improving their memory, cognitive focus, or attention span. What's an appropriate response when one of your patients asks for a prescription for a drug for this off-label purpose?
We've asked our editorial board members to nominate recent articles that they believe are of critical importance to psychiatrists. And we've asked them to summarize key study findings-and what they may mean for your practice-in short (5 to 10 minute) podcasts.
