News

In his recent blog posting, Dr Steven Moffic proposed that only psychiatrists be allowed to certify DSM diagnoses. While I disagree, I commend Dr Moffic for raising this controversial topic, which inevitably brings up a number of basic issues challenging our profession.

“The exclusion of symptoms judged better accounted for by Bereavement is removed because evidence does not support separation [or] loss of loved one from other stressors.”1

While Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) broadens his conflict of interest (COI) investigations to include mental health leaders and associations, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), teaching hospitals, universities, and mental health organizations are intensifying their vigilance and taking corrective actions.

Resources, books, and practice guidelines

This article reviews the differences between dementia types and future directions.

It was great to learn that within the past month, the Obama Administration issued new rules that promise to improve insurance coverage of mental healthcare for more than 140 million people insured through their jobs.

Imagine, as a psychiatrist, hearing this story from a beloved friend or relative:

It is generally held that the offspring of parents with bipolar disorder (BD) are at risk for BD. The degree of risk is an important question for both clinicians and parents. A recent study of bipolar offspring by Birmaher and colleagues1 sheds light on this issue.

Unless you have been living on a desert island for the past 2 years, you are well aware that the development of DSM-V is well under way.

Celeste, one of my patients, a woman in her mid-30s, unexpectedly had a seizure, fell, and hit her head while at work. She was rushed to a nearby emergency department (ED) where results of laboratory work, an EEG, and an MRI confirmed that she had had a seizure but did not show a cause.

A major speech on mental health from Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the ascension of a new administrator at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) have sparked hopes that the Obama administration is putting increased emphasis on mental health issues. Buoying those hopes further is the fact that the White House has recruited notable mental health advocates in other top positions, such as Richard G. Frank and Sherry A. Glied, authors of the book Better But Not Well: Mental Health Policy in the United States Since 1950. Glied has been nominated as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the HHS. Frank is her deputy for disability and mental health policy.

I invite you to log on and have a good look around at the topic centers filled with clinical information on more than 100 psychiatric disorders. You’ll find the latest psychiatric news, clinical guidelines, details about ongoing clinical trials (for which your patients might be eligible), and patient education information. You’ll find podcasts on topics that range from ethical dilemmas to ways to market your practice. You’ll find archival and brand-new content from Psychiatric Times, and links to our 10 most popular articles. You can earn CME credits and access a number of psychiatric clinical scales. You’ll find classified job listings and details about our upcoming virtual career fair this spring. The site is also home to SearchMedica.com-a search engine specifically designed for psychiatrists and mental health professionals. And if you are moved to post your thoughts and comments about various articles, you can register and do so easily now.

Newly published recommendations for pharmacological and psychosocial treatments from the Schizophrenia Patient Outcomes Research Team (PORT) are the first to address related treatments, such as smoking cessation, substance abuse, and weight loss, and they are the first update since 2003.

Although a large body of research has documented the risk factors for and negative effects of depression in mothers, little is known about depression in expectant or new fathers.

It’s quick, easy and free to register on PsychiatricTimes.com. Your first membership benefit: enter a drawing for an Amazon Kindle! Registered users also get unlimited access to everything our site has to offer, including the ability to print and share content, premium content, and clinical updates sent right to your in-box.  

In this essay I give my views on the boundaries of individual psychotherapy-their necessity and the process of learning them, accepting them, then gaining from and leaving the therapy process. For me, the learning process was long, and I realize now how I had to internalize a number of new concepts for the therapy to succeed. After much thought and work, therapy was beneficial and rewarding for me. I now know that because I took the process of psychotherapy seriously, it made my life more fulfilling and my relationships more meaningful. For me, psychotherapy was especially helpful in reinforcing my ability to deal with a chronic, debilitating, and life-threatening illness. It helped me make each day a gift, accept my imperfections, and live with uncertainty, frustration, and anger with more dignity and greater understanding.

Dr Elvin Semrad was a much-loved psychiatrist and psychotherapy supervisor who had a profound influence on hundreds of psychotherapists and psychoanalysts in the Boston area. One of his unique qualities was his ability to connect empathically with even the most psychotic patients. He supervised at Boston State Hospital and then for 4 decades at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (MMHC) in Boston, where he conveyed his strong conviction that psychotic and other seriously men-tally ill patients could benefit from long-term psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy.

During my medical training in the early 1980s, I attended a Grand Rounds on health care reform. Sleep-deprived physicians-in-training are easily conditioned to snooze upright in their auditorium seats, and economics is not an interest of choice for me, but when the speaker told us that there would be no solution to rising health care costs except to fracture the bond between patient and doctor, I found myself engaging in nightmarish fantasies that in subsequent decades have come true.

Two new oral analgesics have recently been approved by the FDA: milnacipran (Savella) for fibromyalgia and tapentadol (Nucynta) for moderate to severe acute pain.

Let’s say you’re in a crowded bar when somebody suddenly shoots at a patron. You clearly see a man carrying a firearm, but all hell breaks loose as you and everybody else scramble for the exits. In the terrifying seconds following the crime, you lose track of who discharged the firearm: it could have been 1 of 3 suspects. Afterward, the police interview you, but it is hopeless. Even bringing in the suspects for a lineup isn’t going to help you recall. There will be no “Perry Mason” moments, when the perpetrator breaks down under the weight of guilt and confesses to the crime. How can the authorities make an arrest?

Recent multiple brain imaging studies of patients with restricting-type anorexia nervosa (AN) reveal neurocircuit dysregulation and may help clarify the disorder’s confounding symptoms.

Medical training is awash in catch phrases and shibboleths. Some can be useful (“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras”); others, perhaps overly simplistic (“If it’s not in the chart, it didn’t happen”). A current divination clinging to medical consciousness is the concept of evidence-based medicine (EBM).