Addiction & Substance Use

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Evidence suggests that cannabis is associated with an increased risk of psychosis when it is used frequently. Marijuana doesn't count, does it?

Retirement requires psychological preparation. The planning and anticipation in itself can sometimes bring even more happiness.

Historical records reveal Don Juan syndrome was a recognized diagnosis that referred to forms of hypersexuality and sex addiction.

Sleep changes associated with psychotropic drugs are common enough to justify routinely obtaining a baseline sleep diary before beginning treatment, even when the initial screening for sleep disorders indicates that no further investigation is needed.

Bath salts and herbal incense-synthetic legal intoxicating drugs (so-called SLIDs)-have potentially serious adverse effects-including acute psychosis, delirium, violent behavior, seizures, and cardiovascular emergencies.

Kerry J. Sulkowicz, MD, is one of the most sought after psychoanalysts in the world, but he does not see patients. As founder of the Boswell Group, he consults leading global companies.

Data from neurobehavioral studies, brain imaging studies, epidemiological surveys, and clinical trials show that pathological gambling shares aspects of both impulsivity and compulsivity.

A study of veterans at risk for suicide showed that single attempters did not differ from multiple attempters on any variable except a history of childhood physical abuse.

Neural underpinnings and symptom presentation in borderline personality disorder might explain similarities and differences in this symptom domain across the spectrum of personality disorders as well as in other disorders associated with impulsive symptoms.

An increasing number of patients are being brought to the emergency room because of bath salts and/or herbal incense toxicity.

It is important for the inpatient psychiatrist to understand the perspective of the newly admitted patient. Many patients will find the experience depersonalizing, threatening, and socially alienating and may perceive it as a personal failure.

Down through the decades, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis have been portrayed in many Hollywood films and in television sitcoms but not with the suggestion that they are dangerous methods.

New data show that patients with unipolar, non-psychotic major depressive disorder (MDD) receiving transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) achieved significant improvements in both depression symptoms and in quality of life measurements.

Despite its occurrence in up to 3.4% of adults, hair–pulling disorder or trichotillomania (TTM) is often under-diagnosed and inappropriately treated, according to a panel of experts presenting at the recent APA meeting.