Addiction & Substance Use

With the fast growth of knowledge, the challenge to keep up with the ever-growing body of information is greater than ever.

Ongoing shortages of several psychotropic medications have wreaked havoc among patients and their families, caused frustration and reluctant prescription switches among physicians, and prompted investigations by Congress.

Dr Michael Thase touches on an APA presentation about newer applications of cognitive therapy for disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Staying empathic and keeping the conflict within the patient instead of between the patient and health care provider, is a key to successful management.

Sybil Exposed makes the case that the 1973 book Sybil misrepresents the facts of Shirley Mason’s life, diagnosis, and treatment. It also points to concerns that extend beyond a single case, to the diagnostic concept of multiple personalities. Still, perhaps the books suggests the need for a more systematic look at not just the case of Sybil, but also the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (DID).

I can just sense the uproar now. Dr. Moffic wants state hospitals again? Has he lost it? Well, yes. I do, sort of. Here’s why.

How would you rate the integration of mental health treatment with addiction treatment? Where is there room for improvement?

The paradigm for modern psychiatry is evidence-based medicine (EBM)-it represents proven treatments for defined diagnoses. But there are major problems with this position, starting with the fact that while they are superior to placebo, evidence-based treatments too often are ineffective.

In a recent interview on 60 Minutes, Harvard psychologist Irving Kirsch, PhD, commented, “the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people.”

David Cronenberg’s film "A Dangerous Method" tells the story of the relationship between Freud and Jung and a woman named Sabina who had a considerable influence on both of them.

My experience indicates that the SVP laws are being implemented in a highly arbitrary and idiosyncratic fashion with judges and juries easily confused by misleading expert testimony.

Adequate treatment of the underlying psychiatric illness consistently appears to be the most effective use of medication in suicidal patients.

Several studies have been undertaken to test the efficacy of drugs in the management of aggression and hostility in patients with schizophrenia and other mood disorders.

Agitated patients who display “excessive verbal and/or motor behavior”-can be loud, disruptive, hostile, sarcastic, threatening, hyperactive, and even combative. This article discusses new best practices and guidelines for agitation.

This discussion focuses on approaches to improve medication adherence, particularly in reference to helping adolescents remain on recommended psychopharmacological regimens when transitioning from acute to long-term maintenance.

Here we list important points to keep in mind when assessing and treating patients who self harm.

During their time in Ayacucho, these visiting psychiatrists learned that American psychiatric training has wide-reaching cultural value.

Psychiatrists cannot, with impunity, disregard an important domain of man’s personality makeup. He ought to remain a searcher of the soul at large.

Three twin studies published between 1977 and 1995, which provided the main body of knowledge on heritability of autism, showed a concordance rate of 72% for a total of 36 monozygotic pairs and a concordance rate of 0% for 30 dizygotic pairs.

In this article the topic addressed are the primary reasons for the American public’s disenchantment with psychiatry; how the profession ought to address these issues; and how we need to replace the DSM’s categorical system with one that is clinically useful for both clinicians and patients.

Dogs, indeed, may be man’s (and woman’s) best therapist at certain times and in certain situations, with important implications for mental health.

Effective, early intervention and appropriate support for and treatment of the caregivers of these vulnerable children will improve short-term outcomes and also may provide positive lifelong benefits.

Knowing from the start how a personality is organized, especially as theorized by Karen Horney-appreciating the primary and repressed moves of the patient, inner dictates, claims, idealized image, and intrapsychic defensive maneuvers-makes the help we offer most likely to succeed.

Although the adverse-effect profile of older, conventional (typical) antipsychotics has discouraged many clinicians from using them, they remain widely used in elderly patients with dementia.

Studies of mammalian species suggest that they possess awareness of self and even more subtle “human” qualities associated with empathy and social joy.