April 11th 2024
Take a look back at our recent coverage relating to our April content theme.
Talking to Adolescents May Ward Off Future Violent Behavior and Alcohol Use
September 4th 2010A 3-year study involving over 3,000 patients used motivational interviewing to counsel adolescents about staying away from potentially violent and alcohol-related situations. It was found that these brief sessions “reduced by half the chances that teenagers would experience peer violence or problems due to drinking.”
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Trapped Under the Earth: How Will the Chilean Miners Fare?
September 1st 2010There are very real concerns about the miners’ mental well-being. Chile’s Health Minister reported that five of the men were not eating properly and refused to be filmed. In the meantime, a team of nutritionists and psychologists have been assembled to monitor their physical and mental states.
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If I Am Not For Myself: The Trials and the Triumphs of the Transgendered
September 1st 2010Just imagine. If you are not a transgender individual, what must it feel like to always think, as far back as you may remember, that you should have the body of the opposite gender? That you were “born in the wrong body”.
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The Flip-Side of “Good Grief” May be Missed Depression
August 25th 2010My colleague Allen Frances is rightly concerned with the risk of over-calling normal grief as major depression - - that is, the risk of "false positives" - - if the DSM-IV "bereavement exclusion" is dropped in the DSM-5 while the 2-week minimum duration criterion is retained.
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Early Alzheimer's Diagnosis and Treatment: Future Hopes, Current Dangers
August 7th 2010The furor surrounding the recently proposed Alzheimer's Guidelines was provoked by their premature attempt to introduce early diagnosis, well before accurate tools are available. The same laudable, but currently clearly unrealistic ambition has propelled two of the worst suggestions for new diagnoses in DSM-5: Psychosis Risk and Mild Neurocognitive.
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Who Should Care About Geriatric Mental Health? Check the Mirror . . .
August 4th 2010Who should care about aging? This question is particularly germane in mental health. The articles in this Special Report remind us of the importance of understanding and focusing on the stresses, problems, and treatment-related issues in this population.
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High School Students With ADHD: The Group Most Likely to...Fizzle
July 28th 2010Adolescents with ADHD, conduct disorder, or who smoke cigarettes are less likely to finish high school on time and more likely to drop out altogether, researchers at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine have found.
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Normality Is an Endangered Species: Psychiatric Fads and Overdiagnosis
July 6th 2010Fads in psychiatric diagnosis come and go and have been with us as long as there has been psychiatry. The fads meet a deeply felt need to explain, or at least to label, what would otherwise be unexplainable human suffering and deviance.
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Alcohol and Drugs Boost Creativity? Think Again
June 29th 2010From 19th century French impressionists to current-day “rockers,” it has always been a loosely held belief that creative genius encompasses (even embraces) substance use. But a recent study found that substance use impedes artistic creativity.
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As early as the 1970s, researchers and practitioners became increasingly aware of the necessity for services that would address the varied needs and treatment implications for consumers with the co-occurring disorders of substance abuse and mental illness. High percentages of consumers in substance abuse treatment centers were identified with mental illness disorders, and consumers admitted to psychiatric facilities often were identified as having additional substance use disorders.
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A Psychiatry of Tomorrow: DSM-5 and Beyond
June 25th 2010When I was an undergraduate studying molecular biology in the early 1990s when the Human Genome Project had just begun, my required coursework included several lectures on the ethical implications of sequencing, understanding, and ultimately being able to manipulate the “code of life.”
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One Step Closer to Getting a Handle on Alzheimer Disease
June 24th 2010The causes of Alzheimer disease and attempts to predict who is at risk for it have been confounding the medical profession ever since Dr Alzheimer first described the disorder in 1906. Finally, a breakthrough in dye and imaging technology may be the key to solving the puzzle.
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Psychiatrists, Physicians, and the Prescriptive Bond
June 2nd 2010Almost the first memory I have of a physician is our family doctor at my bedside, leaning over to press his warm fingers against my neck and beneath my jaw. I’m 5, maybe 6 years old. I have a fever and a sore throat, and Dr Gerace is carefully palpating my cervical and submandibular lymph nodes.
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