Psychotherapy

The issue for us is whether positive thinking is relevant in certain situations. Would it help, or would it create more problems than it would solve?

Nonverbal cues speak just as loudly as words. How can video be used to capture these subtle cues and help patients make progress in therapy?

Once the distortions are cleared away, most patients who come to the emergency room tell stories that seem to grow out of the problems they claim to have and the pain they claim to feel.

It is now customary psychiatric practice to think of a patient's illness as primarily biological in origin-so much so that, for many illnesses, published practice guidelines almost exclusively describe medication strategies.

Despite the development of better-tolerated antidepressants and more effective applications of nondrug modalities like cognitive-behavioral therapy, depressive disorders are often chronic or recurrent. The researchers point out that there has been relatively little evaluation of chronic depression, with most studies addressing short-term treatment of acute episodes.

Panic disorder is a prevalent, debilitating illness associated with high utilization of multiple medical services, poor quality of life and a high incidence of suicide. Short-term efficacy of time-limited cognitive-behavioral and medication treatments has been demonstrated in many studies. Evidence for long-term efficacy of these treatments, however, is sparse and less convincing.