From the Pages of Psychiatric Times: January 2024

In the January issue of Psychiatric Times®, we worked with experts from multiple psychiatric areas to bring you thoughtful articles about a wide variety of psychiatric topics, from medication-assisted psychotherapy to an update on the schizophrenia and PTSD medication pipelines. Here are some highlights from the issue.

Medication-Assisted Psychotherapy: The Past and Future of Psychiatry

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Psychiatric practice has increasingly relied on medication management rather than psychotherapy as a mainstay of treatment over the past few decades, despite the general recognition that pharmacology alone is insufficient for most patients. Combined pharmacological and psychosocial treatment, therefore, remains the optimal goal of psychiatry care. In addition, the growth of public interest in this area and the explosion of new research around psychedelics indicate an important place for combined treatments in the near future of clinical psychiatry.

The questions for clinicians have become: How can we understand medication and psychotherapy and their interactive potential, and how can medication be understood and employed as a tool to enhance progress in the context of psychotherapy? To best answer these questions, we need a better understanding of the literature on combined medication-psychotherapy and medication-assisted psychotherapy. Continue Reading

Rehabilitation Through Stimulation: Exploring Noninvasive Brain Stimulation for Substance Use Disorders

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The emergence of neurostimulation undoubtedly has shaped clinical practice. Through the localized application of electrical or magnetic fields, clinicians can now directly modulate target neurocircuits to facilitate or inhibit activity. Noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), are considered cutting-edge innovations within interventional psychiatry.

A growing body of evidence shows efficacy in the treatment of a range of mental illnesses and promise in some unrelenting disorders. Repetitive TMS (rTMS) received US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval in 2008 as a clinical intervention for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). More recently, there exists burgeoning interest in the clinical use of NIBS in the treatment of substance use disorders (SUDs). Continue Reading

Medication Pipeline: Schizophrenia and PTSD

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As 2024 begins, the pipeline for novel agents for the treatment of psychiatric disorders remains strong. There is no paucity of unmet need for novel treatments for all psychiatric disorders. The prototypes for the mechanisms of action of all the current US Food & Drug Administration (FDA)-approved antipsychotics go back to the 1950s. Drugs targeting central muscarinic cholinergic receptors to treat schizophrenia are on the horizon and may provide the first novel drug mechanism to treat this challenging disorder beyond blocking dopamine-2 receptors.

Despite cognitive and negative symptoms significantly contributing to functional impairment in patients with schizophrenia, we have no FDA-approved drugs targeting these symptoms. Researchers around the world continue to painstakingly search out and develop new medications in the hope of developing treatments to address this huge unmet need. Continue Reading

Wellness in Physician Colleagues

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Working in the health care profession is a privilege, yet it also carries some personal risks that we often don’t fully recognize. Medicine attracts high achievers with a strong work ethic and social and moral responsibility, devoted to the well-being of others and skilled in controlling complex situations. However, this may result in repeated exposure to stressful work conditions, affecting our well-being and leading to psychological distress that may manifest in various ways.

How one copes with their emotions can affect one’s sense of well-being and the care they provide to patients and family members. Psychological well-being is an ongoing multidimensional process geared toward a life that is balanced and whole, and it is engaged in the 6 dimensions from the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-Being model. Continue Reading

See the full January issue of Psychiatric Times here. And be sure to stay up-to-date by subscribing to the Psychiatric Times E-newsletter.

Do you have a comment on any of these or other articles? Have a good idea for an article and want to write? Interested in sharing your perspectives? Write to us at PTeditor@mmhgroup.com.