Behavioral Medicine Solutions

I was in the middle of taking a full medical/psychiatric history.  The patient seemed disinterested and non engaged.  He had responded to my screening questionnaire on Adult ADHD syndrome in the worst possible light and exaggerated his symptoms.  This did not match the gestalt of his presentation.  As the interview went on, it became clear that [...]

Our personal philosophy of life informs every aspect of our daily existence. Most of us are unaware of the sources that have contributed to our biases. Unconscious and subtle influences are powerful, and accumulate and to become major forces. There are belief systems in vogue that profoundly influences in our psycho-spiritual health. These deserve recognition and honest assessment. Here are some, [...]

Treating any behavioral condition without careful attention to cardiovascular and metabolic issues is tantamount to a total disregard of the whole person. We have come a long way from the days when Mind/Body issues could be compartmentalized and treated separately. Many medical conditions such as sleep apnea, thyroid abnormalities and inflammatory diseases manifest themselves as mood, [...]

Many suffering people are quite hesitant to avail themselves of therapies due to the current biased trend in literature. We hear almost daily that antidepressants are no better than placebo.  These medications although are by no means a panacea (you can find my view on the fallacy of the label ‘antidepressant’ in my earlier posts), leading to a change [...]

CNN: Twitching disorder affects 12 girls  Conversion disorder is one of those psychiatric diagnoses that remain enigmatic in mainstream medical circles. The terminology has a wisp of outdated antiqueness as it connotes Freud’s theories pointing to anxiety being psychically converted into somatic symptoms. Sigmund Freud (1856-1949) the father of psychoanaylsis, was a neurologist that found the reductionistic theories of his [...]

Medical school demands superhuman dedication to mastering many branches of scientific disciplines and their application in solving clinical conditions.  Science is rigorous, methodical, critical, ever revising and subject to repoducibility.  A medical student learns to question new information with an eye for evidence and sorting out details.  She has spent numerous sleepless nights memorizing and applying critical thinking [...]

Her mother committed suicide; her uncle was hospitalized with repeated bouts of suicidal depression and life-threatening mania; her own life had been disrupted by episodes of mood instability leading to the loss of jobs and relationships.  After months of evaluation and establishing trust, she was doing well on monthly psychotherapy visits and a regimen of antidepressants. At this visit [...]

The study of medicine is largely the study of disease state.  Disease, from one perspective,  is a lack of balance causing the disurbance of homeostasis.  The field of behavioral medicine extends into a more complex model of the interaction between the nervous system, psychological, and social parameters. Our current model ignores the spiritual or existential dimension.  The reasons are many and include a [...]

Many people, including therapists, are confused about the concept of psychotherapy and how to define it. The growth of various schools of psychotherapy, the conflicting reports as to their outcomes, and the cartoonish dramatization of its process in films and movies leaves one mystified. Moreover, the fear of the cost of therapy and its possible eventual ineffectiveness drives many away [...]

As my daughter prepares for her interviews for medical school admission, I have been reminiscing about the process that led me to be a psychiatrist.  Many consider a psychiatrist to be just  another mental health practitioner who can prescribe medicines.  This notion is both inadequate and misleading. The medical training and the process required to become a medical [...]