s relapse going to be part of your story? Maybe. But if you open yourself up to the possibility that there might be a way to prevent relapse from becoming a part of your recovery, you may find yourself not only clean and sober, but immersed in a life worth staying clean and sober for.
Probably the best information we have about the hereditability of alcoholism comes from studies of twins, and specifically those that compare identical twins with fraternal twins.
As writers, it's important to know that "what" you write and "why" you do so will surely express "who" you are. Perhaps, that's why the APA session on writing was so powerful and pertinent for psychiatrists, and the rest of us.
MotherWoman saved my life, my identity and my motherhood. MotherWoman was my missing piece, the place where I found myself and was given permission to...
Memorial Day barbecues are being planned as we prepare to remember the millions of veterans who have served our nation, protecting and defending those less fortunate as well as our way of life. For some of these veterans, the idea of a backyard barbecue is far from their reality.
No one deserves to live with the stigma associated with a mental illness. The important thing that we need to do as a society is be more compassionate, more informed, more caring and more supportive of those with mental illness.
If DSM diagnosis doesn't inform treatment, what good is it? The answer is one, to facilitate the exchange of money between payers and providers, and two, to create silos for focused research. With the NIMH announcement, scratch number two.
The deep secrets of boys and men, according to the research, is that they have the same desire for connection and close friendships as girls and women and that many of our cultural norms of masculinity are hurting rather than helping boys find what they need and want.
By removing the "bereavement exclusion" from what had been considered the bible of the mental health world, the DSM's editors risk undermining bereavement as a universal, normal, if profoundly painful, experience.
The very inconclusiveness of the Human Genome Project as detailed in part one is pushing us to conclude that we were only looking in the wrong place when we put a microscope to our DNA. Instead, we have determined to look to the brain directly.
By Catharine McDonald, MS, NCC, LPC There is never a dull moment working in the psychiatric emergency department. I love the hustle and bustle, and ...
The most contentious debates circling the DSM-5 process are all tied to the fundamental question of how we define the boundaries of disorder and the lines between normal and abnormal.
By Kathy Morelli, LPC I thought I had outed myself. I thought I had reconciled my clinical self and my public self. I'd written about my struggle w...
The truth is that from the college campus to the workplace, we are all members of a national and increasingly global community. We must all learn the signs of depression and other mental disorders and reach out to someone in trouble.
Since May is "Exercise is Medicine" month, as designated by the American College of Sports Medicine, now would be the perfect time for us to reopen a dialogue on the subject and increase national awareness.
PE, CPT and similar treatment programs are relatively short-term, and have proven effective in a variety of settings. And studies suggest that providing these treatments for PTSD result in reduced health-care costs. So why aren't they being commonly delivered to the people who need them?
Research has shown us that intervening early at the individual, family, and community level can delay or prevent the on-set of mental and substance use disorders. We also know that these can be treated, and individuals with these conditions can lead healthy productive lives.
The ideal image many people had of the genome as a straightforward template that stamps out human beings in a predictable way was, and is, a fantasy. And this is nowhere more evident than in the case of human personality traits and mental illness.
We still have to rely on DSM to diagnose illness, but thanks to Dr. Insel the end of that state of affairs is a step closer. The identification and treatment of mental illness is about to leave the realm of psychiatry and enter the science of neurology.
Practicing yoga has changed me, made me calmer, less anxious, more equanimous. It's given me a physiological way to deal with trauma that was otherwise unavailable to me, and as a teacher, I now have some tools that I can share with others who've experienced trauma.
