Thursday, September 25, 2014

The Delusions We Deserve by By GARY GREENBERG - Thursday September 25th, 2014 at 5:52 PM - NYT > Mental Health And Disorders: A psychiatrist and his philosopher brother discuss how mental illness reflects culture.

The Delusions We Deserve 

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A psychiatrist and his philosopher brother discuss how mental illness reflects culture. 

Impact of Early Intervention on Psychopathology, Crime, and Well-Being at Age 25.

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Impact of Early Intervention on Psychopathology, Crime, and Well-Being at Age 25.
Am J Psychiatry. 2014 Sep 15;
Authors: Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group
Abstract
Objective: This randomized controlled trial tested the efficacy of early intervention to prevent adult psychopathology and improve well-being in early-starting conduct-problem children.
Method: Kindergarteners (N=9,594) in three cohorts (1991-1993) at 55 schools in four communities were screened for conduct problems, yielding 979 early starters. A total of 891 (91%) consented (51% African American, 47% European American; 69% boys). Children were randomly assigned by school cluster to a 10-year intervention or control. The intervention goal was to develop social competencies in children that would carry them throughout life, through social skills training, parent behavior-management training with home visiting, peer coaching, reading tutoring, and classroom social-emotional curricula. Manualization and supervision ensured program fidelity. Ninety-eight percent participated during grade 1, and 80% continued through grade 10. At age 25, arrest records were reviewed (N=817, 92%), and condition-blinded adults psychiatrically interviewed participants (N=702; 81% of living participants) and a peer (N=535) knowledgeable about the participant.
Results: Intent-to-treat logistic regression analyses indicated that 69% of participants in the control arm displayed at least one externalizing, internalizing, or substance abuse psychiatric problem (based on self- or peer interview) at age 25, in contrast with 59% of those assigned to intervention (odds ratio=0.59, CI=0.43-0.81; number needed to treat=8). This pattern also held for self-interviews, peer interviews, scores using an "and" rule for self- and peer reports, and separate tests for externalizing problems, internalizing problems, and substance abuse problems, as well as for each of three cohorts, four sites, male participants, female participants, African Americans, European Americans, moderate-risk, and high-risk subgroups. Intervention participants also received lower severity-weighted violent (standardized estimate=-0.37) and drug (standardized estimate=-0.43) crime conviction scores, lower risky sexual behavior scores (standardized estimate=-0.24), and higher well-being scores (standardized estimate=0.19).
Conclusions: This study provides evidence for the efficacy of early intervention in preventing adult psychopathology among high-risk early-starting conduct-problem children.
PMID: 25219348 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
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Genomic Analysis Yields Eight Distinct Types of Schizophrenia

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Psychiatry Is Involved In The Biggest Con This Planet Has Ever Seen 

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The “disorders” in the diagnostic manual are mostly invented by psychiatrists and placed in the DSM for the sole purpose of increasing the numbers of diagnosis that can be made, thereby putting more cash in their pockets.

Critical psychiatry: Untitled 

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A Lancet Psychiatry editorial argues for compromise in debates about mental health issues. I do agree that "the opportunities for global discussion on blogs and social media [shouldn't be] ... squandered". However, it is ...

Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog: Philosophy and Psychiatry

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Philosophy and Psychiatry. The blog. Posted by Brian Leiter on September 25, 2014 at 08:18 AM in Philosophy in the News | Permalink. Paid Advertisements: Why Tolerate Religion? Advertise on LR. Recent Comments. Anonymous Two on ...

The Delusions We Deserve 

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A psychiatrist and his philosopher brother discuss how mental illness reflects culture.
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Selling Prozac as the Life-Enhancing Cure for Mental Woes

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In the late 1980s and the ’90s, Prozac was seen as a life preserver for those drowning in anguish. It was also a marvel of commercial branding.

F.B.I. Confirms a Sharp Rise in Mass Shootings Since 2000

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A report confirmed what many Americans had feared but that law enforcement officials had never documented: mass shootings have risen dramatically.




Saturday, August 16, 2014

To Know Suicide: Depression Can Be Treated, but It Takes Competence - By KAY REDFIELD JAMISON - AUG. 15, 2014 - NYT

» Depression is a disease of loneliness
16/08/14 03:00 from Comment is free | theguardian.com
A lack of friends can suck someone into solitude sharing the language of affection could help to ease the pain Continue reading...


» To Know Suicide
16/08/14 01:00 from NYT > Contributors
Depression may be a deadly illness, but we can help people back to life.

BALTIMORE — WHEN the American artist Ralph Barton killed himself in 1931 he left behind a suicide note explaining why, in the midst of a seemingly good and full life, he had chosen to die.
“Everyone who has known me and who hears of this,” he wrote, “will have a different hypothesis to offer to explain why I did it.”
Most of the explanations, about problems in his life, would be completely wrong, he predicted. “I have had few real difficulties,” he said, and “more than my share of affection and appreciation.” Yet his work had become torture, and he had become, he felt, a cause of unhappiness to others. “I have run from wife to wife, from house to house, and from country to country, in a ridiculous effort to escape from myself,” he wrote. The reason he gave for his suicide was a lifelong “melancholia” worsening into “definite symptoms of manic-depressive insanity.”
Barton was correct about the reactions of others. It is often easier to account for a suicide by external causes like marital or work problems, physical illness, financial stress or trouble with the law than it is to attribute it to mental illness.
Certainly, stress is important and often interacts dangerously withdepression. But the most important risk factor for suicide is mental illness, especially depression or bipolar disorder (also known as manic-depressive illness). When depression is accompanied by alcohol or drug abuse, which it commonly is, the risk of suicide increases perilously.
Suicidal depression involves a kind of pain and hopelessness that is impossible to describe — and I have tried. I teach in psychiatry and have written about my bipolar illness, but words struggle to do justice to it. How can you say what it feels like to go from being someone who loves life to wishing only to die?
Suicidal depression is a state of cold, agitated horror and relentless despair. The things that you most love in life leach away. Everything is an effort, all day and throughout the night. There is no hope, no point, no nothing.
The burden you know yourself to be to others is intolerable. So, too, is theagitation from the mania that may simmer within a depression. There is no way out and an endless road ahead. When someone is in this state, suicide can seem a bad choice but the only one.
It has been a long time since I have known suicidal depression. I am one of millions who have been treated for depression and gotten well; I was lucky enough to have a psychiatrist well versed in using lithium and knowledgeable about my illness, and who was also an excellent psychotherapist.
This is not, unfortunately, everyone’s experience. Many different professionals treat depression, including family practitioners, internists and gynecologists, as well as psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and social workers. This results in wildly different levels of competence. Many who treat depression are not well trained in the distinction among types of depression. There is no common standard for education about diagnosis.
Distinguishing between bipolar depression and major depressive disorder, for example, can be difficult, and mistakes are common. Misdiagnosis can be lethal. Medications that work well for some forms of depression induce agitation in others. We expect well-informed treatment for cancer or heart disease; it matters no less for depression.



We know, for instance, that lithium greatly decreases the risk of suicide in patients with mood disorders like bipolar illness, yet it is too often a drug of last resort. We know, too, that medication combined with psychotherapy is generally more effective for moderate to severe depression than either treatment alone. Yet many clinicians continue to pitch their tents exclusively in either the psychopharmacology or the psychotherapy camp. And we know that many people who have suicidal depression will respond well toelectroconvulsive therapy (ECT), yet prejudice against the treatment, rather than science, holds sway in many hospitals and clinical practices.
Severely depressed patients, and their family members when possible, should be involved in discussions about suicide. Depression usually dulls the ability to think and remember, so patients should be given written information about their illness and treatment, and about symptoms of particular concern for suicide risk — like agitation, sleeplessness and impulsiveness. Once a suicidally depressed patient has recovered, it is valuable for the doctor, patient and family members to discuss what was helpful in the treatment and what should be done if the person becomes suicidal again.

People who are depressed are not always easy to be with, or to communicate with — depression, irritability and hopelessness can be contagious — so making plans when a patient is well is best. An advance directive that specifies wishes for future treatment and legal arrangements can be helpful. I have one, which specifies, for instance, that I consent to ECT if my doctor and my husband, who is also a physician, think that is the best course of treatment.
Because I teach and write about depression and bipolar illness, I am often asked what is the most important factor in treating bipolar disorder. My answer is competence. Empathy is important, but competence is essential.
I was fortunate that my psychiatrist had both. It was a long trip back to life after nearly dying from a suicide attempt, but he was with me, indeed ahead of me, every slow step of the way.