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Professionals Can Say They're Sorry Too
2007-09-04 23:15:00
Remember the quote from the old Love Story movie, "Love is never having to say you're sorry"? The unfortunate part is that apologies are critical to the survival of all relationships. Believe it or not, medical professionals have been trained to never say they are sorry, even if they made a serious error in treating their patients. The whole thing began with a belief that admitting culpability was the first step to a lost malpractice lawsuit. Heaven forbid would you tell a patient or family of an error when they weren't already aware of it! That would invite a suit where none would have been! To the contrary, it's a common experience for families to speculate about medical errors when a member suffers a surprising complication from medical treatment. And the result of family discussions often is exploring legal options. The drive for such painful discussions is often a feeling of betrayal and deceit by the medical professional. Now it seems the issue is coming full circle, i...
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Unknown to Va. Tech, Cho Had Anxiety Disorder
2007-08-27 17:33:00
The sad thing about Cho, is that his problem was well beyond the ability of the school and mental health system had with which to cope. Even though Cho appeared to have been pretty well served by the high school in their special ed program, there were deeper seated problems than just an anxiety disorder. Could a similar support program in college headed off the massacre? Possibly. But it also may not have. He was destined to have a melt down at some point. The only question was how much collateral damage there would be. washingtonpost.com Fairfax County school officials determined that Seung Hui Cho suffered from an anxiety disorder so severe that they put him in special education and devised a plan to help, according to sources familiar with his history, but Virginia Tech was never told of the problem. The disorder made Cho unable to speak in social settings and was deemed an emotional disability, the sources said. When he stopped getting the help that Fairfax was providing, C...
More About: Prevention , Unknown , Anxiety , Stigma

Blog Against Abuse
2007-08-15 16:22:00
Blog Against Abuse on September 27th, 2007. Join us!
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About Eight Percent of US Experiences Depression Each Year
2007-08-04 05:49:00
SAMHSA released incidence statistics for depression over the the years of 2004 and 2005. Statistics were sorted by age and state and included all individuals who experienced at least one major depressive episode (MDE) in the past year. Youths aged 12 to 17 had a higher rate of incidence at 8.88 percent. Adults aged 18 or older were measured at 7.65 percent. But thats not all. The data demonstrates a confusing variation in the rate by state. Among 12 to 17 year olds, rates of past year MDE were among the highest in Idaho (10.37 percent) and Nevada (10.28 percent) and among the lowest in Louisiana (7.19 percent) and South Dakota (7.40 percent) Rates of past year MDE among adults aged 18 or older were among the highest in Utah (10.14 percent) and Rhode Island (9.88 percent) and among the lowest in Hawaii (6.74 percent) and New Jersey (6.81 percent) Certainly, it is unlikely that the differences reflect any real differences in incidence of depression by state. It is more likely tha...
More About: Depression , Experiences , Eight , Year , Peri

Sometimes Even the Experts Lack Common Sense
2007-07-20 20:29:00
I think it's probably a human trait that we seek the simplest solution to a problem even when more complex and proven methods are well known. Even scientists seem to do this, even in their area of study! Our culture seems to have decided thousands of years ago that negative emotions are bad and should be avoided. Everywhere in the psychological literature is examples of researchers seeking to find ways to help people avoid psychological pain. Has it occurred to anyone that psychological pain has a purpose? For those of us that believe we evolved to be human beings, we have to assume that most attributes that make us human in some way enhance our survival, or that trait would have been selected out of the gene pool. Negative emotions help us. I make that assumption and help people make sense out of their misery, rather than find ways to avoid it. Misery is the single most powerful motivation for change. Here is a good example. Surviving a traumatic event involves recurring "flas...
More About: Sense , Experts , Common , Common Sense , Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Support Vs Co-rumination
2007-07-16 17:48:00
Here is another example of how the media doesn't really do much to enhance understanding of mental health. A researcher releases his results for peer review and integration into professional knowledge. A reporter sees the alarmist headlines and shares it with the general public with the first line of the article: "A researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia has found that girls who talk very extensively about their problems with friends are likely to become more anxious and depressed." The danger here is that the average parent will see this as a reason to intrude into their daughter's friendships in hopes of preventing "co-rumination" by interrupting an unhealthy peer relationship. That could be a very destructive approach and may in fact drive those relationships "underground", outside of the parents' awareness where the real danger lies. Every child needs supportive peer relationships. As children move into adolescence, peer relationships allow them a means to devel...
More About: Support , Mina

Dustbowl Empiricism
2007-07-16 02:58:00
Here is an excerpt from Deric Bownds' MindBlog titled "A New Description of Our Inner Lives." "Paul and Pat, realizing that the revolutionary neuroscience they dream of is still in its infancy, are nonetheless already preparing themselves for this future, making the appropriate adjustments in their everyday conversation. One afternoon recently, Paul says, he was home making dinner when Pat burst in the door, having come straight from a frustrating faculty meeting. "She said, 'Paul, don't speak to me, my serotonin levels have hit bottom, my brain is awash in glucocortocoids, my blood vessels are full of adrenaline, and if it weren't for my endogenous opiates I'd have driven the car into a tree on the way home. My dopamine levels need lifting. Pour me a Chardonnay, and I'll be down in a minute.' " Paul and Pat have noticed that it is not just they who talk this way - their students now talk of psychopharmacology as comfortably as of food." Deric is drawn to this article beca...
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John Nash: Schizophrenia Serves Evolution
2007-07-16 02:39:00
John Nash, Nobel prize winning mathematician and subject of the Oscar winning biographic movie "A Beautiful Mind", delivered a speech to the American Psychiatric Association's annual conference. He suggests that schizophrenia represents just one facet of the diversity created by evolutionary development of human beings. Mind Hacks In his talk, he suggested that mental illness may be the result of the otherwise healthy evolution of mental diversity. Applying his specialized understanding of "game theory" to an analysis of mental illness and his own experience with psychosis, the 79-year-old Nobel Laureate suggested that severe mental illness exists in nature as a consequence of the diversification of species, and that it may serve the needs of adaptation by its not infrequent association with genius.
More About: Evolution , Recovery , John , Schizo , Schizophrenia

Vienna Psychoanalyic Society
2007-07-16 02:12:00
Tripped over a great post from Just Noticeable Differences on the "Vienna Psychoanalyic Society ". Organized by Freud as a support group for his students, it eventually launched the careers of the first dissenters from his orthodox view of psychiatry. In retrospect, Freud got a lot of attention perhaps because of his preoccupation with what many people confused with sex. Yes, sex was included in his concepts if the ID. His definition of sex included sensuality of all kinds. He called certain sensations "sexual" because of the pleasurable sensations the body produced when satisfying these sensuous urges. I've always thought the Adler was the father of modern psychology, he received none of the recognition. This article makes this point well. A good read.
More About: Psychotherapy , Anal

Are Personality Issues Changable?
2007-07-08 04:21:00
Dr. Deb made some comments about the finale of The Sopranos. I never watched Sopranos, I don't watch much TV. So I won't comment about the show. But I was struck by one of Dr. Deb's comments. Persona lity disorders are resistant to cure - so Tony's antisocial and narcissistic personality issues were not changeable. That is true. But treatment was successful in reducing panic attacks and his depression - and the insight gained helped Tony find an greater understanding to his life experiences. A total failure, I think not. Sometimes the whole process of diagnosis is misleading to everyone, the client, and the professional. People who qualify for a personality disorder have learned maladaptive patterns to cope with life. Most often, those experiences occurred in childhood, too often in the form of emotional or physical neglect or abuse. The child who eventually develops a personality disorder becomes impaired in his ability to learn more effective coping. That impairment usually s...
More About: Issues , Personality , Sona , Chang

Ideas on Treating Schizophrenia Have Come Full Circle
2007-07-07 06:13:00
Ideas about treating schizophrenia seem to be gradually coming full circle. What began as little more than blaming, shaming and confining, evolved over hundreds years into a state policy of institutional care with "humane treatment". Over the next hundred years treatment has evolved into primarily a highly professionalized medication regime with an inconsistently available community based supports. [Updated] Now there is evidence that early intervention in the course of schizophrenia with psychotherapy, medication, and consistently applied community based supports may sometimes prevent the usual long-term permanent disability. Medication alone is not sufficient treatment. What has always been assumed as a manifestation of the illness, may in fact be a by-product of a paternalistic and de-humanizing treatment by the community and service agencies as well as isolation due to the pervasive experience of stigma and discrimination by the individual. In this article, I will review som...
More About: Ideas , Full , Circle , Eating , Schizo

The Function of Pride
2007-07-01 19:19:00
Pride is concept that appears to have cultural significance world-wide. That in and of it's self makes studying the concept interesting. However, I think it is a mistake to assume pride is an "emotion". I think pride is very likely a composite of several emotions and attributes that each have a related but very different function. So studying the concept of pride is more relevant to the study of how humans organize concepts used in conceiving what it takes to be successful and transmitting survival skills to others. The problem with studying a complex topic like pride is that it's very difficult to draw conclusions beyond how complex the concept of pride really is. We're Only Human... had an interesting post a couple weeks ago. He reports on the results of a study that probes what he calls "the emotion of pride". The researchers did not define pride in any formal way. Instead they came up with a list of words subjects associated with pride. So pride appears to be universal, a...
More About: Pride , Function

Teens Misuse of Psychoactive Prescription Drugs
2007-06-28 04:18:00
It would appear that one of the most abused drug among teenagers maybe available at home in the medicine chest. Prescription drugs were reported abused by a disturbingly high proportion of high school students. If I recall my numbers correctly, the usual proportion for life time alcohol abuse at about 60%, marijuana abuse in the 25% range, cocaine and sniffing glue around 10%. Nearly 1/2 high schoolers have abused prescription drugs and about half of them had given or sold the drugs to others. Ten percent to PARENTS! Remember the classic and coarse stand up comedy of George Carlin, and his 1970s diatribe on "DRUGS Store"? He observed that the young people's preoccupation with getting high in the 60s and 70s were driven by the culture of pill popping parents who bought their drugs off the glitzy TV ads from pharmaceutical companies. I think his point is well demonstrated in the data in this survey. Rates of prescription use and misuse were high in this single-site survey. Several...
More About: Teens , Drugs , Psych , Active , Suse

Brain Function As a Process
2007-06-21 21:08:00
Psychological research in general seems to have drifted from it's roots. Thirty years ago, when I was in training, there was a plethora of theoretical articles and books that discussed at length theoretical frameworks for constructs that serves as the building blocks of theory. Concepts in psychological measurement were verified in a process called "construct validity". Construct validity refers to ability of a concept to explain what is known about the phenomena. Construct validity can seldom be proven because in order for a concept to be meaningful, it must generalize to many similar circumstances. The more meaningful a concept is, the more difficult it becomes to measure. So construct validity can only be supported by repeated measurement from different perspectives. Word Net defines "theory" as a: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific se...
More About: Brain , Process , Function

Do Violent Games Lead to Violent Behavior?
2007-06-19 20:15:00
Cognitive Daily today has a nice post on a recent MRI study of brain activity while playing violent games. The question a lot people have on their minds is are gamers more likely to be violent. It's well established that playing violent games is associated with aggressive behavior, but it's difficult to determine whether violent games cause aggression. After all, people who are predisposed to aggressive behavior might seek out violent games. But a team led by Rene Weber did realize that a neurological study could provide another link between violent games and aggression. Research in the past few years has found that adolescents with antisocial and aggressive behavior disorders tend to have the same type of activity in certain regions of their brain as normal individuals do when they are imagining aggressive behavior. The key brain regions are the amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which is divided into the dorsal and rostral parts (dACC and rACC). For normal indiv...
More About: Games , Behavior , Ames , Lead , Viol

Ideas on Treating Schizophrenia Have Come Full Circle
2007-06-17 06:13:00
Ideas about treating schizophrenia seem to be gradually coming full circle. What began as little more than blaming, shaming and confining, evolved into a state policy of institutional care with humane treatment, has evolved into primarily a highly professionalized medication regime with an inconsistently available community based supports. Now there is evidence that early intervention in the course of schizophrenia with psychotherapy, medication, and consistently applied community based supports may sometimes prevent the usual long-term permanent disability. Medication alone is not sufficient treatment. What has always been assumed as a manifestation of the illness, may in fact be a by-product of a paternalistic and de-humanizing treatment experience and isolation due to the pervasive experience of stigma within the community and the individual. In this article, I will review some of the relevant history of treating schizophrenia, and reveal the uncanny convergence of new seemingl...
More About: Ideas , Full , Circle , Eating , Schizo

Comments are working now.
2007-06-15 09:44:00
I finally fixed my templates for comments to work. I struggled with it all day, but I finally got it by comparing my version to the default version. It seems that there is some confusing experimental code in the templates I'm using. You will have to register with Typekey to post. Everything is held confidential. Hope to see more comments! I hope to be posting more often. So check back often to see if I actually do it!
More About: Comments , Comm , Working , Workin

Cognitive Therapy Generally As Effective As Medication
2007-06-14 02:36:00
The decision about how to treat depression has been entirely reframed by recent research. First of all, the debate about whether anti-depressant medications actually contribute to suicidal and other impulsive behavior has called to question routine, first choice prescriptions for Celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft, the so-called SSRIs, for even milder forms of depression. Secondly, the STAR*D trials have documented that SSRIs are no magic pill. SSRIs have been implicated in controversial criminal trials where defendants have claimed the medication made them violent, even homicidal. More recently, research has found a confusing array of results indicating a possible association with increased suicidal impulses in children and adolescents and now adults. However, retrospective studies seem to indicate a weak association of increased suicide attempts only with the younger population. Unfortunately, the STAR*D trials were designed before the suicide risk with SSRIs hit the new...
More About: Therapy , Gene , Medication , Effective , Erap

Competition Does Not Ensure Quality
2007-05-28 04:30:00
Competition gets a lot of visibility for aiding in creation of a quality product. The assumption is that everyone will work harder and improve the outcome if there is a competition for rewards. However, in practice, it really doesn't work that way. Here are articles about two studies that demonstrate in different ways that winning induces the competitor slack off, losing makes one try harder. We're Only Human Psychologist Wesley Schultz of California State University, San Marcos believes that despite the fact that we want to be normal, most people are very bad at estimating what normal human behavior really looks like. ...Schultz decided to test this idea in the real world. He enlisted nearly 300 residents of San Marcos, California, who agreed to let him monitor their home energy consumption. He measured their energy use once to start, again soon after, and once again several weeks later. Throughout the experiment, he gave them information about their actual energy use and...
More About: Competition , Sure , Quality , Petit , Ality

Vets Need 24 hour Suicide Crisis Care
2007-05-17 20:16:00
Tragically high suicide rates among Iraq War Vets have been a topic of this blog before. More recent information in the press have been about high rates among Vets in Great Britain. Now we may have some answers and a suggested course of action. A recent report by the Veterans Affairs Department's inspector general finds that at least one factor is that Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are at increased risk of suicide because Veterans Administration health clinics do not have 24-hour mental health care available. Sometimes I forget that, unlike Minnesota, most states don't have 24 hour emergency mental health care. Here such care is manditory, required by state law and funded by a variety of sources, including Federal Medicaid, state grants, and county fee for service contracts. It found that nearly three years after the VA adopted a comprehensive strategy of mental health care, services were inconsistent throughout its network of 1,400 clinics. Many facilities lac...
More About: Care , Suicide , Crisis , Hour , Isis

Schizophrenia and Bipolar Illness: Shared Risk Factors
2007-05-07 20:26:00
Recent genetic research has found genetic links between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The researchers are surprised, but clinicians are not. It is common to find both illnesses in the same family. And it is common to find the two diagnoses in the history of the same client! From a clinical point of view, mental illness appears to be more of a process that has functional properties, rather than a phenomena implied by calling it an illness. In fact, ALL illnesses are processes that evolve with internal and external feedback. It's only the venerable old "Medical Model" that misleads us to think of illnesses as an "entity". So since illness evolves, one would expect diagnosis to evolve with it. To apply a phenomenological name to an illness is descriptive of the present. That description may or may not apply in the future. The other problem with separating schizophrenia and bipolar illness is it's hybrid presentation, called schizoaffective disorder. This disorder is mani...
More About: Risk , Bipolar , Polar , Factor , Illness

May Is Mental Health Month!
2007-05-02 02:11:00
One of every three people you know will be treated for a mental illness sometime in their lifetime. If you know someone in your family who suffers from a mental illness, chances are there are others struggling as well. As many as 60% of those who suffer from mental illness self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. Chances are if you know someone with a drug or alcohol problem, they are self-medicating their mental illness. Educated yourself about mental illness. The problem WILL affect you, if it hasn't already. It's just a matter of time. Join thousands of other Americans in observing Mental Heal th Month under this year's theme, "MIND Your Health," which calls attention to the important message that mental health is fundamental to overall health. Download free Mental Health Month tip sheets for posting in your workplace, doctor’s office, or place of worship. Visit our online store for additional “MIND Your Health” merchandise including pens, post-its, and button...

School Shootings: What Can We Do?
2007-04-23 02:26:00
Why all the mayhem? What consumes people to go on murderous rampages? While I can't pretend to know the answer to these questions, there are patterns in the many incidents that suggest several contributing factors. Historically, murderous rampages have been called "amok" or "running amok". For two centuries, the term was used by colonialists to refer to the native people who reacted to brutal subjugation with violent rampages. Somehow the colonialists couldn't see how their conquests could have inspired what appeared to them to be irrational mass murder. The concept amok or running amok is a phrase derived from the Malay word mengamok, which means "to do furious battle." It's use was more a product of cultural bias than identification of a real phenomena. Experts have agreed that Cho appeared to have suffered from a serious mental illness. When he was evaluated in 2005, he suffered from depression that was observed included neurovegetative signs such as "flat affect". His par...
More About: School , Prevention , Shoot

Brain Fitness Blog Carnival is Out!
2007-04-16 05:25:00
NAKEDMEDICINE.COM written by Jane Chin, Ph.D. is hosting the "Brain Fitness " Blog Carnival has submitted a witty and thematically weaved review of this months submission in a article aptly titled, "Mind, Matter, Mind Over Matter". Check it out!
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Child Abuse Drives Societal Dysfunction
2007-04-15 18:27:00
There seems to be a lot of talk about how chaotic our society is. However, there is a heavy stigma associated with the chaos. People who are unable to function, are blamed and shunned by our society. While there is a general knowledge that alcohol and drug abuse is involved, but there is very little talk about what causes the basic problem. There is a stigmatizing assumption that people are of "weak character", inferior in some undefined way. Some related it to a lack of religious practice in their lives. Too many just write it off to laziness and a desire to live off of welfare. Why do people self-destruct? There are as many answers as there are people who walk through the door of an emergency department. But there is one frequent common denominator. People who engage in self-destructive behavior often have been traumatized. Sometimes they are crime victims or veterans from past wars. But most have been abused, or have witnessed others, usually loved ones, suffering abuse. Someti...
More About: Abuse , Child , Child Abuse , Function

Iraqi Troops Suicide Rate Highest Ever
2007-03-15 17:26:00
AlterNet has the best article I've seen in the media about PTSD and the Iraqi veterans. Unfortunately, the news is not good. The proportion of vets with PTSD is higher in this conflict than in any other previously monitored war. Suicide accounted for over 25 percent of all noncombat Army deaths in Iraq in 2006, that's double what it was in peace time and much higher than rates from Iraq War I and Vietnam. With the VA reporting inadequate resources to treat returning veterans, slow response to those most at risk for PTSD: the National Guard and Reserve troops, and the continuing stigma of mental illness are greatly exacerbating the problem. Female vets are returning home with PTSD due to sexual trauma, too often allegedly perpetrated by fellow American soldiers. There is some good news in all this. There is evidence that treatment is helpful to improving the quality of life of vets. Brief Cognitive Behavior Therapy can mitigate initial symptoms, but doesn't impact long-term prog...
More About: Troops , Post Traumatic Stress Disorder , Rate

We Are Smart Enough To Make Ourselves Sick
2007-03-05 03:06:00
Much of the stress we all suffer from is of our own creation. That may seem absurd at first glance. Why would we spend so much energy making ourselves sick? Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky says that people, apes and monkeys are highly intelligent, social creatures with far too much spare time on their hands. He discussed the biological and sociological implications of stress in a lecture titled "Stress, Health and Coping" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. EurekaAlert "Primates are super smart and organized just enough to devote their free time to being miserable to each other and stressing each other out," he said. "But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, you're going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we've evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick." ..."We've found that baboons have diseases that other social mammals generally don't have," Sapolsky said. "If...
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Criminalizing Drug Abuse Made the Problem Worse
2007-03-02 02:57:00
Alfred Blumstein, the winner of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology published a paper titled "An O.R. Missionary's Visits to the Criminal Justice System". It appears in the February issue of Operations Research, the flagship journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®). He challenges the very political and ideological foundations of our correctional system. I've previously written about the self-defeating nature of our corrections policies. Rehabilitation has been little more than a symbolic effort rather than the central tenant of corrections. The mentally ill, released from institutions 30 years ago, are now populating the streets and our prisons. EurekAlert "By bringing their analytical skills and system perspectives and without being constrained by the traditional presumptions that permeate all fields?perhaps to an extreme in criminal justice because of the strong ideological perspectives that pervade it?operations researchers brin...
More About: Abuse , Problem , Made , Drug

Ask your senator to support the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007
2007-02-17 23:35:00
In some ways, the medical insurance business is in the Dark Ages. Mental and chemical health treatment are often not even included in insurance coverage. Even if it is, it is seldom afforded coverage equivalent for what you might get for a heart attack or other major surgery. Senator Paul Wellstone led a 5 year fight for mental health insurance parity, until he tragically died campaigning for a second term. His and other's attempts to changing the law has been beaten back by business lobbies concerned about increased costs and special interest lobbies with considerable clout, like Scientology. The fact is, mental health coverage does not increase insurance costs. Finally, with changes in the legislature, there is a growing consensus to change this blatant discrimination. But this is not a sure thing and it needs your support. Send an email with just a click to your legislators at the link below to urge his support. Mental health parity took its critical first steps toward enactmen...
More About: Health , Mental Health , Support , Advocacy

The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids
2007-02-13 04:53:00
I've always been very much aware of the power of praise. What I didn't know is that not all praise is helpful. To say the least, I was stunned by this article. This should be required reading by every parent, teacher, day care provider and anyone who works with children. New York Magazine For a few decades, it?s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent. When parents praise their children?s intelligence, they believe they are providing the solution to this problem. According to a survey conducted by Columbia University, 85 percent of American parents think it?s important to tell their kids that they?re smart. In and around the New York area, accordi...
More About: Power , Kids , Parenting , Peri