EMDR in Children and Adolescents [Free Article]

Topics: Child Psychiatry | Free Articles | Psychotherapy

The Psychotherapy of Bipolar Disorder and the Moment of Truth [Free Article]

Topics: Free Articles | Psychotherapy

Post-Concussive Syndrome, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Disruptive Behavior Disorders [Free Article]

Topics: ADHD | Child Psychiatry | Free Articles

Which Electronic Health Record Should You Buy? A Review of Three Products

Topics: Computers in Psychiatric Practice | Free Articles | Practice Tools and Tips

There are a lot of electronic health record (EHR—also called electronic medical record, or EMR) companies vying for your hard earned cash. How do you decide among them? For this article, we chose to review three EHRs: ICANotes, Valant, and Practice Fusion. Why these three? ICANotes and Valant are currently the only EHRs that fulfill the following t

Psychotherapy for Pediatric PTSD

Topics: Antidepressants | Anxiety Disorder | Free Articles | Psychotherapy | PTSD

Karina’s foster mom brought her to my office last year for irritability and “mood swings.” A soft-spoken fourteen year old, Karina (and her nine year old brother) had been with the family for three months, and her foster family reported that “little things” set her off into explosive anger. Sometimes she seemed tense or didn’t want to go out

Treating Anxiety in Alcoholics

Topics: Free Articles | Substance Abuse

Alcoholism and anxiety go hand in hand. The extent of this comorbidity is clear from the numbers: as many as 45% of patients with alcohol disorders meet diagnostic criteria for a co-occurring anxiety disorder. And alcoholic patients with a comorbid anxiety disorder—particularly panic disorder or social phobia—are three to seven times more likely to

Update on Medications for PTSD

Topics: Anxiety Disorder | Benzodiazepines | Free Articles | PTSD

While psychotherapy remains the gold standard for treatment of post traumatic stress disorder (see for example, Foa EB et al, Effective Treatments for PTSD: Practice Guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. New York: Guilford Press; 2008), medications are often used to alleviate the symptoms of the illness. Since we last v

Latuda: “Procognitive” or Pro-Profit?

Topics: Antipsychotics | Free Articles

Lurasidone (Latuda) was approved by the FDA for schizophrenia in October 2010 and is the 10th atypical antipsychotic in our toolbox, believe it or not! Just to refresh your memory, the order of introduction of atypicals was: clozapine (Clozaril), risperidone (Risperdal), olanzapine (Zyprexa), quietiapine (Seroquel), ziprasidone (Geodon), aripiprazole (A

Side Effect Management

Topics: Antidepressants | Free Articles

Let’s face it, dealing with side effects is not high on the list of “things we like most about psychiatry.” In this issue’s interview, Mark Zimmerman describes a study showing just how unenthusiastic we tend to be in ferreting out our patients’ side effects. The bottom line of his study was that patients on antidepressants reported 20 times mo

Four “New” Antidepressants. Or Are They?

Topics: Antidepressants | Free Articles

What’s new in antidepressant treatment? Not much. Some existing antidepressants have received new FDA indications. For example, duloxetine (Cymbalta) was approved for generalized anxiety disorder in 2009 and for chronic musculoskeletal pain in 2010. Also in 2009, quetiapine extended release (Seroquel XR) was approved as an adjunctive treatment for maj

The DSM-5: A Guide to Coming Changes

Topics: DSM | Free Articles

Sometime in 2013, we’ll presumably be forced to shell out a hundred bucks or so for the fifth edition of DSM. While we do not have the space to review every potential change here, we will cover those of most clinical importance. If you want to see all of the proposed changes, visit www.dsm5.org, which was our source for much of the information in this

Stimulants in the Treatment of ADHD

Topics: ADHD | Child Psychiatry | Free Articles

How Do Psychotherapy and Medication Change the Brain?

Topics: Depressive Disorder | Diagnostic Testing | Free Articles | OCD | Psychotherapy

We know that for many conditions, both medications and psychotherapy work about equally well. Common sense would dictate that there is some final common pathway of neuropsychiatric change underlying the symptomatic improvements we see. But identifying what is happening in a living human brain is extremely tricky. Recently, a number of articles have revi

How to Discuss Medications with Parents

Topics: Child Psychiatry | Free Articles | Psychopharmacology Tips

Aggression in Children and Adolescents

Topics: Free Articles

Treating Headaches in Psychiatry

Topics: Free Articles | Natural Medications | Neuroscience in Psychiatry

We know that headaches are common in the general population, but they are particularly common among patients with psychiatric problems. According to one review, (Pompili M et al., J Headache Pain 2009; 10(4):283-290) patients with depression have a 46% lifetime prevalence of migraine, while bipolar patients have a 51% prevalence. Patients with migraines

Does “California Rocket Fuel” Work?

Topics: Antidepressants | Free Articles

September 2019 update on this topic: When a popular antidepressant combination is discredited, what do we do with it? Dr. Chris Aiken sorts through the possibilities for mirtazapine (Remeron) augmentation, and pulls up a few more myths about this medicine. Listen to the podcast episode below or read full article this episode is based on from the Septemb