I have been thinking about what it is that we do in Psychiatry that is potentially helpful for people with bipolar and why that works. In many ways, the fulcrum of our work involves addressing the “switch process”. This refers to the way that moods can shift from manic to normal behavior, often quite suddenly. A recent discovery has been …
Perfectly Attuned
Today’s post revolves around a universal wish for others to be perfectly attuned to our needs, and the resulting disappointment when this is not the case. A woman we have seen for years, who has been experiencing a strong sense of disappointment and loss because her highly anxious mother was never able to really attune to her needs, told us …
Selective Attention
One morning, while I was riding a bike, I got to thinking about how mood affects attention and how that, in turn, creates a different reality for us depending on what mood we’re in. To think all these thoughts were sparked by my reaction to the image of a dead squirrel… Several weeks ago, it had been an especially dark …
L-Dopa and the Fear Response
What causes us to be afraid, and how can we control it? Jonathan Silver, MD gives some insight about the role of L-Dopa in the fear response. L-Dopa is the precursor to the neurotransmitter dopamine. Recent studies have shown that the production of L-Dopa may induce an effect on the resurgence of fear in humans. Researchers further investigated this hypothesis …
Just Be Quiet
I just met with a smart, funny, attractive graduate student who had a severely traumatic childhood. She came in looking obviously frazzled and announced that she had been crying continuously since she got a terrible haircut the previous day. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel the urge to reassure her. Especially because, in addition to all her …
Suzanne Alexandra Black
I am excited to be working with Suzanne Alexandra Black again. Suzanne is a psychologist who is an expert in bipolar moods. She is a brilliant woman who has an active Skype practice with patients on several continents and she divides her time between Paris and New York. Over the course of the next couple of months I hope to have …
Men at Work
I have to apologize for the distribution (to those of you who subscribe to this blog) of several nonsensical posts this morning. Some of you were concerned that somehow this site had been hacked. No worries. What actually happened was much more prosaic. We have hired a couple of programmers to create a better system of indexing our posts so …
MoodRhythm: Beta Users Needed
One of our readers forwarded to us a story about a new application called MoodRhythm that was developed at Cornell University and won the prestigious $100,000 Heritage Open mHealth Challenge. The full story is available here. The application, which is available as a beta, is available for both iPhones and Android smartphones (although how to download it may be a bit …
ADHD Medication and Reduced Crime Rate
There have been many complaints about psychiatrists being too lenient with an ADHD diagnosis and prescribing medication too liberally. Stephen Faraone, PhD takes a position in support of ADHD pharmacotherapy as a way of mitigating criminal behavior. Research results in a study conducted by Lichtenstein reveal that stimulant therapy prevents criminal behavior. With stimulant therapy, many criminals with ADHD have …
Anxiety and Substance Abuse
Matt Kushner, PhD discusses the issue of substance abuse in individuals with anxiety disorders. Because substance abuse is more common in those with anxiety in comparison to the rest of the population, Kushner has created a list of risk factors and screening tools to help doctors identify individuals experiencing both disorders. Some risk factors for substance abuse in people who …
Hypothyroidism Diagnosis Confusion
Hypothyroidism elicits many similar symptoms to other mental health disorders. Dr. Kristi Estabrook, MD, explains where the symptoms overlap and how unfortunately those experiencing Hypothyroidism are misdiagnosed. First, what exactly is hypothyroidism? Hypothyroidism is a thyroid hormone deficiency and there are two types: Primary and Secondary. In Primary, the thyroid gland does not respond to thyroid stimulating hormone correctly. Causes …
My Brain is Trying to Kill Me
Sometimes brains do terrible things. One of the worst of those things is the suicidal preoccupation that can, eventually, lead to suicide itself. Over the years I have done a lot of thinking about suicide and suicidal preoccupation. One aspect of thoughts of suicide is the data about what happens when someone tries to kill him or herself and is …
Drunkorexia
There is a new kind of eating disorder that has been recently plaguing many college students. This disorder is referred to as Drunkorexia. Drunkorexia is a mix of starving yourself and binge drinking. People engage in Drunkorexia in order to make up for the calories from alcohol by not eating regular food. The demographic that most commonly falls victim to Drunkorexia are college females. These …
Later Retirement and Alzheimer’s Prevention
A study conducted by Carole Dufouil, a scientist at the French governmental agency INSERM reveals that if individuals stay in the workforce longer, the risk of developing Alzheimer’s is greatly reduced. In the study, 500,000 people in France were used as participants. The information gathered from these individuals included age of retirement and whether or not they had dementia. The results …
Moodsurfing Site Update: NEW Topics Page
The Moodsurfing website is extremely excited about some new developments. This new development is the addition of a new Topics page. The new Topics page is a place for organizing some of the content on this site around topics that are of particular interest and relevance to people who are trying to live creatively with moods. The pages will roughly …
Depressed Mothers and Oxytocin
Oxytocin is often brought up in conversations about childbirth. After childbirth, new mothers normally experience surges of oxytocin that increase feelings of maternal bonding, trust, and empathy. In addition to facilitating pair bonding, recent studies have shown oxytocin plays a greater role in mental health than originally thought. Low levels of oxytocin may be a phenomenon linked to depression. Maternal …
Leaving War Behind
I spent many sessions working with a successful entrepreneur to try to help him cope better with stress and depression. His problems seem to be neatly encapsulated in Joseph Campbell’s notion of the Hero. Like all of the heroes in the past, he set out as a young man to make fame and fortune and to change the world for …
Treatment for Insomnia when Bipolar
Many people with bipolar disorder also experience symptoms of insomnia and sleep disturbance. Researchers have been investigating treatments for this condition that do not involve medications. After numerous clinical trials, there has been significant success with CBT-I treatment. CBT-I is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and it involves sleep restriction and stimulus control. The purpose of the first treatment is …
Schizophrenia linked to UTIs
Many individuals facing schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders are given antibiotics from their doctors. Dr. Brian Miller noticed that more and more female patients were coming in with comorbid UTIs and schizophrenia. Many of these patients experienced improved psychoses after taking medication for the infection rather than the mental disorder. Dr. Miller was struck by the observation that the infection …
Brain Power
Problems with memory are common for people with depression (and the rest of us, as we age, as well). Although the most important thing to do to improve brain function is to address mood extremes, there are often residual problems, and sometimes there are negative brain effects from the medications that help stabilize mood. A wonderful older man who came …