Recently several folks have asked us questions about diet, hunger, weight gain, and nutrition. Certainly for many people with depression, gaining weight is an important issue, both as a cause and consequence of depression. Let’s begin by trying to make some sense of hunger. In other posts we will be talking about how stress and the hormone system relates to …
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 …
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 …
Autism Spectrum Disorder: An inside look to CATs
Recently there has been discussion about alternative treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorder. The acronym CAT is used to describe these complimentary and alternative treatments. CAT is a great approach to treatment for individuals that are concerned with potential negative effects of taking medication. Some examples of CATs include melatonin, RDA/RDi multivitamin/mineral, massage therapy, acupuncture, exercise, music therapy, and animal-assisted therapy. …
When Your Mirror Lies
When an individual spends massive amounts of time obsessing about minor defects or even normal elements of their appearance that it begins to impair daily life, then they are said to be plagued by Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Eve Fisher tells her personal story about BDD recovery. When Eve was 16 she began looking in the mirror for long periods of …
Know Your Body
Geneen Roth talks about how infatuated she was with her imperfections while growing up. She was constantly thinking of how much better looking she would be if she didn’t have certain features. If only she could cut out all the flaws, so just her best features would remain she could be happy. Roth tried to reach self improvement through shaming …
Borderline Emotions
Originally, the label “borderline personality disorder” was applied to patients who were thought to somewhere between patients with neurotic and psychotic disorders in terms of psychopathology. Increasingly, though, this area of research has focused on the heightened emotional reactivity observed in patients carrying this diagnosis, as well as the high rates with which they also meet diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic …