Blogs

Bob-- Yet another challenging day. I had two more patients today whose trajectories would relate perfectly to Anatomy of an Epidemic. The first was an 61...

In 2008, Philip Cowen published an essay in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences. His essay leads off with the provocative question, “Serotonin and Depression: Pathological...

This blog is an attempt to make sense of what brought me into the world of psychiatry as a child and of where it...

Bob-- My brain is still buzzing from my second day back in the trenches. My final patient today was a middle-aged woman who...

Dear Bob: Today, fittingly, was a very psych heavy day at my clinic. I saw the whole gamut of patient situations, patients (and their conflicted...

Dear Robert, I just finished Anatomy of an Epidemic while on vacation. I am a family physician (and writer) practicing in Colorado.  For years, my practice...

Consider these findings: The antidepressant drugs, used to treat depression and many other mental disorders have limited effectiveness, they have significant side effects, and...

Bob-- I would guess that as I am typing this, you are in the midst of a spirited defense of your book at the conference....

Check out the story that appeared on August 30 on CNN.com titled “Growing Up Bipolar,”  and the one  on August 31 in the New...

The story of how the STAR*D results were misreported has been coming together for some time now, step by step, and a paper recently...

On a recent PBS television show hosted by Charlie Rose on the "mentally ill brain," Columbia University's Jeffrey Lieberman presented a series of brain...

There are a number of bloggers that regularly send out news of the latest findings reported in psychiatric journals and other media, and I...

When I first interviewed Brandon Banks, in the spring of 2008, while researching Anatomy of an Epidemic, he had recently entered Elizabethtown Community College...

In the past few years, a number of pharmaceutical companies have admitted to federal charges that they illegally marketed psychiatric medications for non-approved uses,...

The NIMH's CATIE trial of antipsychotics for adult schizophrenia is regularly understood to have shown that atypical antipsychotics are "no better" than the old...

Two months ago, I wrote a post about a New Yorker article that reported that 67% of the depressed patients in the STAR*D trial...

One of the enduring mysteries in schizophrenia research circles has been the disparity in outcomes between schizophrenia patients in "developing countries" and those in...

As I expected, Anatomy of an Epidemic is turning out to be a controversial book. A nice review in New Scientist magazine, a thrashing...

In today’s Boston Globe (April 14), Dr. Dennis Rosen, a pediatric lung and sleep specialist at Children’s Hospital in Boston, reviews my new book,...

As a journalist, I long have been fascinated by reporting on the storytelling forces within American medicine that create societal understanding of the merits...

In his March 1 article in the New Yorker, Louis Menand wrote that the NIMH's STAR*D trial showed that antidepressants produced a 67% recovery...

In the March 1 issue of the New Yorker, Louis Menand surveyed the topsy-turvy world of treatments for depression, writing in part of the...