January 7, 2011
Bob--
This is the twentieth letter that I'll be posting on your website. I thought I'd use the occasion to reflect on what I've observed...
Psychiatric Drugs and Violence: A Review of FDA Data Finds A Link
There has been an enduring controversy over whether psychiatric medications can trigger violent actions toward others. A review of the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting...
December 22, 2010
Bob--
Many cases I have shared with you have been interactions with patients who are seeking a healthier way of dealing with mood disorders, or...
December 15, 2010
Bob--
I saw a thirty-four year old woman today for a follow-up visit regarding post-partum depression. She delivered her second child two months ago, and...
Chapter Five: Filling the Void
When I returned to boarding school in the fall of my junior year, I brought with me not just duffel bags of clothes, athletic...
December 6, 2010
Bob-
I saw a sixteen-year old girl for a sports physical today. She plays softball for the local high school and also is on the...
Updates on the Epidemic
Here’s a rundown of a hodgepodge of studies that I’ve come across recently that relate to themes I wrote about in Anatomy of an...
Do Psychiatric Drugs Impair Normal Brain Development?
At the recent annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, which was held in San Diego from November 13-17, four poster presentations told of...
The GlaxoSmithKline Ghostwriting Documents, Part Two
On Tuesday, the New York Times reported on how SmithKline Beecham paid a marketing company, Scientific Therapeutics Information (STI), to ghostwrite a medical textbook...
Chapter Four: Eye of the Storm
I settled into my new life in the fall of my sophomore year at a co-ed boarding school in Western Massachusetts and was convinced...
A Ghostwritten Psychiatric Textbook Hints at a Much Larger Problem
The report by the New York Times today that a 1999 medical text authored by Dr. Charles Nemeroff and by Dr. Alan Schatzberg was...
November 26, 2010
Bob--
Very interesting case today, a forty-six year-old woman, new patient, overweight, and very pleasant. She is someone who, at first glance, I never would...
Volunteers for Psychotherapy Is A Finalist for International Award
Volunteers for Psychotherapy, which is located in Hartford, Connecticut, and has for years run an innovative program that gets clients involved in community programs,...
Chapter Three: At War With A Diagnosis
Note: In this third entry, it is still early on in my story. It is the fall of my ninth grade year, I am...
November 11, 2010
Bob--
Today, I saw a bright, athletic lacrosse player who is a high school sophomore. She was seeing me to follow up on a mild...
November 1, 2010
Bob--
Since we've started posting these letters, I've had a number of readers responding to me and asking about my strategies for withdrawal. As you...
November 9, 2010
Bob--
Today, I saw a very friendly, highly intelligent (she has a PhD in economics) and overweight 34 year old woman for a refill of...
November 4, 2010
Bob--
Today, I saw a healthy, strapping young man, 28 years old and an avid recreational softball player. He is a former college athlete and...
The Successful Creation of a Societal Delusion . . . and the Increase in...
Ever since the revised edition of DSM III was published in 1987, the psychiatric establishment in the United States -- i.e., the American Psychiatric...
Tardive Dyskinesia in the Atypicals Era: Is The Risk Any Less Today Than Before?
A few weeks ago, while I was at a birthday celebration, a friend who works in a mental health setting remarked that she was...
New Rat Study: SSRIs Markedly Deplete Brain Serotonin
Dutch investigators will soon publish an article in Neurochemistry International that sheds light on how SSRI antidepressants affect the serotonergic system over the longer...
October 28, 2010
Bob--
I had an interesting case today.
A friendly, 24 year old, very slender and slightly distracted Vietnamese woman who has a 18 month-old...
Do Antidepressants Worsen the Long-term Course of Depression? Giovanni Fava Pushes the Debate Forward.
In 1994, Italy's Giovanna Fava, editor-in-chief of the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, wrote for the first time of his concern that "long-term use of...
October 25, 2010
Bob--
A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from the mother of one of my teenage patients, a 14 year old Chinese-american boy...
