psychiatry

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Final Doomsday Cultists Exit Russian Cave

Stench of corpses trumped need to await apocolypse

(Newser) - The final nine members of a Russian doomsday cult holed up in a cave to await the apocalypse (coming this month) have abandoned ship, unable to stand the stench of two people who had died. Thirty-five followers of a self-declared prophet calling himself Father Pyotr climbed into the cave in...

Don't Expect a 20th Nervous Breakdown
Don't Expect a 20th Nervous Breakdown
Apr 15, 2008 10:11 AM CDT

Don't Expect a 20th Nervous Breakdown

Term goes the way of smelling salts as experts seek accuracy

(Newser) - “Nervous breakdown” has long been a catchall for psychological conditions as varied as depression and schizophrenia. But as psychiatric patients emerge from stigmatized isolation—and as the DSM fattens—scientists are chucking the antiquated term in favor of a more descriptive and accurate taxonomy. “I haven’t heard...

Blood Test Aims to ID Bipolar Moods
Blood Test Aims to ID Bipolar Moods
Feb 26, 2008 6:17 AM CST

Blood Test Aims to ID Bipolar Moods

Could be used to diagnose disorder, though ethical issues abound

(Newser) - Researchers at Indiana University have developed a blood test that uses genetic markers to identify a patient's mood state, a discovery that could herald a breakthrough in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Widespread tests are still at least 5 years away, but already many are concerned that results would be...

Bah, Happiness: Gloom Is Normal
Bah, Happiness: Gloom Is Normal
Feb 7, 2008 8:06 AM CST

Bah, Happiness: Gloom Is Normal

Sadness is a normal emotion, not a disease, cries anti-joy crowd

(Newser) - Maybe you're feeling a little down—not to worry! Turn to self-help books, psychiatrists, little blue pills, or Dr. Phil to make you happier! But in Against Happiness, melancholy Eric Wilson rails against our culture’s “craven disregard for the value of sadness.” And a growing wave of...

Therapists Want End to Britney Diagnoses

Identifying mental illness through media inaccurate, dangerous

(Newser) - The media loves to publish experts' diagnoses of Britney Spears, but assessing a patient's mental condition from gossip columns is irresponsible—and it's giving therapists a bad rep, concluded some professionals at an American Psychoanalytic Association summit. "Brains don't have a checkbox," one analyst told the AP, but...

Dr. Phil Cancels Spears Show
Dr. Phil Cancels Spears Show
Jan 8, 2008 3:54 AM CST

Dr. Phil Cancels Spears Show

Situation 'too intense,' he claims, but Brit's parents charge he violated singer's privacy

(Newser) - Celebrity TV shrink Dr. Phil has canceled an interview with Britney Spears' parents, but the reasons are hotly debated. The host says he called off the sit-down because the situation is "too intense" right now, but the Spears family insists they cut him off after he visited Britney in...

Serbs Reject Charges of Patient Abuse

Government disputes group's claim that disabled are neglected, tortured

(Newser) - Officials in Serbia today called "dark propaganda" a report by a US human-rights group that alleged patients with mental and physical disabilities were systematically abused, and that staff at one facility tortured retarded children. "We may be suffering staffing and financial problems," one administrator said, "but...

Compulsive Shopping Linked to Mental Woes

Disorder affects both sexes equally

(Newser) - Nearly 6% of the population suffers from compulsive buying, which is often linked to other problems with control and mood disorders, according to research in the American Journal of Psychiatry. About the same percentage of women and men are shopaholics, and addicts are likely to be young, near the limit...

Number of Bipolar Kids Skyrockets
Number of Bipolar Kids Skyrockets
Sep 4, 2007 11:04 AM CDT

Number of Bipolar Kids Skyrockets

Statistics heighten concerns that disorder is overdiagnosed

(Newser) - The number of American children being treated for bipolar disorder soared 40-fold between 1994 and 2003, and has probably risen significantly since then, the New York Times reports. The revelation in this month's Archives of General Psychiatry has stunned psychiatrists and heightened concerns that the condition may be over-diagnosed.

Army Hospital MIA on Stress Disorders

Walter Reed lacks resources to cope with growing problem

(Newser) - Though 20 to 40 soldiers are sent home from Iraq each month with severe mental problems, the Army's largest hospital has no post-traumatic stress disorder center, reports the Washington Post. There is also a severe shortage of doctors qualified to treat these patients. Not long ago, the head of psychiatry...

Psych Drugs Drove Kid Crazy
Psych Drugs Drove Kid Crazy
May 18, 2007 9:44 PM CDT

Psych Drugs Drove Kid Crazy

Careless prescriptions turned shy chess nerd into into belligerent hulk

(Newser) - The careless prescription of anti-psychotic drugs, often by psychiatrists who draw pay checks from the companies who make them, has drawn attention in the New York Times recently. Now Ann Bauer, writing in Salon, draws an intimate portrait of the effects of such carelessness on one autistic teenager, who turned...

Use of Antipsychotics For Kids Soars
Use of Antipsychotics
For Kids Soars
May 10, 2007 10:23 AM CDT

Use of Antipsychotics For Kids Soars

Payments to psychiatrists from the drugs' makers soar at the same time

(Newser) - The Times tackles the growing use of antipsychotic drugs in children, contentious because the drugs are risky and have no approved use for minors. But the trend is also questionable because it coincides with increasing payments to psychiatrists by the companies that market the drugs. In Minnesota, these payments rose...

Students Brew Coffee Addiction
Students Brew Coffee Addiction
Apr 16, 2007 8:15 AM CDT

Students Brew Coffee Addiction

Docs abuzz over teens’ growing use and abuse of stimulants

(Newser) - Overworked kids are hopping up more and more on lattes and macchiatos, as well as even dodgier stimulants, according to U.S. News. Coffee consumption among 18- to 24-year-olds  has nearly doubled in three years, while increasingly popular energy drinks like Red Bull and the shockingly christened Cocaine pack multiple...

Depression Causes Preemies
Depression Causes Preemies
Apr 4, 2007 8:40 AM CDT

Depression Causes Preemies

Depression is more dangerous before the baby is born, researchers say

(Newser) - Most new mothers with post-partum depression are ill long before their babies are born, the first study of clinical depression during pregnancy has found. The research, conducted at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, shows that depression, triggered by a natural increase in stress hormones during pregnancy, is a "...

Docs Too Quick to Cry Depression
Docs Too Quick to Cry
Depression
Apr 3, 2007 6:58 AM CDT

Docs Too Quick to Cry Depression

Study finds almost any negative emotion seems to prompt medication

(Newser) - Shrinks are too quick to term patients clinically depressed, says a new study reported in the Washington Post. Researchers argue that a quarter of "acute grief reactions," the standard symptom of depression, may in fact constitute normal responses to stress; they blame the bloated psychopharmaceutical industry, in part,...

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