Recent News Items

Shift in Goals Improves Treatment for Severe Anorexia, by Wood, Janice. Psych Central, May 09, 2013.

Learn from my daughter's eating disorder, by Dr. Ismael Nuno. CNN, May 09, 2013.

Lack of sleep blights pupils' education, by Sean Coughlan. BBC, May 08, 2013.  “Sleep deprivation is a significant hidden factor in lowering the achievement of school pupils, according to researchers carrying out international education tests. It is a particular problem in more affluent countries, with sleep experts linking it to the use of mobile phones and computers in bedrooms late at night. Sleep deprivation is such a serious disruption that lessons have to be pitched at a lower level to accommodate sleep-starved learners, the study found. The international comparison, carried out by Boston College, found the United States to have the highest number of sleep-deprived students, with 73% of 9 and 10-year-olds and 80% of 13 and 14-year-olds identified by their teachers as being adversely affected.”

Majority of Doctors Do Not Follow Treatment Guidelines for ADHD, by Alexandra Sifferlin. Time, May 06, 2013.  “More than 90% of pediatric specialists who diagnose and manage attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in preschoolers do not follow the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) clinical-treatment guidelines. That's the conclusion of researchers from the Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, which sent the Preschool ADHD Treatment Questionnaire to a random sample of 3,000 physicians who specialize in diagnosing and treating neurobehavioral conditions nationwide. The doctors reported on how often they recommended strategies such as training parents in behavioral management of ADHD, how often they relied on medication as a first- or second-line treatment, as well as which drugs they prescribed most often.”

Societal Expectations Help Shape Grief, by Rick Nauert. Psych Central, April 22, 2013.  “New research suggests the way society relates to people who have suffered a loss is important to the way the grieving process is managed. University of Haifa scientists propose that people who have never suffered the loss of a loved one tend to believe that the bereavement process has a far more destructive and devastating effect on a person compared to those who have actually suffered such a loss in the past.”

How Therapy Can Help in the Golden Years, by Abby Ellin. New York Times, April 22, 2013.  “Marvin Tolkin was 83 when he decided that the unexamined life wasn't worth living. Until then, it had never occurred to him that there might be emotional "issues" he wanted to explore with a counselor. Though he wasn't clinically depressed, Mr. Tolkin did suffer from migraines and "struggled through a lot of things in my life"--the demise of a long-term business partnership, the sudden death of his first wife 18 years ago. He worried about his children and grandchildren, and his relationship with his current wife, Carole.”

New Research Says Up to 10 Percent of Children Affected by Learning Disabilities, by Janice Wood. Psych Central, April 19, 2013.  “Up to 10 percent of the population is affected by specific learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and autism, which translates to two or three students in every classroom, according to new research. Researchers at University College London and Goldsmiths University of London also found that children are frequently affected by more than one learning disability.”

Talking to Children About the Bombings, by The National Child Traumatic Stress Network. April 16, 2013.

How Terror Hijacks the Brain, by Maia Szalavitz. Time Magazine, April 16, 2013.  “"When people are terrorized, the smartest parts of our brain tend to shut down" says Dr. Bruce Perry, Senior Fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy. (Disclosure: he and I have written books together). When the brain is under severe threat, it immediately changes the way it processes information, and starts to prioritize rapid responses.”

A.D.H.D. Seen in 11% of U.S. Children as Diagnoses Rise, by Alan Schwarz. New York Times, March 31, 2013.  “Nearly one in five high school age boys in the United States and 11 percent of school-age children over all have received a medical diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to new data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These rates reflect a marked rise over the last decade and could fuel growing concern among many doctors that the A.D.H.D. diagnosis and its medication are overused in American children.”

Early On, Schizophrenia Marked By Worse Cognitive Problems Than Bipolar, by Traci Pedersen. Psych Central, March 23, 2013.  “Although patients with bipolar disorder, bipolar psychosis, and schizophrenia share several early risk factors, patients with schizophrenia often have more severe cognitive problems during childhood than those with bipolar disorder, according to a new study. Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia share several elements including age of onset, family history patterns, as well as similar symptoms leading up to the disorder. Patients who develop bipolar psychosis have even more in common with those who develop schizophrenia.”

Media Coverage of Gun Violence May Further Stigmatize Mental Illness, by Rick Nauert, PhD. Psych Central, March 22, 2013.  “Investigators are concerned that negative media coverage may increase public bias against mental illness and discourage people with mental illness from seeking care. For the report, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers compared public perception among people who did not read media accounts, to people who did read media reports of a mass shooting. The discovered reading a news article describing a mass shooting raised readers' support for both gun restrictions for persons with serious mental illness, and for a ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines.”

How do you talk to your son about rape?, by Rosalind Wiseman and CNN. CNN, March 22, 2013.  “With pressure on parents to talk to their children about issues as sensitive as rape, this article presents ideas about starting the conversation, especially with your son.”

NIH Study Shows People with Serious Mental Illnesses Can Lose Weight, by National Institute of Mental Health. NIMH, March 21, 2013.  “People with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression can lose weight and keep it off through a modified lifestyle intervention program, a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded study reported online today in The New England Journal of Medicine.”

What About the Victim: The Steubenville Rape Victimâ��s Recovery, by Maia Szalavitz. Time, March 20, 2013.  “"We do know that the more severe the traumatic experience is, the more severe the reaction will be," says Edna Foa, a professor of clinical psychology in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading expert on trauma. Rape, regardless of the level of physical force involved, is always traumatic, although, fortunately, the vast majority of people who suffer trauma do not develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”

Animals Bring Out Positive Social Behaviors in Kids with Autism, by Traci Pederen. Psych Central, March 10, 2013.  “The simple presence of an animal can strongly enhance positive social behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), according to new research. For the study, researcher Marguerite E. O'Haire and colleagues from the University of Queensland, Australia, compared how children 5 to 13 years old with ASD interacted with adults and typically-developing peers in the presence of two guinea pigs compared to toys.”

Rashness & Rumination: New Understanding About the Roots of Depression, by Maia Szalavitz. Time, March 08, 2013.  “Two studies explore some of the developmental roots of depression in childhood and adolescence. In the first study, published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, researchers focused on depressive rumination, or the relentless focus on what has gone wrong or will go wrong, coupled with an inability to see a solution to these overwhelming problems. It's no surprise that rumination has a strong connection to depression--in fact, studies show that some talk therapies can actually make depression worse by compelling people to focus on problems and their origins, rather than guiding them toward positive solutions on what to do about them. Smith, who is also investigating some of the potential root causes of depression, reports in his study, published in Psychological Science, on an interesting connection between depression and people's tendency to act without thinking when faced with strong emotion, known among psychologists as "urgency." Although this behavior seems unrelated to depression, he and his colleagues found a surprising link.”

Five psychiatric disorders 'linked', by James Gallagher. BBC, February 28, 2013.  “Autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia all share several genetic risk factors, according to a major study. Versions of four genes increased the odds of all five disorders. Researchers hope to move the psychiatry away from describing symptoms towards fundamentally understanding what is going wrong in the brain. The findings were reported in the Lancet medical journal.”