Is Everyone's Experience of Mental illness the Same?
When I was in high school, one of my friends got mono -- infectious mononeucleosis or kissing disease. He had a minor sore throat and, because his girlfriend was quite sick with mono, he went to the doctor and was tested. He tested positive, but unlike his girlfriend, he never got sick and said, "Well, I haven't tried to run a mile, but I'm pretty sure I could." Still, there is no doubt that both young people had been infected with the virus and one got sick while one did not.One of the things I learned from the extensive research we did for our forthcoming book, Committed: The Battle Over Involuntar...
Source: Shrink Rap - October 8, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
More On Forced Psychiatric Care
For years -- over 10 to be a bit more exact-- we've had controversy here at Shrink Rap when we've talked about forced psychiatric care. It's a controversial topic not just for patients -- some who have benefited from it and some who feel injured by it, but also for psychiatrists who vary in their own views about civil liberties and medical paternalism. Ah, as I'm sure our regular readers know, it inspired us to write a book, Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care, and I do hope you'll read it. I was pleased to read "Medicating a Prophet," in this past Sunday'sNew York Times. Psychiat...
Source: Shrink Rap - October 3, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Should Patients Have Rights?
We're getting ready for the release of our new book,Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care on November 1, 2016 (~great reading for after the election, if I do say so myself) and I found this to be very relevant. My friend, blogger buddy, and mental health advocate Pete Earley went to India recently for a few days. That sounds tiring -- but Pete is full of energy and so what's not to like about a few days on the other side of the world? He's been blogging about mental health in India, and the first of his 3 part series is calledPatient Rights is a New Concept in India, I learned. Pete...
Source: Shrink Rap - September 21, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Why Professional Sports Should be More Like Psychiatry
Okay, so we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. I get calls from people all the time and they tell me their problems over the phone, but sometimes we don't end up scheduling or they don't end up coming, so at this point, the story isn't the story until the patient is in front of me. But once there is a real live person in my office, often in pain, with a unique personal history, parts of which I hear over and over with time, the story gels. I remember sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and spouses, and deaths and pets and who cheated and who left someone feeling so very badly. Sometim...
Source: Shrink Rap - September 19, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Shrink Rap Embraces the Politically Incorrect (because this is kind of funny?), just for a moment.
Oh, I have to say, last week I was away for the week and saw a T-shirt that said, "Please, Lord, help me to be the person my dog thinks I am." I thought of buying it. But actually, I'm not that sure my dog thinks that well of me, and he's not the most articulate of persnickety and temperamental little creatures.Today, I saw the sign above on Facebook, and I chuckled. It's probably not the most politically correct of things to smile at, and I am not always the most politically correct of people, though it seems important to at least try on a psychiatry blog, so here, I at least try. I thought I...
Source: Shrink Rap - September 3, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Dear Boston Globe Spotlight Team: Access to Care is About So Much More than Public Safety
The Boston Globe Spotlight Team -- the investigative reporting team featured in the Oscar-winning, best pictureSpotlight -- is doing a six-part series on the shambles the mental health system has become in Massachusetts. And make no mistake, their system is a shambles. The series is called The Desperate and the Dead, and while I understand that journalism involves sensationalism to get people to read, the emphasis on violence in these articles is striking, and unnecessarily provocative. It's stigmatizing and distracts from the real issues. This from an author who has abook coming out shortly about p...
Source: Shrink Rap - August 27, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
What's up here and our CPN Posts
Oh, my -- it's been nearly a month and that is the longest I have ever gone without posting on Shrink Rap in 10+ years. Just busy, to the point of being a little overwhelmed at moments. And the nice part is that some of busy is time with family and time down the ocean, hon (as they say in B'More). So lots of good busy, and lots of work busy, too. I just submitted two abstracts to the APA --proposals for symposia for May's meeting in San Diego. One is based on the subtitle of our forthcoming book: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care and the other is called Outpatient Commitm...
Source: Shrink Rap - August 25, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Murphy Bill --Now With Guns?
Pretend there's a photo of the U.S. Capitol here. & nbsp; Blogger is not cooperating. < br / > < br / > < span style="font-size: large;" > Let me first send you to < a href="http://www.peteearley.com/" > < span style="color: red;" > < b > Pete Earley's blog < /b > < /span > < /a > to read about the Murphy Bill, HR2646, which was passed by the House of Representatives with a vote of 422-2. & nbsp; The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act had bipartisian and broad support, but not until it was sanitized of it's controversial issues: patient advocacy groups remained funded, outpatient commitment was de-emphasized, an...
Source: Shrink Rap - July 27, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Boy or Girl and Are You Sick?
< a href="http://www.qualiafolk.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/transparent_transgender_symbol.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" > < img border="0" src="http://www.qualiafolk.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/transparent_transgender_symbol.jpg" height="320" width="285" / > < /a > < span style="font-size: large;" > First, let me send you to an article in the < i > New York Times < /i > : < span style="color: red;" > < a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/health/who-transgender-medical-disorder.html" > W.H.O. Weighs Dropping Transgender Identity from List of Mental...
Source: Shrink Rap - July 26, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
News. News. And Too Much News.
Oh my, time has been getting away from me and it's been a bit since I've written a blog post on Shrink Rap! First let me steer you over to Clinical Psychiatry News where ClinkShrink has written an article called "New Mexico High Court States that Assisted Suicide is not a Right." If you surf over, you'll also note that Clink has a lovely new head shot up next to her article.As I've mentioned before, the Boston Globe's famed spotlight team is doing a series on the trouble public mental health system in Massachusetts. The second installation went up on July 7th and discusses the roll of the polic...
Source: Shrink Rap - July 9, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Guns and Violence
Oh there is so much to say and so little time.I'm sending you to two different sites today:My post on Guns & Mental Illness over on Clinical Psychiatry News. It never fails to amaze me that suspected terrorists get due process before losing their constitutional rights to own a gun, but law-abiding people with psychiatric disorders have no such rights. Please do read my article and share you own thoughts here.And the famous Spotlight group of the Boston Globe is taking on the failures of the mental health system in Massachusetts. They start with an article about mentally ill people who murder the...
Source: Shrink Rap - June 26, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
#Orlando
No, not again. I looked at my Twitter feed and learned about yet another mass shooting. I can't even imagine what it's like to feel the kind of fear the people in that nightclub felt, to die in such a horrible way, to live with the aftermath, or to be a family member and know that someone viciously targeted my loved one and purposely inflicted such horror on them. My heart goes out to the victims and their loved ones, and I'm so sorry they are going through this unnecessary tragedy.I heard on the news that the gunman's ex-wife said he was physically abusive and mentally unwell, but I don't know if th...
Source: Shrink Rap - June 12, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Book Review: Ordinarily Well: The Case for Antidepressants by Peter Kramer
My post for today is a review of Peter Kramer's new book over on Clinical Psychiatry News. You may remember him from Listening to Prozac, and he's back now with more on the science that supports the use of anti-depressants.The review of Ordinarily Well can be read here: http://bit.ly/1Y6Tu9p -----
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Source: Shrink Rap - June 3, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Grief, Twice Removed
Good morning. I'm typing very quickly because I'd like to put up a blog post before the power company de-electrifies me for the day. This is the 5th attempt to take down our dying old oak tree, and it looks like it may actually happen today. And there went the power..... 12 hours later, the power is back and now my house looks naked without it's oak tree. Not a person-- and it wasn't safe to leave it up any longer-- but I am feeling a bit of grief for both the tree and the shade and the way my house looked when I woke up today.That said, I wanted to share an article with you that I read in the NYTime...
Source: Shrink Rap - May 23, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Mental Illness and Violence: Dispelling the Myths and Managing the Risks
I'm passing along this information so that readers can register for this forum if interested:Mental Illness and Violence: Dispelling the Myths and Managing the RisksWashington, D.C. – In the aftermath of highly publicized cases of violence, there is a big disconnect about mental illness and its connection to violence. Research shows that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of violence. On Thursday, May 26, the global research institute RTI International will host a policy forum “Mental Illness and Violent Events: Identifying, Managing and Reducing Risks,” where expert...
Source: Shrink Rap - May 17, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
