Filed under Aging, Brain, depression, Disease, End Of Life, Family, News by on Mar 2nd, 2017. Comment. 
“I can’t help it. I have a problem with truth. This is the best I can do.” She was telling me about someone in Hollywood having “picked up” her screenplay. This was the one that was going to do it for her, to make her famous.
Filed under News by on Mar 3rd, 2017. Comment.
Filed under Doctors, News, Psychiatrists, Psychotherapy by on Mar 4th, 2017. Comment.
“I think I got ADHD.” I can never say what I think when someone says this. I think, “get out of here you drug seeking idiot.” The great majority of people who come into my office saying this are just that. Of course, I am not that blunt — at least not to their faces. But the tragedy is that they WILL find somebody to dash off a prescription (for a price).
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Diagnosis, News by on Mar 7th, 2017. Comment.
I remember the first lecture, the first psychiatry “grand rounds” when a friend of mine became the “Chief resident” in my final year of residency training. He had gotten a speaker on national tour who was a “Freud-basher.” This speaker launched into an allegedly scholarly criticism of Sigmund Freud.
In the question and answer period that followed, I destroyed this man. I could not stand this man putting down Freud and trying to build a career on that. Taking someone who had built a field where there had not been one before, and destroying his legacy, was a cheap and inappropriate way to be an academic. This speaker defended himself. Read more on Bash Freud At Your Own Peril!…
Filed under News by on Mar 8th, 2017. Comment.
Back in the days before Noah’s flood, a psychiatrist would take care of both the medical and the psychotherapeutic needs of a patient. Of course, we all knew that it took “a different kind of doctor.” In the old days they said it had to be a Jewish doctor who was afraid of the sight of blood. Of which I am not — I mean, I used to be a surgeon so I put that one to sleep.
Filed under Doctors, News, Psychiatrists, Psychotherapy by on Mar 11th, 2017. Comment.
Things have changed a lot since I started answering questions. When I was a medical school professor, the most frequent question (from my students) was “Is this going to be on the test?” There have been questions about general medicine, how to deal with doctors, and even sometimes about sex. The answer to pretty much all of the questions about sex ends up being “The sexiest organ in your body is your brain. Change what it thinks, and you can change pretty much anything and make it better.” Read more on Introducing The Kindness Channel…
Filed under News by on Mar 12th, 2017. Comment.
We were sitting in a circle, like an AA meeting or something, but we were inside a recording studio talking about how to market music. We were going around the circle, telling our names and what we had done in music. Me, I said I sang weird stuff (I do) but I was really a psychiatrist. My main talent had been choosing to marry my husband, who discussed his serious musical accomplishments.
Filed under News, Psychiatrists by on Mar 13th, 2017. Comment.
I had a really depressed patient. She had just had one leg amputated below the knee because of advanced diabetes. Of course, I prescribed some antidepressants, and made sure the medical stuff (medical causes of diabetes) had been eliminated. I asked her why she couldn’t dance. “I can’t walk and you want me to dance?” she asked, as if holding back tears.
Filed under depression, News by on Mar 14th, 2017. Comment.