It was a particularly beloved patient who asked me if I had any advice about improving creativity. She believed, as many people do, that it is a side effect of treating (even a relatively minor form) of bipolar illness. A lot of research back in the days of lithium, one of the first really robust treatments for bipolar illness, strongly suggested it just wasn’t so. Read more on Will Bipolar Treatment Kill Creativity?…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Brain, Diagnosis, Disease, Doctors, Family, medicine, Mental Illness, News by on Sep 21st, 2018. Comment. 
Gag me with a spoon.
Psychiatric diagnosis is never a controversy. It is always a mess.
Within the first week of my residency training, my respected preceptor in child psychiatry told me “You aren’t going to child psych very much, Estelle. There isn’t much evidence for most of what we do. The research is about 20 years behind adult psychiatry.” Read more on The Alleged Controversy About Childhood Bipolar Illness…
Filed under Mental Illness, News, Psychiatrists by on Apr 6th, 2018. Comment.
Should I be inclined to comment on the physical or mental health of a public figure, I would need to start with a humongous disclaimer.
I suppose it is common decency that would force me to say I had never met the patient and/or had never been their doctor and/or had never had any access to their medical or psychiatric record. Read more on Approach, Not Author…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Diagnosis, Disease, Doctors, medicine, Mental Illness, News, prescription drugs, Psychiatrists by on Feb 27th, 2018. Comment.
I am recommended News Fasts a lot these days.
I don’t think people have a clue what is going on in their brains and spirits when they watch television news.
Watching television News is like hypnosis, but with even less control about the kind of content that washes over your brain. Read more on You May Need A News Fast…
Filed under culture, Family, News by on Jan 23rd, 2018. Comment.
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Brain, depression, Diagnosis, Disease, Doctors, medicine, Mental Illness, News, Nutrition, Research by on May 7th, 2017. Comment.
I love being a ”shrink-lady.” (okay, a “psychiatrist.”)
I did not pick it out of a hat. I tried a couple of other medical specialties. The “doctor” part — well, there was never any doubt about that part, really. I mean the idea of taking care of other folks came into my head pretty early on, as did the idea that I was smarter than most other kids, ahead of where I was “supposed” to be.
My family had some health problems as I persevered in schooling. It became evident that doctors had not only status but power over other people’s lives. Read more on Your life, Your Work – What’s The Difference?…
Filed under Asperger's, Family, News, Psychiatrists by on Oct 1st, 2014. Comment.
The person who walks into a psychiatrist’s office looking for help is not necessarily the patient.
Often, they are simply the family of the patient.
Sometimes, they themselves have something – possibly a disorder, but maybe just an emotional or attitude problem — that would seem somehow lesser in magnitude than the psychiatric diagnosis the person who is or should be the patient has actually got. Read more on Families Often Indicate Psychiatric Problems…
Filed under Family, Mental Illness, Psychiatrists by on Sep 19th, 2014. 1 Comment.
I don’t think we plan what our real specialties are going to be.
I frequently tell patients I am an expert on getting through menopause now that I have been able to come through my own relatively unscathed.
I became somewhat of an expert on Asperger’s because I diagnosed many elements of it in my father and just about all criteria in my brother.
They both carried additional diagnoses of bipolar (a.k.a. ‘manic-depressive’) illness. Neither one was in any way typical.
Both surely had their problems in life. My father was assisted considerably by his domineering mother who gave him lots — I mean lots — of direction. She even helped him choose a wife — my mother — who took care of the things in life that were difficult or even impossible for him. Read more on From Sandy Hook to Santa Barbara — Asperger’s Syndrome And Violence…
Filed under Asperger's, Brain, Diagnosis, End Of Life, News, Research by on May 28th, 2014. Comment.
Even though I am both a woman and a psychiatrist, I am no expert on the mother-daughter relationship.
My Mother-Of-Blessed-Memory was a “good” woman by any measure — the faithful and virtuous homemaker. She spent a lot of time thanklessly trying to nurture my Father-Of-Blessed-Memory — a pretty grandiose if creatively powerful music writing and arranging manic with some Asperger traits — and my Brother-Of-Blessed-Memory — a full blown Asperger’s who was also bipolar.
They took so much of her psychic energy it is a wonder she had any left at all for me. But she did, and she told me how she had to fight to get me freedom, the days she would drop me off in the car when I went to the Secondary Science Training program, or even just to walk in downtown Boston. Read more on Mothers and Daughters and Such…
Filed under Family by on Mar 26th, 2014. Comment.
My field is health – which is radically removed from bodybuilding. Oh, the work-out gurus will tell you they are experts in nutrition and health, but their knowledge is often flawed (to put it charitably). And they view someone like me with “Book Learning” as a real kill-joy.
There is something special about bodybuilding supplements — allegedly natural ones. I remember a fairly brittle bipolar – a young and pumped-up muscular male model — who refused, as both I and his girlfriend pleaded with him, to give up a body building supplement. I told him the contents seemed strange and unknown to me. This supplement had made him go angry and seemingly psychotic and she was ready to break up with him if he did not stop this strange supplement.
The girlfriend trusted me. The young man was lost in wishful thinking (and perhaps an adverse drug reaction bordering on psychosis). Read more on Deadly Health Supplements…
Filed under News, Stimulants by on Oct 6th, 2013. Comment.