Archive for November, 2011
Sigmund Freud Contributions
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011While neurobiology uses new language and brain imaging data instead of psychotherapeutic observations to support its conclusions, Sigmund Freud anticipated the broad outline of the neurobiological rationale for the uncovering process in psychotherapy a century ago. Freud drew the distinction between unconscious (implicit) and conscious (explicit) memory and developed a […]
Psychotherapy
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011Normalizing dysfunctional neurochemical responses with medication does not deal with the charged content of traumatic memories or the effect of those memories on the functioning of the personality. The healer must also help the patient bring the memory content to consciousness and integrate it so that it is no longer […]
The Small Deindling Minority of Healthcare
Thursday, November 17th, 2011Treatment should not turn a patient into a zombie because of a medication that happens to be approved for the patient’s diagnosis. Therefore I don’t prescribe drugs that numb patients’ emotional responsiveness unless they are overwhelmed by the intensity of their emotions. My patients are told that the target outcome we […]
Antidepressants and the Possible Side Effects
Tuesday, November 15th, 2011There is a particular type of drug side effect that prescribers would never tolerate if they also were directly involved in the patient’s capacity to participate in therapy and make changes in their lives: it is called by various names, like “cognitive blunting,” “brain fog,” etc. SSRI’s, the antidepressants most […]
The Role of the Prescriber is too Often Separated from the Roll of Therapist
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011Unfortunately, in modern clinics the role of the prescriber has too often been treated as a technical function based on psychopharmacology alone, separated from the role of therapist. This is not how things were ordinarily done when I trained in psychiatry and I still prefer to combine these two roles in […]
Healing Relationship
Thursday, November 3rd, 2011The effectiveness of a medication is always equal to the sum of its efficacy in relieving the symptoms of the disorder plus its safety and tolerability for the individual patient. The last term in that equation can’t be ignored just because it doesn’t fit conveniently onto a quick symptom check list. […]
Side Effects of Medication and Managed Care Clinics
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011Many new patients come to me after having received medication from other practitioners who they feel have ignored their reports of serious side effects. Sometimes patients mention submitting unwillingly to long standing drug induced symptoms as debilitating as the psychiatric disorder itself. Often they just stop taking their medications without […]