A recently published meta-analysis of over 3000 studies suggested that switching antidepressants after the first drug doesn’t produce the desired results is not better than staying the course and/or exploring options other than trying a different drug.  This is a very interesting finding as most prescribing clinicians tend to give one antidepressant a “trial” of […]

A recent research letter, published by JAMA, reported that one out of six American adults take at least one psychiatric medication.  As a clinical psychologist I understand the benefits of non-medical treatments for psychiatric illness, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate appropriate use of psychiatric meds.  In fact, I refer a significant number of […]

I was recently interviewed for a Medscape article about maintaining professional boundaries, entitled, When Patients Try to Seduce Doctors.  It’s a relatively short piece and, though I was misquoted a little, it has some good information about the doctor-patient relationship and the importance of establishing and upholding appropriate professional boundaries.  Check it out.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal summarizes some of the explanations about how we think placebos work.  If you read an earlier blog post I wrote about placebos, what I find so fascinating about all this is that even when subjects/patients are told they are receiving a placebo (either in the form of […]

Let’s face it, all couples argue (well, some don’t but they probably don’t communicate much).  Typically when we argue we we try to convince the other person that we are right and they are wrong.  In doing so we tend not to listen much; instead while the other person is speaking we are thinking up […]