by Michael Heitt | Jun 7, 2018 | depression, exercise, medication, self care
In a blog post from a few years ago about the dose-effect of exercise, I passed along the findings that nearly an hour of rigorous exercise, at least three times per week, can be as effective as antidepressant medication. A newly published study notes that resistance...
by Michael Heitt | May 8, 2018 | depression, genetics, medication
An interesting study was recently presented at the ApA conference: there is now limited testing available to determine which SSRI or SNRI antidepressant medication is more likely to work for you based upon your genetics. The study was funded by the testing company,...
by Michael Heitt | Mar 7, 2018 | Coaching, Disruptive Professionals, disruptive students, human behavior, Human Resources, Patient safety, policies and procedures, workplace violence, zero tolerance
A colleague from the University of Maryland/VAMC, Preeti John, MD, and I just published an article in the Journal of Hospital Medicine about disruptive physician behavior. Check it out: Disruptive Physician Behavior: The Importance of Recognition and Intervention and...
by Michael Heitt | Aug 16, 2017 | anxiety, depression, medication
The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics just put out a report about the increasing use of antidepressants. As a psychologist (as opposed to a psychiatrist), I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, there have been many studies that have...
by Michael Heitt | Dec 19, 2016 | depression, medication, placebo
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...
by Michael Heitt | Dec 13, 2016 | medication, sleep
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...
by Michael Heitt | Oct 31, 2016 | Disruptive Professionals, human behavior, sex
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...
by Michael Heitt | Jul 19, 2016 | benefits of therapy, medication, placebo, Psychotherapy, side effects
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...
by Michael Heitt | Jun 29, 2016 | communication, relationships
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...
by Michael Heitt | May 1, 2016 | depression, exercise, health
A really interesting study just came out on PLOS One that should be of particular interest to those of us who say they just don’t have enough time to exercise. The study took a bunch of sedentary guys and divided them into three groups: regular exercise,...
