“When the medical profession—a career you have pursued for years, a career you love and trust to do no harm does something to shatter the foundations of your sense of trust and worldview, the resulting trauma can be severe resulting in loss of se…
Category: Psychiatry
Addressing online addiction has become a moral imperative
On August 30th Uncle Xi Jinping stepped into many Chinese living rooms and asked hundreds of millions of his nieces and nephews to hand over their video game controllers. Three hours per week is all they get now. According to a press release from Xinhu…
What you don’t know about pain will hurt you
Chronic pain is an epidemic, currently affecting over 100 million American adults – more than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. This doesn’t include children, 1 in 3 of whom live with a chronic pain condition ranging from migraine to chroni…
Stress: Is it time to expose the alcohol con?
If you find yourself reaching for a bottle or sighing with relief at a well-deserved glass of wine at the end of a stressful day, then you are not alone. Far more people than you can imagine do the same thing, and many of them feel ashamed that they do…
My biggest blind spot is me
I tend to size people up pretty quickly. Adult ADHD? I can diagnose it in about two minutes. Borderline personality disorder? About one minute. Bad actors on the Dr. Phil show? About 30 seconds (with the benefit of Dr. Phil’s preamble). I can’t help it…
5 sure ways to raise a responsible child
An excerpt from Love Your Child More Than You Hate Your Ex: What Every Divorced Parent Needs to Know. As an experienced clinical child psychologist, I believe the ultimate goal of any parent is to rear an independent, responsible child. While at first…
How digital therapeutics can strengthen the provider-patient relationship and improve behavioral health outcomes
Research shows that early intervention in mental health conditions is critical for achieving better outcomes. Left unaddressed, conditions tend to progress. The depression will worsen. The anxiety will escalate. The disorder can intensify to the point …
I bought into the stigmas about the mentally ill, until I became one of them [PODCAST]
“Bipolar runs in my family, so I knew the harsh realities of this untreated illness. A family member faked his own death after a counterfeiting spending spree. My grandfather told people that I would die in a car accident, and he would take my bo…
If the healers are sick, what happens to the rest of society?
People often say health care professionals are often the worst patients. As health care professionals, we are well versed with what is needed to be healthy, but we struggle, like many other people, to consistently apply these principles. Some reports i…
Which is better: Psychotherapy using video or in-person while wearing masks?
At the very start of the pandemic last year, I met with a couple of patients in the office while we wore masks. Based on that limited experience, I quickly concluded that seeing each other’s faces was of paramount importance, even if over video. That…
