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Archive for January, 2008

Does Bipolar Disorder Exist?

Posted in bipolar disorder, consumer interest, diagnosis, manic depression, medical model, professional issues, psychology in the media, public interest on January 25, 2008 | 3 Comments »

The popular and worthwhile blog Furious Seasons, written by a guy diagnosed with bipolar disorder, asks the following: Does bipolar disorder exist? Here’s an excerpt, a quote from psychiatrist Paul Minot, from a thought-provoking post well worth reading in its entirety:
Bipolar disorder isn’t actually a disease.
It’s a collection of signs and symptoms lumped together in [...]

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Confusing Causation and Correlation: Media Distortions of Research

Posted in brain and behavior, psychology in the media, research on January 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Bugaboos of media science reporting.
PsyBlog has an interesting post from a few weeks ago — a list of eight ways the media distorts research findings. Perhaps the most compelling in the list is the tendency to confuse causation with correlation. Even among the educated there is a confusion about the difference between proving cause and [...]

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Dangerous Psychotherapy Language

Posted in San Gabriel Valley Psychological Association, diagnosis, guest post, professional issues on January 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

A guest post from Alan Karbelnig, Ph.D., past-president of the San Gabriel Valley Psychological Association, among many endeavors. Dr. Karbelnig writes about the hazards of professional jargon.
Perturbed by jargon.
I recently had lunch with two of my illustrious SGVPA colleagues who, in the course of discussing their clinical work, used words such as “attachment,” “affective [...]

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Selective Publication of Research on Selective Re-Uptake Serotonin Inhibitors (SSRIs)

Posted in Big Pharma, consumer interest, depression, psychology in the media, psychotropic drugs, public interest, research on January 17, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Hindering medical knowledge and public health.
What if you were to find that research into SSRIs discarded negative findings and tended to publish on positive findings? And that negative findings were written up with a positive slant? What if research in this area was found to be actually hindering medical knowledge and public health?
These were the [...]

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The Marketing of Bipolar Disorder in Children

Posted in Big Pharma, bipolar disorder, consumer interest, diagnosis, manic depression, medical model, psychology in the media on January 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Here’s a link to Frontline’s piece on the medication of what they are calling “pediatric bipolar disorder“. A 2007 article by David Healy and Joanna Le Noury in the International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine (citation below) has some sobering and thought-provoking assertions about the marketing and medical treatment of manic [...]

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When Does Therapy End?

Posted in analytic psychotherapy, choose a therapist, dependence, professional issues, psychodynamic therapy, psychology in the media on January 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

They call it termination.
In the field of mental health, some do. So, when should your psychotherapy end? An important question, and some recent research has some pointers to keep in mind. It’s particularly important when you’re in a more “psychoanalytic” or “psychodynamic” psychotherapy. When working this way therapy tends to be less structured. Someone might [...]

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