“Really, it’s not you. It’s me,” I said to my psychiatrist this morning at an appointment. I felt as though I were telling a boyfriend that I needed space, that I had been having lunch with another guy and now I was confused about where to go or how to proceed or what I wanted....

I know better than to say “everything happens for a reason” to the mom who has just learned of her daughter’s Leukemia, or to declare, “It was meant to be” to a girlfriend stuck in an abusive marriage. However, new researched published in “Psychological Science,” a journal of the Association of Psychological Science, suggests that...

An effective psychiatrist will own a bookshelf stocked with recommended reading for his patients.  He will have read a host of books on various topics, from sleep strategies to marital advice, so he knows what he is recommending. My psychiatrist has compiled the following list of recommended books for patients. 1. “A Deeper Shade of...

From the moment my eyes open in the morning until the second that I pull my sleep mask over my face as I go to sleep, I am engaged in battle: I must protect myself with armor against ongoing negative intrusive thoughts that flood into my brain, while sending my prefrontal cortex–the home of logical...

Having seen a half dozen of psychiatrists in town, I can appreciate the differences in bedside manners, communication styles, and psychiatric strategies. I also know what makes a person a good psychiatrist, a mediocre one, and one that should have been held back in medical school, without a license to dole out antipsychotics and other...