Hello, Readers! You may have noticed there are some changes to my website. Two years ago, I created a free wordpress.com blog, thereseborchardblog.com, because I couldn’t figure out how to build a website from the domain name thereseborchard.com that I had purchased. Free wordpress sites are great but they have many limitations, both in data...
A friend of mine approached me the other day in tears. The nine year old of a close friend of hers tried to kill himself. “He’s nine!!??!!” she said. “How do you explain that?” It’s true that we are all born with genes that predispose us to all sorts of things—in my case bipolar disorder...
Like most mental health writers, I have compared depression to other illnesses like diabetes in the past, and stressed the biochemical aspect of mood disorders in my efforts at reducing stigma. Somehow talking about the gene G72/G30 located on chromosome 13q (that may predispose individuals to depression and bipolar disorder) makes it more legitimate, as...
According to the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study, an unbiased investigation funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, at standard doses of the most commonly used class of antidepressants (SSRIs), only 30 percent of people with severe depression achieve remission with the first medication prescribed. Switching to a new drug—and it...
Do you remember the old Zoloft (Sertraline) ad where the sad egg no longer chases the birdy, and whenever he moves, the thick cloud above follows him? Pfizer did a masterful job of taking a very complex phenomenon and simplifying it down to a concept that two-year-olds can understand. In fact, the visual props made such...
