November 27, 2015 Let's Sell Single Cigarettes, Not Just Packages Among the provisions of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act signed into law by President Obama on June 22, 2009 is a reaffirmation of the 1996 prohibition against the sale of cigarettes in "packages containing fewer than 20 cigarettes."
November 27, 2015 Are We Ready for Triangle Marriage? Now that a Federal judge has struck down California's ban on gay marriage, Americans should prepare for the psychological fallout and for other landmark decisions that will drastically change our view of marriage and relationships.
November 27, 2015 Turning the Presidency Into Daytime TV With President Obama's interview having aired on The View, the Presidency is a little bit less majestic from this day forward, even if the popularity of this President should temporarily rise a bit.
November 27, 2015 Billboards Could Trigger Suicide in Depressed Patients Final Exit Network, an organization that advocates euthanasia, has begun posting stark, black and yellow billboards along highways that state, "My life. My death. My choice." The group apparently wants to stimulate discussion about physician-assisted suicide and other forms of euthanasia.
November 27, 2015 Understanding Female Pedophiles Aimee Sword, 36, of Waterford Township, Mich., has been sentenced to nine to 30 years in prison for having sex with her 14-year-old son, whom she had given up for adoption as an infant. Sword used the Internet to track down the adolescent boy, and then seduced him.
November 27, 2015 The Psychological Value of Pets Last week, my 8-year-old son and I buried his pet hamster, Frosty. He chose a spot in the wooded part of our yard, along a path where he walks to a little pond where he has several tadpoles he is patiently watching as they grow into frogs.
November 27, 2015 Psychiatry and Spirituality Psychiatry is a medical specialty. In the quiver of arrows we psychiatrists use to defeat depression and panic disorder and a host of afflictions, we have powerful and effective medications. We must screen for metabolic abnormalities that can affect mood. And we can sometimes find clues to our patients' suffering by looking through windows opened by technology-like MRIs and PET (positron emission tomography) scans.
November 27, 2015 The Sexualization of Children & Adolescents in America As a forensic psychiatrist, I have been called upon more than once to provide an expert opinion to a court on how dangerous an adult male is who has had a sexual relationship with a 14- or 15-year-old girl. Such relationships are illegal in almost every state and can carry very long prison terms. This is true whether the man engaging in the sexual acts with his underage victim is 19 years old or 29 years old. And it is true whether he is the girl's first sexual partner, or her tenth (as is sometimes the case).
November 27, 2015 Technology-Based Personality Disorder: A New Psychiatric Disorder The official diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association is known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, known as the DSM-IV-TR. It catalogues those signs and symptoms psychiatrists observe in patients and groups them into recognizable disorders, like major depression, panic disorder and borderline personality disorder.
November 27, 2015 Housebound: Paralyzed With Anxiety Within the last six months, I have treated two patients whose visits to my office were among the very few times they had left their homes-in years. They are just a few of the million or more Americans who suffer from anxiety conditions or weight problems or psychotic illnesses that lead them to dread leaving the house. Some are literally houseboundand never venture outside, even confining themselves to a single room or barricading doors and windows. The housebound population is a kind of secret in America, because these folks are often embarrassed about their situation and don't know how to get help for it. House calls, after all, went out of vogue decades ago. Conditions leading people to be housebound include agoraphobia, an intense fear of crowds and being publicly humiliated, and panic disorder, sudden bursts of anxiety often accompanied by a sense of impending doom, rapid heart beat and sweating.