樱桃视频

November 27, 2015

The Quiet Epidemic

A recent studyspearheaded by author and researcher Jean Twenge reveals that we have a Tsunami of psychiatric illness headed our way.

November 27, 2015

Autism and Anxiety

Autism is, as most everyone knows, a developmental disorder that begins by age 3 and includes major disturbances in a child's social skills and ability to communicate. It strikes 1 in 100 babies born in America. Recently, data emerged showing that a comprehensive program to identify autistic children as toddlers and deliver an integrated behavioral treatment plan including lots of play and human interaction improves the IQs of autistic children. This is good news and a very good reason to increase our efforts to identify autistic children as early as possible and provide them the care they need. As a psychiatrist who has worked with both adults and children with developmental disorders, I also believe that it is important to treat most or all autistic children very early for what I think are very clear symptoms of unwieldy anxiety. After all, autistic children can shun human interaction, stiffen at human touch, often gravitate toward repetitive and soothing movements, seem drawn to objects or machines that generate predictable rhythms (like fans) and can act out angrily when their routines are altered. All of these signs are also consistent with those of an anxiety disorder. It is possible that, in the end, autism will be understood as a severe anxiety disorder starting in early childhood. Remember, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) is classified as an anxiety condition. Anxiety is the core driving force for the repetitive thoughts or actions that plague so many. Obviously, the desire of an autistic child to maintain a specific routine or repeat a specific behavior or watch a spinning plate seems very similar to the actions of those with obsessions and compulsions. For this reason, not only behavioral techniques, but also medicinal remedies have to be considered front line therapies to interrupt the progression of autism once it is identified. I advise parents of autistic children, therefore, to strongly consider judiciously using medications like serotonin reuptake inhibitors (Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro and others) immediately when autism is diagnosed. The possibility should at least receive very vigorous consideration from the doctors involved in caring for these children. I also believe that the new treatment already approved for depression called rTMS or repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation may have benefits for autistic children. It has almost no side effects and reduces anxiety very significantly. Bottom line_ The most vigorous treatment for autism as soon as possible is probably the best way to limit its long-term consequences. If my child were stricken with the disorder, I would include the early use of anti-anxiety medication as part of that strategy.

November 27, 2015

Be a "Holiday Healer" This Season

Holidays bring joy, but they often bring stress, too. Economic stress and stress related to travel make the Christmas list, but my patients tell me that the greatest stress that comes with Christmas and the New Year is relationship stress. Holidays bring us into closer contact with relatives and friends with whom we might otherwise choose to have very limited interactions. Unresolved conflicts with brothers and sisters can play in the background of handshakes and toasts. That constantly critical step-parent might be around you the whole day. A gift is unwrapped that reminds you again that a friend just "doesn't get you" or has never been nearly as generous as you are.

November 27, 2015

A Generation of Addicts

We are raising a generation of addicts, and we'd better do something about it, starting now. A new federal survey has found that more and more teens are smoking pot, abusing pain pills and using illicitly-obtained stimulants used to treat attention deficit disorder. 15.9 percent of tenth graders reported using marijuana in the last month. The percentage of eighth graders who considered using ecstasy once or twice a dangerous activity decreased from 42.5 percent in 2004 to 26 percent in 2009. It isn't just drugs our kids are addicted to. Kids now play what's called "the choking game" with greater frequency, too. This "game" (which it isn't) involves them choking one another or using improvised nooses to cut off oxygen to the brain and feel "high." Teens are also using food as a drug, with obesity rates soaring. It seems as though they are saying in large numbers that anything will do to get them away from reality. But I don't think marijuana or pain medication or stimulants or the choking game or fast food are the biggest "drugs" to which kids are addicted. They are using their iPods, DSIs, YouTube, reality TV and celebrity escapism in order to shut down their minds, avoid their feelings and substitute the "high" of technology and entertainment. The price of a generation of addicts is incalculable. We have to expect that teenagers using pot and Adderall and Percocet and choking and 21st century versions like Facebook will face an increased rate not only of substance dependence, but of depression and anxiety and their physiological brethren-from hypertension to cardiac disease to malignancy. We have to expect higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases, as young people turn to sex to feel better, too. We have to anticipate more violence, as young people evolve into adults with little experience managing their anger and a higher likelihood of turning to street drugs to try to contain that and every other uncomfortable feeling. More than one of my young patients tell me they participate regularly in "Live Action Role Play," in which a group of teenagers conspire to pretend to be people other than who they really are-nearly full-time. So a cashier at a grocery store can be treated by his friends like a rock star, complete with text messages asking where he's headed on tour. It isn't just teens, either. Kids are getting into the "act." Club Penguin gets them ready to treat animated creatures like real pets-as in, to not care about real life any more than bright images on a screen. Cell phones put instant messaging in the hands of 9-year-olds and remove them from face-to-face or even voice-to-voice communication. All of this activity can be reduced to one basic behavior: Getting high, as in, intoxicated. We may not see it that way today, but we surely will, looking back, from some very complicated and painful tomorrow. Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His book, "Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty" has launched a new self-help movement including www.livingthetruth.com. Dr. Ablow can be emailed at info@keithablow.com.

November 27, 2015

Tiger Woods - and the Rest of Us

As mistress after mistress comes forward, admitting to a sexual liaison with Tiger Woods, it would be easy to focus on his voracious appetite for sex and his fall from grace in the eyes of his fans and miss some very important lessons about the rest of us in 21st century America.

November 27, 2015

White House Party Crashers: Reality Terrorists

If Michaele and Tareq Salahi faked their way into President Obama's first state dinner at the White House, they join Richard and Mayumi Heene (Balloon Boy's parents) and Nadya Suleman (Octomom) as massive examples of the vulnerability of our shared reality to manipulation by "reality terrorists."

November 27, 2015

The Mail Order Drug to Get High

Recently, I treated a patient struggling with depression and substance abuse who had found a legal way to get high. He had ordered Kratom capsules on the Internet. Lots of his friends have ordered up supplies, too. I hadn't heard of Kratom, and you probably haven't, either, but I think you will.

November 27, 2015

The 9/11 Trials and Our Psychological Well-Being

President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have decided to bring five of those who plotted the 9/11 hijackings to Manhattan to stand trial in federal court.

November 27, 2015

Inside the Mind of the Fort Hood Shooter

Major Nidal Hasan, the army psychiatrist who allegedly murdered 13 people and wounded 29 more at Fort Hood, apparently had been trying to contact al Qaeda and had attended the same mosque as the radical imam Anwar al Aulaqi. He reportedly was torn between being a Muslim and serving his country in a war against Muslims. He seems to have written on the Internet that he felt suicide bombers could be heroes, sacrificing their lives for the greater good.

November 27, 2015

Sexual Addiction

One of the fortunate-and sometimes unfortunate-aspects of human biology is that we contain within us the physiology for extraordinary pleasures. When we are psychologically in balance, our capacity to derive enjoyment from our senses and our bodies, whether through eating or exercise or sex, enriches our lives immeasurably. But when we face underlying turmoil or pain or unhappiness, we can use our inborn capacities for pleasure as shields against thinking and feeling our emotions-literally harnessing our brain chemical messengers and neurotransmitters like infusions of drugs.