Harvard Mental Health Letter articles from August 2003

Harvard Mental Health Letter archives from August 2003

Dual diagnosis: Part I.(diagnosing mental illness and substance abuse)
August 1, 2003... Mental illness and substance abuse can be a devastating combination, but help is increasingly available. It's the rule rather than the exception for a person with one psychiatric disorder to have more than one, but the term "dual...

Treatments for depression with psychosis.
August 1, 2003... Two experimental treatments for depression have shown promise in preliminary studies: one a relatively new drug, the other a familiar hormone. Mifepristone (Mifeprex) - better known, from its long years in regulatory limbo, as RU-486, the...

Staying the course with antidepressants.
August 1, 2003... A common expert misgiving is that patients don't take antidepressant drugs for a long enough time. Most guidelines suggest continuing for 4-6 months once symptoms improve in a first episode of depression, but surveys show that more than half of...

In Brief - Welfare to work: The effect on children.
August 1, 2003... The federal welfare system was overhauled in 1996 by legislation establishing strict work requirements for mothers of dependent children, with tough sanctions and a five-year lifetime limit on benefits. Since then, hundreds of thousands of poor...

In Brief - Trends in psychotherapy.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... A study based on interviews or diaries provided by more than 30,000 people shows that the number of Americans receiving psychotherapy increased slightly between 1987 and 1997, and most of that increase was among older people and the unemployed....

In Brief - Anorexia: Not so deadly.
August 1, 2003... Anorexia nervosa, the self-starvation syndrome that afflicts mainly young women, is usually regarded as one of the most lethal psychiatric disorders. Results of a study conducted at the Mayo Clinic offer a challenge to that view. Working...

Questions & Answers.(emotional stress as a cause of hives)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... Q In the past year, I have been under a lot of stress, and I have been breaking out in hives and skin rashes. Is there a link between stress and hives? A Emotional stress probably can cause hives and other skin reactions. Hives, also...

Questions & Answers (2).(electroconvulsive therapy for mood disorder treatment)
August 1, 2003... Q My daughter has been recovering from a manic episode in the hospital. I'm relieved that she is responding to her medicines because her doctors said she might have needed ECT. Could you please tell me what place ECT has in the treatment of...