Harvard Mental Health Letter articles from February 2002

Harvard Mental Health Letter archives from February 2002

General Review - Depression in Children.(part 1)
February 1, 2002... Childhood depression is not easy to think about. For many years, children who showed signs of what would be called depression in adults suffered quietly while they were regarded as shy, lazy, or disobedient. The symptoms might be attributed to...

EMDR.(eye movement desensitization and reprocessing)
February 1, 2002... Mental health professionals often disagree about some aspect of psychotherapy, but it's rare for these disputes to be as prolonged and intense as they have been in the case of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). This...

In Brief - Depression and Anxiety: Deficiencies in Treatment.
February 1, 2002... An analysis based on a telephone survey of more than 1,600 adults with depression and anxiety disorders indicates that these symptoms are often inadequately treated in the United States. In the study, conducted in 1997 and 1998 as part of a...

In Brief - Placebos and Suicide.
February 1, 2002... There is growing concern about the common practice of giving some patients sugar pills instead of active drugs in clinical trials designed to determine whether a psychiatric drug is effective. The FDA requires placebo controls for approval of...

In Brief - The Traumatized Heart.
February 1, 2002... When we think of post-traumatic stress, the experiences that come to mind are child abuse, rape, assault, natural disasters, and man-made accidents. But a heart attack can be a traumatic experience as well, and now researchers at the Mount...

In Brief - Viagra for Depression.
February 1, 2002... Sildenafil (Viagra), the popular remedy for inability to maintain an erection, may also be good for lifting a man's mood. About 150 men who requested treatment for erectile dysfunction were rated on a symptom checklist for depression and...

In Brief - Emotional Expression in Criminals.
February 1, 2002... An experiment by German investigators indicates that sociopaths or psychopaths - typically characterized as reckless, callous, guiltless, and glibly deceitful - have a peculiar pattern of responses not only to frightening and otherwise...