Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

The ‘DSM-5′: Introducing the Latest Edition of Psychiatry’s Diagnostic Bible

May 20, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
dsm-bible

The long-awaited, controversial new edition of the bible of psychiatry can be characterized by many numbers: its 947 pages, its $199 price tag, its more than 300 maladies (from "dependent personality disorder" and "voyeuristic disorder" to "delayed ejaculation," "kleptomania" and "intermittent explosive disorder"), each limning the potential woes of being human. But to the psychiatrist who shepherded the tortuous creation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, perhaps the single most important number is the "5" in its title: This is the DSM-5, not the DSM-V. That ... Read More

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Things Aren’t Looking So Good for the Graduating Class of 2013

May 15, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Stacey Kalivas should be celebrating her graduation from college later this week. Instead, the 22 year-old is getting ready to move back home with broken dreams and in debt. Kalivas is a member of the class of 2013, the fifth successive wave of students to enter into a stubbornly weak U.S. labor market—marked by high unemployment, a large number of part-time workers, and many who have given up the hunt for jobs. "It's kind of tough to be graduating and not having anything," said Kalivas. The finance major will graduate from Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, on May 18. It has ... Read More

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Just Breathe

April 29, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
veteran-mindfulness

We’ve written in the past about soldiers learning to use mindfulness on the battlefield. But what about veterans back home? Tony King, a research assistant professor at the University of Michigan, started thinking about how vets might benefit from “mindfulness based cognitive therapy,” or MBCT, more than a decade ago. The therapy—which involves breathing, movement, and meditation—was originally developed for patients living with chronic and remitted depression. It focused on interrupting the constant spiral of negative thoughts and rumination that makes living with the disease a ... Read More

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Anxiety, Depression High Among Young Heavy Metal Fans

April 16, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
rage-against-machine

How would you characterize adolescents who listen to heavy metal music? Angry? Perhaps prone to violence? Newly published research suggests “anxious” and “depressed” are more accurate adjectives. An analysis of 551 college students found “significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression among listeners of heavy metal/hard rock music, as compared with non-listeners.” Furthermore, their underlying level of anger was not significantly different from their peers who prefer other musical genres. The study, conducted by psychologists Gavin Ryan Shafron of Columbia ... Read More

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Even Great Apes Get the Midlife Blues

November 19, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Sad orangutan

We’ve all been there. The trees we enjoyed climbing as kids no longer beckon quite so beguilingly. The fruits and nuts that were such delicious treats have largely lost their appeal. If we’re honest with ourselves, we are forced to admit: We’re in something of a mid-life crisis. Yes, getting older can feel oppressive to an orangutan. We can now add the middle-age blues to the list of experiences we mistakenly thought were exclusive to humans. In a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international research team reports the well-being of ... Read More

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Tango Your Way to Mental Health

August 29, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Tango Dancers

Dancing around life’s inevitable difficulties while retaining mental and emotional balance can require some fancy footwork. For those suffering from stress and depression, newly published research finds a promising self-help program involves literally getting out on the dance floor. It’s hard to feel blue while you’re doing the tango. “Preliminary results suggest that tango dance is an innovative and promising approach, as effective as mindfulness meditation in reducing levels of self-reported depression,” writes a team led by psychologist Rosa Pinniger of the University of New ... Read More

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Classical Music an Effective Antidepressant

August 2, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

The Mozart Effect — the notion that listening to classical music will turn your infant or toddler into an intellectual titan — has been largely debunked. But a growing body of research suggests music can play an important role in certain aspects of health care, including pain management. A newly published study from Mexico reports repeated listening to certain classical works — including one by Mozart — helps ease the debilitating symptoms of clinical depression. “Music offers a simple and elegant way to treat anhedonia, the loss of pleasures in daily activities,” the ... Read More

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Transcendental Meditation Mitigates Depression

April 13, 2010 • By • 3 Comments

With a plethora of research suggesting otherwise, few would argue that meditation yields no health benefits. But the sheer number of claims regarding meditation's benefits is overwhelming: A quick Google search yields about 26,800 articles suggesting there are at least 100. While arguments that meditation helps you "attain enlightenment" or leads to "increased job satisfaction" are difficult to prove (after all, if it's your job to do something that you're morally opposed to, meditation isn't likely to make it more fulfilling), many of the practice's health advantages have been documented. ... Read More

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This Is a Mouse’s Brain on Prozac

May 27, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment

A new experimental mouse model of depression and anxiety — the first to allow simultaneous analysis of the different effects of antidepressant drugs, like Prozac, on the same animal — could lead to the development of better treatments for those disorders, according to a major new study published in the journal Neuron. Until now, the exact molecular influences of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (also known as SSRIs) and other types of antidepressants have not been well understood. "Recently, compelling work in rodents has suggested that SSRIs may stimulate changes in a brain ... Read More

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Help for Confused Buyers of Self-Help Books

January 1, 2009 • By • 1 Comment

More than 5 percent of Americans suffer from depression or anxiety on an ongoing basis, and many turn to self-help books for knowledgeable advice. But these volumes differ dramatically in usefulness and accuracy, according to a new systematic study of 50 best-sellers. "The tremendous variability we found was a surprise," said lead author Richard Redding, a professor of law at Chapman University and a former research professor of psychology at Drexel University. "There are some that are totally bogus, and some which are pretty good. If I were seeing patients, I would recommend some of the ... Read More

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