Psychiatry and Mental Health

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD

A traumatic brain injury is a life-changing event, affecting an individual’s lifestyle, ability to work, relationships―even personality. In The Traumatized Brain: a Family Guide to Understanding Mood, Memory, and Behavior after Brain Injury, co-author and neuropsychiatrist Dr. Sandeep Vaishnavi explains how traumatic brain injury, whether mild, moderate, or severe, affects the brain. He describes how emotional symptoms such as depression, anxiety, mania, and apathy can be treated; how behavioral symptoms such as psychosis, aggression, impulsivity, and sleep disturbances can be addressed; and how cognitive functions like attention, memory, executive functioning, and language can be improved.

Host: Brian P. McDonough, MD, FAAFP

Joining Dr. Brian McDonough to discuss clinical approaches to endemic fears and anxieties spread by acts of mass violence and terrorism, both abroad and within the U.S, is Dr. Arthur Caplan, Professor and founding Director of the Division of Medical Ethics in NYU Langone Medical Center’s Department of Population Health.

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Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects twenty-three percent of veterans returning home from deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Left untreated, PTSD is associated with high rates of other disorders, disabilities, and poor quality of life. A new study evaluated a different approach to managing PTSD related symptoms, a mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy.

Researchers at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System randomly assigned 116 veterans with PTSD to receive nine sessions of mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy, which teaches participants to be present in the moment in a nonjudgmental, accepting manner. The others attended group therapy, primarily focusing on current life problems. The veterans were monitored before, during and after treatment.

Results found that among veterans with PTSD, mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy, compared to group therapy, resulted in a greater decrease in PTSD symptom severity.

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JAMA Report videos provided pursuant to license. ©2015 American Medical Association, publisher of JAMA® and The JAMA Network® journals.

Host: Brian P. McDonough, MD, FAAFP

Dr. Brian McDonough welcomes Dr. Amy Price, staff physician in the Department of Family Practice at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Dr. Price authored an article titled "Bipolar Disorders: A Review" in American Family Physician, journal of the AAFP. She explains the keys to recognizing, diagnosing, and treating bipolar disorder in primary care settings.

Host: Brian P. McDonough, MD, FAAFP

Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) bring unique challenges to the primary care practice environment and require personalized therapeutic approaches to address both psychiatric and somatic health issues. Dr. Jill Fenske, Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, joins Dr. Brian McDonough to guide clinicians toward a better understanding of this complex disorder with multiple varied manifestations.

Host: Michael Krychman, MD

Low libido, a condition affecting an estimated 10% of women, can develop at any age and be attributed to several factors in a woman’s life, from lifestyle changes to medication and procedural side effects.

Join host Dr. Michael Krychman and Dr. Leah Millheiser, Director of Female Sexual Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, on the floor of ACOG’s annual scientific meeting. They discuss current knowledge gaps in recognizing and treating low libido, and the importance of sexual health psychology within therapeutic approaches.

Host: Maurice Pickard, MD

Renowned trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with trauma survivors. In his book, The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. van der Kolk adds to modern understandings of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He discusses how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies.

Host: Matt Birnholz, MD

Hypnosis, as a medical tool, doesn't enter the daily lexicon of clinical practice in most hospital settings. But for those familiar with its applications, hypnosis can be a versatile and powerfully effective therapeutic aid across the broad spectrum of psychiatric and somatic disease states. Will the healthcare community at large start to embrace these emerging roles for hypnosis over time, or will the practice remain marginalized to peripheral stereotypes of mysticism and the occult?

Joining Dr. Matt Birnholz to explore hypnosis in medicine and the many questions therein is Dr. David Gandell, hypnosis expert and Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Strong Memorial Hospital of the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York.

Host: Brian P. McDonough, MD, FAAFP

Joining Dr. Brian McDonough to discuss the state of mental health services in the US, as well as current to emerging care resources for children with developmental disabilities such as autism, is Robert Kreider, JD. Mr. Kreider is President and CEO of Devereux, one of the oldest and largest nonprofit providers of behavioral healthcare in the country.

Host: Brian P. McDonough, MD, FAAFP

Mental illnesses are commonly encountered in primary care practice. Yet their sufferers are often relegated to mischaracterized roles of "problem patients" due to the impacts of their diseases on thoughts and behaviors. How can clinicians improve their approach to patients will mental health issues, and can this approach be duplicated at community-wide levels? Speaking on this important initiative is Dr. Marilyn B. Benoit, Chief Clinical Officer and Senior Vice President of Clinical and Professional Affairs at Devereux, one of the nation's premier nonprofit behavioral healthcare organizations. Dr. Benoit is a nationally-known and highly-respected child and adolescent psychiatrist with a wide-ranging career both as a practicing physician and a health care administrator in public, private and academic settings.