Publisher's Synopsis
Get psychiatric help with atitude and aptitude! "An excellent book for everyone. Dr. Liebowitz explains the life of a psychiatrist and the medications available to help those with anxiety and depression. Anyone who knows someone with depression or anxiety can benefit greatly by his lifetime experiences with patients. It is easy to read and once you start reading it, you can't put it down. It is very enlightening to anyone who has this diagnosis or to anyone who knows someone with this. EXCELLENT book and well worth the money. " The author, Neil Liebowitz, M.D. is the founder and director of the Connecticut Anxiety and Depression Treatment Center in Farmington, Connecticut. "I wrote this book to help patients, loved ones of patients and clinicians who treat people with mental illness to understand the dilemmas in diagnosis and treatment. It is part expose of the faults in psychiatry's troubled past but more importantly it helps to provide a framework to make better choices in medications and therapy selection. My ultimate goal is to make patients and their families colleagues in the treatment decision making, and this involves giving insight into the thought process of a psychiatrist." In this collection of essays he tells clinical pearls about the evolution of modern psychiatric treatment. These are personal stories of the author and his patients that illustrate some of the dilemmas and possible solutions for key psychiatric problems. From growing up on suburban Long Island to residency training at Yale, to an academic career at the University of Connecticut, lessons were learned about how best to understand psychiatric problems and a strategy to treat them. The book has insights for those who want a self help guide and providers looking for treatment manual of strategies from an experienced clinician. It's stories and ideas are meant to help others to become better patients and clinicians. The author hopes that some of his ideas might be tested in the future with more rigorous investigative techniques to either provide support for or show them to be inaccurate observations. Table of contents: Forward: William Glazer, MD Preface: Extending the boundaries by getting real about stigma and patient advocacy 1.Introduction: The phoenix rises from the academic ashes 2.Ode to Freud and latter day disciples 3.The evolution of my psychiatric faith 4.Battle of the titans and how I survived my psychiatry training in turbulent times 5.Seeing is believing, and why I stopped listening to Prozac 6.Psychiatry in techno colors 7.Bad drugs good medications 8.Marketing of a slightly better medication 9.What is my diagnosis, does it matter and who cares? 10.Confessions of a reformed bipolar over-diagnoser and how to see residual ADHD 11.You can't teach old dogs or neurons new tricks- when undesirable medication combinations maybe best 12.The RAM Hypothesis and why remembering everything may make you depressed 13.Origins of panic 14.Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; assessing risks and benefits 15.I must be the worst patient you've ever seen; relativity theory 16.Suicide and the need for hope 17.A danger to others 18.Study conclusions, lies and statistics 19.Afterward-The future 20.Appendix: Depression treatment paradigms
