This fourth installment in my “sloppy thinking” series turns to psychotherapy, or what passes for it in some psychiatric practices. A very brief history: Sigmund Freud, a neurologist, invented psychoanalysis and its offshoot, psychodynamic psychotherapy, about 120 years ago. It was, first and foremost, a treatment that involved talking — not merely a conversation that […]
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I’d like to take this opportunity to comment on the article that appeared in today’s New York Times: “Talk doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns to Drug Therapy.” Gardiner Harris writes about psychiatry’s shift from talk therapy to drugs, and profiles psychiatrist Donald Levin of Doylestown, PA (a suburb of Philadelphia), who felt financially unable to […] December brings the annual pleasures and challenges of holiday gifts and how to deal with them in dynamic psychotherapy. Although it is relatively easy to follow a simple rule about this, ideally a good deal of thought goes into a therapist’s decision about whether to accept a patient’s holiday gift. Below I will give a […] My fellow psychiatrist and blogger Dr. Daniel Carlat has an article in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine. “Mind Over Meds” is a memoir of Dr. Carlat’s growing realization that psychiatry can’t be done well in 15-20 minute medication visits, that talking to patients as people is important too. I’m generally a fan of Dr. […] Cross-posted from “Sacramento Street Psychiatry“ For more than a decade I’ve taught a seminar in dynamic psychotherapy to psychiatry residents. One tricky issue that arises every year is the apparent choice between conducting a “supportive” psychotherapy, versus an “analytic” or “insight-oriented” one. I developed a sailing analogy to clarify this issue, and to teach an […] |
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