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The psychiatrist who upset Freudian dogma in the 1960’s by developing cognitive therapy is one of five winners of this year’s Lasker Awards, widely considered the nation’s most prestigious medical prizes. The awards, announced yesterday by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, are also going to four scientists who made important discoveries about aging and cancer. Mary Lasker created the awards in 1946 as a birthday gift to her husband, Albert, in hopes of curing cancer in 10 years. Each award carries a $100,000 prize. The psychiatrist, Dr. Aaron T. Beck, 85, of the University of Pennsylvania, won the Lasker...

The results of two new studies may signal a substantial shift in the way psychiatrists and researchers think about treatment for severely depressed patients. --snip-- In the other, psychiatrists in New York found evidence that antidepressant drugs significantly increased the risk that some children and adolescents would attempt or commit suicide. Doctors have debated this risk for years, but the authors of the study were skeptical of it, and their report may sway others. --snip-- The study of suicide risk, led by Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, was based on an analysis...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A pro-homosexual group known as Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSMM), a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara, claims to have unearthed a current Pentagon document that lists homosexuality as a psychological disorder.According to the CSSMM the Department of Defense Instruction that so categorizes homosexuality was signed by the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness in 1996 and re-certified as "current" in 2003.Although homosexuality has traditionally been considered a psychological disorder the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality from its list of...

The use of potent antipsychotic drugs to treat children and adolescents for problems like aggression and mood swings increased more than fivefold from 1993 to 2002, researchers reported yesterday. The researchers, who analyzed data from a national survey of doctors' office visits, found that antipsychotic medications were prescribed to 1,438 per 100,000 children and adolescents in 2002, up from 275 per 100,000 in the two-year period from 1993 to 1995. The findings augment earlier studies that have documented a sharp rise over the last decade in the prescription of psychiatric drugs for children, including antipsychotics, stimulants like Ritalin and antidepressants,...

Researchers have made progress in understanding how a variant gene linked to schizophrenia may exert its influence in the brain. The findings are tentative but, if confirmed, could yield deep insights into the biological basis of the disease. The gene, called neuregulin-1, was first implicated in schizophrenia in 2002 by DeCode Genetics, a Reykjavik company that looks for the genetic roots of common diseases... But how the variant form of the gene contributed to the disease was far from clear, in part because even the normal gene's function is far from understood. A team led by Amanda J. Law of...

Nearly 1 in 7 adults in New York City described their mental health last year as being frequently "not good," compared with 1 in 10 adults in a comparable national survey, according to data being released today by the City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The findings, from the city's community health survey, a telephone poll of 10,000 randomly selected adults conducted each year since 2002, confirm what many New Yorkers suspect — that life in the nation's most populous city can be difficult and lonely. Thirteen percent of adults who answered the city's survey last year reported that...

For most of the 20th century, therapists in America agreed on a single truth. To cure patients, it was necessary to explore and talk through the origins of their problems. In other words, they had to come to terms with the past to move forward in the present. Thousands of hours and countless dollars were spent in this pursuit. Therapists listened diligently as their patients recounted elaborate narratives of family dysfunction — the alcoholic father, the mother too absorbed in her own unhappiness to attend to her children's needs — certain that this process would ultimately produce relief. But returning...

Op-Ed Contributor IT'S navel gazing time again, that stretch of the year when many of us turn our attention inward and think about how we can improve the way we live our lives. But as we embark on this annual ritual of introspection, we would do well to ask ourselves a simple question: Does it really do any good? --snip-- For years it was believed that emergency workers should undergo a debriefing process to focus on and relive their experiences; the idea was that this would make them feel better and prevent mental health problems down the road. After 9/11,...

Scientist at Work | David Healy His mother in Ireland is entirely unaware of his international reputation, as far as he can tell. His neighbors in the hamlet of Porthaethwy, on an island off the coast of Wales, are equally oblivious, or indifferent. His wife, who knows too well the furor he has caused, says simply, "How could you be right and everyone else wrong?" Dr. David Healy, a psychiatrist at the University of Cardiff and a vocal critic of his profession's overselling of psychiatric drugs, has achieved a rare kind of scientific celebrity: he is internationally known as both...

A man with psychiatric problems attacked a religious statue outside a Queens church with a sword and a shotgun early yesterday, then fired repeatedly at two police officers who responded, critically wounding them, the police said. One of the officers returned fire, wounding the suspect, whom the police identified as Kevin Davy, 25, of Queens, the authorities said. The officers, Dominick Romano, 29, and David Harris, 40, were in critical but stable condition, the police said, and Mr. Davy was in stable condition, at hospitals last night. The bloody shootout outside SS. Joachim and Anne Roman Catholic Church on 105th...

A college student becomes so compulsive about cleaning his dorm room that his grades begin to slip. An executive living in New York has a mortal fear of snakes but lives in Manhattan and rarely goes outside the city where he might encounter one. A computer technician, deeply anxious around strangers, avoids social and company gatherings and is passed over for promotion. Are these people mentally ill? In a report released last week, researchers estimated that more than half of Americans would develop mental disorders in their lives, raising questions about where mental health ends and illness begins. In fact,...

THE release last week of a government-sponsored survey, the most comprehensive to date, suggests that more than half of Americans will develop a mental disorder in their lives. The study was the third, beginning in 1984, to suggest a significant increase in mental illness since the middle of the 20th century, when estimates of lifetime prevalence ranged closer 20 or 30 percent. But what does it mean when more than half of a society may suffer "mental illness"? Is it an indictment of modern life or a sign of greater willingness to deal openly with a once-taboo subject? Or is...

New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family and prompts out-of-character behavior - compulsive phone calling, serenades, yelling from rooftops - that could almost be mistaken for psychosis. Now for the first time, neuroscientists have produced brain scan images of this fevered activity, before it settles into the wine and roses phase of romance or the joint holiday card routines of long-term commitment. In an analysis of the images appearing today in The Journal of Neurophysiology, researchers in New York and New...

VITAL SIGNS Exposure to bright artificial light can relieve some cases of depression as effectively as psychotherapy or antidepressant medication, new research suggests. In a statistical review of 20 rigorously designed studies, researchers found strong evidence that exposure to artificial broad-spectrum light was a good treatment not only for seasonal affective disorder, in which people become more depressed in the darker days of winter, but for the more common nonseasonal depression. The review appears in the April issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry. Dr. Robert N. Golden, professor and chairman of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School...

Doctors in New York City have begun to use a simple questionnaire to determine if a patient is at risk for depression, a practice that health officials hope will become a routine part of primary care, much like a blood pressure test or cholesterol reading. The new program is the first to carry out depression screening using a scored test on a wide scale. It comes amid a spirited national debate among psychiatrists, policy makers and patient-advocacy groups on the wisdom of screening for mental disorders, especially in children. In 2003, an expert panel convened by President Bush recommended expanding...

WASHINGTON, April 11 - Older patients with dementia who are given antipsychotic medicines are far more likely to die prematurely than those given dummy pills, federal drug regulators said Monday. The warning adds to growing worries about the safety of the widely prescribed drugs. The Food and Drug Administration said that it would now require manufacturers of the medicines to place black-box warnings - the agency's most severe - on the labels of all the drugs. In 2003, the agency required manufacturers to add a warning about an increased risk of diabetes from antipsychotic medications. Zyprexa and Symbyax from Eli...

Nature Stock Shots A team of Dutch scientists is trying to solve the mystery of personality. Why are some individuals shy while others are bold, for example? What roles do genes and environment play in shaping personalities? And most mysterious of all, how did they evolve? The scientists are carrying out an ambitious series of experiments to answer these questions. They are studying thousands of individuals, observing how they interact with others, comparing their personalities to their descendants' and analyzing their DNA. It may come as a surprise that their subjects have feathers. The scientists, based at the Netherlands...

Among famous inventors, Leo H. Sternbach may not immediately leap to mind. But this May in Akron, Ohio, Dr. Sternbach, who is 96, will be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He holds more than 240 patents, but perhaps his most famous invention, in collaboration with colleagues, is a chemical compound called diazepam, better known by its brand name, Valium. One of the earliest benzodiazepines, Valium was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1963 as a treatment for anxiety, and it would become not only the country's best-selling drug, but an American cultural icon. Referred to...

LONDON, Dec. 20 - One year after British drug regulators advised against prescribing a new generation of antidepressants, except Prozac, for depressed adolescents, British doctors say they are in a frustrating bind. Warned away from using the antidepressants, they are recommending psychotherapy for their young patients instead. But under the British health system, depressed teenagers face a six- to nine-month waiting list for psychotherapy, a situation unlikely to improve in the short term. "On the ground, we feel very much abandoned," said Dr. Dick Churchill, a general practitioner and senior lecturer at Nottingham University. "The advice seems to be these...

Scientists in North Carolina have discovered a genetic variation that could predispose people to depression and may help explain why some people who develop the condition get no relief from drug treatments. The findings, posted yesterday in the online edition of the journal Neuron, may allow researchers to develop a test for genetic vulnerability to depression and to create more effective treatments. "The results need to be replicated, but they suggest that we may be able to personalize the treatment of depression," said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which helped finance the study. "We...