David Strug http://www.davidstrug.com NYC Psychotherapist Sat, 05 May 2012 18:16:56 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 THE EPIDEMIC OF MENTAL ILLNESS: WHY? http://www.davidstrug.com/2012/05/the-epidemic-of-mental-illness-why/ http://www.davidstrug.com/2012/05/the-epidemic-of-mental-illness-why/#comments Sat, 05 May 2012 18:16:28 +0000 David http://www.davidstrug.com/?p=338 It seems that Americans are in the midst of a raging epidemic of mental illness, at least as judged by the increase in the numbers treated for it. The tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders that they qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007—from one in 184 Americans to one in seventy-six. For children, the rise is even more startling—a thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades. Mental illness is now the leading cause of disability in children, well ahead of physical disabilities like cerebral palsy or Down syndrome, for which the federal programs were created.

]]> http://www.davidstrug.com/2012/05/the-epidemic-of-mental-illness-why/feed/ 0 Not Diseases, but Categories of Suffering http://www.davidstrug.com/2012/05/not-diseases-but-categories-of-suffering-2/ http://www.davidstrug.com/2012/05/not-diseases-but-categories-of-suffering-2/#comments Sat, 05 May 2012 18:13:56 +0000 David http://www.davidstrug.com/?p=336 YOU’VE got to feel sorry for the American Psychiatric Association, at least for a moment. Its members proposed a change to the definition of autism in the fifth edition of their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, one that would eliminate the separate category of Asperger syndrome in 2013. And the next thing they knew, a prominent psychiatrist was quoted in a front-page article in this paper saying the result would be fewer diagnoses, which would mean fewer troubled children eligible for services like special education and disability payments.

]]> http://www.davidstrug.com/2012/05/not-diseases-but-categories-of-suffering-2/feed/ 0 Post-Prozac Nation: The Science and History of Treating Depression http://www.davidstrug.com/2012/04/post-prozac-nation-the-science-and-history-of-trerating-depression/ http://www.davidstrug.com/2012/04/post-prozac-nation-the-science-and-history-of-trerating-depression/#comments Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:20:02 +0000 David http://www.davidstrug.com/?p=316 Few medicines, in the history of pharmaceuticals, have been greeted with as much exultation as a green-and-white pill containing 20 milligrams of fluoxetine hydrochloride — the chemical we know as Prozac. In her 1994 book “Prozac Nation,” Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote of a nearly transcendental experience on the drug. Before she began treatment with antidepressants, she was living in “a computer program of total negativity . . . an absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest.” She floated from one “suicidal reverie” to the next. Yet, just a few weeks after starting Prozac, her life was transformed. “One morning I woke up and really did want to live. . . . It was as if the miasma of depression had lifted off me, in the same way that the fog in San Francisco rises as the day wears on. Was it the Prozac? No doubt.”

]]> http://www.davidstrug.com/2012/04/post-prozac-nation-the-science-and-history-of-trerating-depression/feed/ 0 Abuse of Xanax Leads Clinic to Halt Supply http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/10/abuse-of-xanax-leads-clinic-to-halt-supply/ http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/10/abuse-of-xanax-leads-clinic-to-halt-supply/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:52:51 +0000 David http://www.davidstrug.com/?p=307 LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Gayle Mink, a nurse practitioner at a community mental health center here, had tired of the constant stream of patients seeking Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug coveted for its swift calming effect.

Because of the clamor for the drug, and concern over the striking number of overdoses involving Xanax here and across the country, Seven Counties took an unusual step — its doctors stopped writing new prescriptions for Xanax and its generic version, alprazolam, in April and plan to wean patients off it completely by year’s end.

]]> http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/10/abuse-of-xanax-leads-clinic-to-halt-supply/feed/ 0 Talk Therapy Lifts Severe Schizophrenics http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/10/talk-therapy-lifts-severe-schizophrenics/ http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/10/talk-therapy-lifts-severe-schizophrenics/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:44:30 +0000 David http://www.davidstrug.com/?p=304 People with severe schizophrenia who have been isolated, withdrawn and considered beyond help can learn to become more active, social and employable by engaging in a type of talk therapy that was invented to treat depression, scientists reported on Monday.

]]> http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/10/talk-therapy-lifts-severe-schizophrenics/feed/ 0 Psychotherapy Eases Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Study Finds http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/02/psychotherapy-eases-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-study-finds/ http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/02/psychotherapy-eases-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-study-finds/#comments Sat, 19 Feb 2011 19:47:00 +0000 David http://www.davidstrug.com/?p=298 A new study suggests that psychotherapy and a gradual increase in exercise can significantly benefit patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.

]]> http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/02/psychotherapy-eases-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-study-finds/feed/ 0 A FIGHTING SPIRIT WON’T SAVE YOUR LIFE http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/01/a-fighting-spirit-wont-save-your-life/ http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/01/a-fighting-spirit-wont-save-your-life/#comments Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:33:37 +0000 David http://www.davidstrug.com/?p=295 GABRIELLE GIFFORDS’S remarkable recovery from a bullet to her head has provided a heartening respite from a national calamity. Representative Giffords’s husband describes her as a “fighter,” and no doubt she is one. Whether her recovery has anything to do with a fighting spirit, however, is another matter entirely.

]]> http://www.davidstrug.com/2011/01/a-fighting-spirit-wont-save-your-life/feed/ 0 CHILDREN AND SSI MOTIVATION TO MEDICATE http://www.davidstrug.com/2010/12/children-and-ssi-motivation-tgo-medicate/ http://www.davidstrug.com/2010/12/children-and-ssi-motivation-tgo-medicate/#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:19:55 +0000 David http://www.davidstrug.com/?p=288 Geneva Fielding, a single mother since age 16, has struggled to raise her three energetic boys in the housing projects of Roxbury. Nothing has come easily, least of all money.

]]> http://www.davidstrug.com/2010/12/children-and-ssi-motivation-tgo-medicate/feed/ 0 Infants of Depressed Mothers Living in Poverty http://www.davidstrug.com/2010/10/infants-of-depressed-mothers-living-in-poverty/ http://www.davidstrug.com/2010/10/infants-of-depressed-mothers-living-in-poverty/#comments Sat, 02 Oct 2010 17:33:16 +0000 David http://www.davidstrug.com/?p=283 Depression in parents poses serious risks to millions of children
in the United States each day, yet very often goes
undetected and untreated. The risk can be very great for
babies and toddlers, who are completely dependent on their parents
for nurturing, stimulation, and care—and for poor families that do
not have the resources to cope with depression. But depression is
treatable and opportunities to reach these families and connect
them to help already exist within multiple systems.

]]> http://www.davidstrug.com/2010/10/infants-of-depressed-mothers-living-in-poverty/feed/ 0 Child’s Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young http://www.davidstrug.com/2010/09/child%e2%80%99s-ordeal-shows-risks-of-psychosis-drugs-for-young/ http://www.davidstrug.com/2010/09/child%e2%80%99s-ordeal-shows-risks-of-psychosis-drugs-for-young/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:27:56 +0000 David http://www.davidstrug.com/?p=279 OPELOUSAS, La. — At 18 months, Kyle Warren started taking a daily antipsychotic drug on the orders of a pediatrician trying to quell the boy’s severe temper tantrums.

Thus began a troubled toddler’s journey from one doctor to another, from one diagnosis to another, involving even more drugs. Autism, bipolar disorder, hyperactivity, insomnia, oppositional defiant disorder. The boy’s daily pill regimen multiplied: the antipsychotic Risperdal, the antidepressant Prozac, two sleeping medicines and one for attention-deficit disorder. All by the time he was 3.

He was sedated, drooling and overweight from the side effects of the antipsychotic medicine. Although his mother, Brandy Warren, had been at her “wit’s end” when she resorted to the drug treatment, she began to worry about Kyle’s altered personality. “All I had was a medicated little boy,” Ms. Warren said. “I didn’t have my son. It’s like, you’d look into his eyes and you would just see just blankness.”

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