Are children and adolescents in the United States too easily given psychiatric medications? There has been a lot of attention to this question lately with many people both within and outside of the mental health community believing that the answer is a resounding yes. Yet while there is ample evidence suggesting that the percentage of […]
Same Genes, Different Disorders
The phenomenon of comorbidity is extremely common in psychiatry. While the term is used to denote the occurrence of two or more independent psychiatric disorders in the same individual, there is increasing evidence to suggest that different types of psychopathology share common etiologic factors. This molecular genetic study, recently published in The Lancet, was done […]
Tags: comorbidity, genetic, shared genes
Helicopter Parenting: Little Study, Big Soundbites
The media has been full lately with discussions and advice about the merits of different types of parenting (see previous blog posting of June 2012: Tiger-Attachment-Ferberization Parenting). Adding further to the debate is a recent study by Schiffrin and colleagues from the Journal of Child and Family Studies regarding a more intrusive and controlling parenting […]
Tags: helicopter parenting, parenting
ADHD Diagnosed in 11% of Youth, According to New York Times
The New York Times is reporting data they received from the CDC’s National Survey of Children’s Health that the number of children who have received a diagnosis of ADHD has risen to 11% with some segments of the population, such as high school boys, as high as 20%. The data come from phone interviews of […]