Volume 1
Dear Reader,
Enough is happening here at MentalMeds that I've decided to start a
monthly newsletter to keep people informed. This is an experiment, and
I would like to hear your thoughts about it.
As always, if you do not wish to receive email from me, please let me
know, and I will remove your name from my list.
Please send all correspondence to meds@mentalmeds.org. If you are
submitting material for the site or newsletter, include your URL or any
other contact information you wish to appear, and I'll include it.
(Just be careful to tell me what you want to appear, and what you do
not want to appear!)
Table of Contents
Calling for Articles
Calling for Humor
This Issue's Featured Article: Treating
Depression -- Medication versus Therapy
Site News
Book News
Book Reviews
Spotlight on Resources: www.Psy-World.com
What You can Do to Help
What I can Do to Help
Who am I?
What am I doing? And Why?
Calling for Articles
Do you have experiences you would like to share about how you have
coped with mental illness? Uplifting stories? Educational stories?
Email me with your idea, and if it makes sense, I will be happy to
include it in a future issue.
Calling for Humor
Send me your favorite joke, funny story, or amusing picture, as long as
it is related to mental illness. Keep it upbeat, please! Jokes
involving mental illness are welcome, but jokes that demean mental
illness are not. If it's appropriate, I'll put it up on the humor page.
This Issue's Featured
Article: Treating Depression -- Medication versus Therapy
The topic of how best to treat depression is one that gets a lot of
attention, partly because the two competing schools of thought are
promoted by adherents who do not see eye-to-eye.
The 'therapy' school advocates non-medical therapy, most often a form
of talk therapy (although non-verbal, non-drug therapies also exist).
Perhaps the most popular type of therapy, with the best track record
for success in this area, is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT. CBT
works by re-training the mind and the person, to avoid negative
patterns of thought and behavior that promote depression, in favor of
positive patterns that prmote mental health.
The 'medical' school advocates medications that work to alleviate
depression by changing the concentration of the brain's chemical
messengers (neurotransmitters), such as serotonin, norepinephrine, and
dopamine. Changing (usually, increasing) the concentration of one or
more of these chemicals can improve or banish depression.
So which is better? If the question had an obvious answer, we would all
know it by now! The fact that the debate exists is a good indication
that neither approach can demonstrate a dramatic advantage over the
other. The existence of the debate confirms what numerous studies have
shown, namely, that both approaches work much of the time, and neither
works all of the time.
For those of us who are more interested in results than debates, the
practical answer is that combining therapy with medication is a good
bet. Medication can make therapy more effective by making it easier for
people to change their destructive habits. Therapy can make medication
more effective by showing people how to avoid situations that foster
depression.
The good news is that effective treatments for depression do exist. If
you have been suffering from depression, now is the time to seek help.
There is no reason to wait.
---
Kevin Thompson, Ph.D. is the author of
Medicines for Mental Health: The
Ultimate Guide to Psychiatric Medication. You
can find information about treatments for depression, bipolar disorder,
schizophrenia, and sexual problems on his Web site at
www.MentalMeds.org.
Site News
The full text of my book,
Medications
for Mental Health: The Ultimate Guide to Psychiatric Medication,
is online as HTML pages on my Web site. While the online version is not
as portable as the printed one, it has other advantages. The online
version contains numerous hyperlinks not only between sections of the
document, but also to the prescribing-information documents for most of
the medications. Thus the online book combines not only the readability
of the printed copy, but improved navigation, and access to detailed
technical data at the same level as the Physician's Desk Reference.
I am also in the process of adding some new sections to the site. Come
see the humor and articles!
Book News
The second edition is out now! The second edition contains an extensive
medication index (over 1700 drug names!) which makes it very easy to
find the medication of interest. I have collected alternate brand names
for medications from around the world, so the odds are that you will
find your medication, whatever it is called.
Book Reviews
I'm pleased to announce that the
Psy-World
Web site contains a very favorable
review
of
Medications.
You will understand why I feel honored by this review when you read
about the site below.
Spotlight on Resources:
www.Psy-World.com
Psy-World.com
boasts an impressive and international lineup of professionals in the
field of psychiatry, including
- Stephen Stahl M.D., Ph.D., author of the "Essential
Psychopharmacology" books, and Chairman, Neuroscience Education
Institute, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry, University of California at
San Diego, USA
- Jean-Pierre Olie, M.D., author and Professor of Psychiatry
at the Faculty of Medicine, Paris
- Mike Isaac, M.A., M.B., B.S., MRCPsych MAE, Consultant
Physician & Senior Lecturer in Psychological Medicine, UK
- Mike Briley, B.Sc., Ph.D., Managing Editor and Consultant
in Psychiatry and Neurology
- Chantal Moret, BPharm., Ph.D., Assistant Editor and
Consultant in Psychiatry and Neurology
In its own words, "Psy-World.com is a Web site for psychiatrists and
other healthcare professionals interested in psychiatry and treating
mental disorders. However, it is also open to non-professionals as
well. Psy-World.com provides articles reviewed by its editorial board,
reference tools, medical and clinical information and resources,
psychiatry news and treatment updates. It also has tools intended only
for the use of a trained healthcare professional."
The description is apt, and I recommend Psy-World for anyone interested
in sophisticated articles such as
Choosing the
Right Antidepressant, and
Selected
review - Triple uptake inhibitors: therapeutic potential in depression
and beyond.
What You can Do to Help
Many people need help, but one person can only accomplish so much, so I
hope you will be willing to help me out. If you find value in what I am
doing, please consider helping in these simple ways:
- Forward this newsletter to anyone who might be interested.
I will also add anyone to the distribution list who emails a request to
meds@MentalMeds.org.
- Post a review of my book on Amazon.com (assuming you have
read it, of course. If you haven't, now would be a good time to get
your copy!).
- Recommend my Web site or book to anyone who needs
information about psychiatric medications or mental illness.
Each of these will only take a few minutes of your time, so I hope you
will consider those minutes worth spending. You may not think that you
can make much of a difference, but enough people who do small things
can accomplish a lot.
What I can Do to Help
If you are looking for articles on mental-health and medication issues,
for an online or printed publication, send me a note, as I do write for
such publications.
Who am I?
My name is Kevin Thompson, and I have a varied background. Since
receiving my Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University, I have held a
wide variety of positions, including astrophysicist, talk-show host,
political activist, software engineer, businessman, and entrepreneur.
I have a long-standing interest in medical treatments for mental-health
problems, and write extensively on the subject in Internet discussion
groups. I am also the author of
Medicines for Mental Health: The
Ultimate Guide to Psychatric Medication, which
is available through my Web site, and on Amazon.com.
What am I doing? And Why?
I have seen enough lives crippled by mental illness to become outraged
by the suffering that it causes. What began as an exercise in curiosity
about how psychiatric medications work has turned into my principal
avocation, culminating in the publication of my book.
In the last few years, I have learned that the main obstacle to
successful treatment of such ills as Depression, Bipolar Disorder,
Schizophrenia, and Sexual Dysfunction is not the limitations of the
medications, but the difficulty in getting the right ones. Medications
can always be improved, and will be, but for most people who suffer
from these problems, the major obstacle to recovery is lack of
information about the options that exist.
So what I am doing is simple: I am trying to put useful information
about medical treatments for mental illness into the hands of people
who need it.
MentalMeds News --
Copyright © 2007 by Kevin Thompson
May be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided material is
attributed to Kevin Thompson, Ph.D. at
www.MentalMeds.org
