Steve Balt, MD

A poster at the APA meeting, "The Difficult Patient in Psychiatric Practice," surveyed psychiatrists about which patients they considered "difficult" and why.

Have we really found "an exciting new way to identify more objective markers of psychiatric illness in children?"

What impact can psychiatry have on the health of a community?

The use of anecdotal evidence in psychopharmacology is common place, but why, and is this acceptable?

Sometimes a person's environment can elicit reactions and behaviors that might appear, even to a trained observer, as mental illness.

Cymbalta was approved in August 2010 to treat chronic musculoskeletal pain, but does it work?

Scientists at Rockefeller University proclaim that SSRIs may lose their efficacy when given with NSAIDs.

Ten years ago, physicians were told they weren't treating pain often enough. Has the pendulum swung too far in the other direction?

Why do we need a new drug for pseudobulbar affect, and why has there been such a large advertising push for such a niche market?

Does obesity-related anxiety deserve the DSM seal of approval, and should that even matter?

A recent article in Molecular Psychiatry adds a wrinkle to the stress hormone--depression story.

Research models, and the research that is done to support those models, often have very little predictive value to the real world.

Apparently, some drugs are destined to be reborn as newly designed and re-packaged drugs for brand new indications.

Are EMRs yet another example of an external influence that is changing psychiatry for the worse?

Why exactly does inaccessibility lead to craving?

What's the one drug used by many psychiatric patients that may actually be worsening their symptoms?

When does raising awareness become disease mongering?

Reflections on two articles that cover stress and its relationship to human disease, both psychological and physical.

No two conditions in medicine ever exist truly independently of each other, particularly in psychiatry.

Somaxon's R&D and marketing departments have successfully re-introduced doctors to a cheap, old medication for a very common clinical complaint.

It's no secret that doctors in all specialties spend less and less time with patients these days.

Drug companies are businesses, and as with everything else in our consumerist society, the buyer (in this case the doctor) must beware.

Clinical trials that use patients that don't resemble our target patients are not just unreal, but deceptive and potentially dangerous.

Patients should not settle for 10 minutes with a psychiatrist and a hastily written script.

What does it actually mean to treat people as opposed to diseases or symptoms?

A new contender has emerged in the pharmaceutical-based battle against alcoholism.

What makes treatment-resistant depression such an unsettling clinical term?

How do you determine what's the best course of action for a psychiatric patient?

Do we treat diseases or symptoms in psychiatry?

Lithium is a widely used drug because it works. Period. But how?