Articles containing: depression

The Red Herring Of Guns And Mental Illness

Almost by definition, writing about pediatric mental health can be controversial. People don’t always agree on treatments, causes, or even whether children can actually suffer from mental illnesses. We know that from some of the responses we’ve received on other posts.

Doing What We Ought To Be Doing Already: An Approach To World Suicide Prevention Day

September 10th is World Suicide Prevention Day.

That seems straightforward enough.

Suicide is awful, more common than you’d think, and in many cases, highly preventable.

Perhaps most important, in virtually every culture and every ethnic group on the planet, suicide is highly stigmatized.

Predicting The Next Mental Health Crisis: Sometimes We Just Can’t Know

When tragedies hit, it is in our nature to ask why.  The co-pilot in the horrific Germanwings crash had serious mental health problems, according to reports.

Navigating “The System”

Tune into our audio segment on navigating the system ~ search for ‘Shrinking It Down’ wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m going to try to describe how hard it is for families to navigate the mental health care system in the United States. In fact, even the term “system” is problematic here.

The Death Of Robin Williams: Two Psychiatrists’ Perspectives

No one can deny that the untimely death of Robin Williams has affected us all in a multitude of different ways. In two separate blogs below, Drs. Schlozman and Beresin reflect on Mr. Williams’ legacy, what he meant—and still means—to them, and what we can all learn from this tragic loss.

Did The Black Box Warning For Antidepressants Risk Greater Depression & Suicidal Behavior In Youth?

Intro music written and performed by Dr. Gene Beresin.
Outro music performed by Dr. Gene Beresin.

In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made the difficult decision to apply a “black box” warning to virtually all antidepressant medications.

Sasha’s Story: Recognizing Warning Signs of Suicide

In this short video, parents of a champion swimmer who took her life by suicide, and the psychiatrist who treated her, talk to other parents about how to recognize warning signs of serious trouble.

To see more on various parenting concerns, visit our YouTube channel.

What If My Child Is Prescribed an SSRI?

Tune in for more on medications with Dr. Timothy Wilens, Chief of the Division of  Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.

As we’ve mentioned SSRIs in a number of posts, we’d like to go into a bit more detail about what these particular medications are, and how they work.

What If My Child Is Suicidal?

We’ve begun many of these posts with stories. We’re not going to do that with this post. When a child takes his or her life, we don’t need to make the post personal. The loss of a child to suicide is necessarily tragic, and deeply disturbing.