To a high extent, the work of a psychotherapist consists of the treatment of the various forms of depression, so I’ve always tried to improve my understanding of this particular form of mental disorder – and of its most extreme form, the idea to commit suicide. So I’ve continuously gathered data on suicide – here […]

Women treated for severe psychiatric conditions including major depression shortly after giving birth were more likely to be diagnosed as bipolar later in life compared to those whose first psychiatric episode happened at any other time, in a new study from Denmark. Researchers said they didn’t know if some postpartum depression or schizophrenia-like episodes were […]

Have you recently experienced someone acting completely out of line or losing control over themselves? In Psychiatry, patterns of repetitive behavior during childhood and adolescence where the social norms or boundaries of others are violated are called ‘conduct disorder‘. I am not a particular fan of this term as it reminds me a bit of […]

Bipolar Disorder: Caught between depression and excitement John always felt that his wife was ‘changeful’ – but it took both of them years to find out that she was in fact suffering from so-called ‘bipolar disorder’. People with what was formerly called ‘manic depressive disorder’ cycle between unusually intense emotional states that occur in distinct […]

Talking about ‘sex addiction’ in certain Asian cities is like talking about alcoholism during the ‘Oktoberfest’ in Munich: a firework of dirty jokes and winking confessions (‘yes, I’m an addict, too!’) are standard elements of these conversations. However, few people seem to know what sex addiction really is or means. Sexual addiction (sometimes also called […]