by Nassir Ghaemi | Jun 14, 2023 | Education
The basic principle of treating bipolar illness is simple: Maximize mood stabilizers; avoid antidepressants. The corollary is: Antipsychotics are not mood stabilizers. So treatment means taking true mood stabilizers, defined as drugs which have been proven to prevent...
by Nassir Ghaemi | Jun 14, 2023 | Education
“Depression” is not a diagnosis. It is a syndrome, a collection of signs and symptoms, like fever. It can happen in different diseases, and it can happen without any disease – just like fever. The biggest mistake made today is to treat “depression” with...
by Nassir Ghaemi | Dec 1, 2022 | Education
The diagnosis of ADD is typically made when a person has marked inattention, or distractibility, along with “executive dysfunction”, or disorganization. In adults, there is usually not an inability to sit still in classrooms (mistakenly labeled “hyperactivity”) since...
by Nassir Ghaemi | Aug 13, 2022 | Education
Temperament reflects the biological component of personality; it is about half genetic, and appears to be basically stable from childhood into later life. Mood temperaments can be conceived as basically mild versions of depressive or bipolar illness,...
by Nassir Ghaemi | Aug 13, 2022 | Education
Explaining Suicide Complex, but not unpredictable Fill up a small baseball stadium, like Fenway Park in Boston, with people. About 41,000 persons. Those are the number of people who kill themselves every year in the US. That comes out to over 100 persons daily, about...
by Nassir Ghaemi | Aug 13, 2022 | Education
Antidepressants in bipolar depression: Common practice, poor science The context The use of antidepressants in bipolar depression is extremely common and yet it has little scientific evidence to support it. In fact, antidepressants are the most commonly used class of...
