Emotional Education and Employability among Higher Education Students

In the following pages we will have the opportunity to present a revision of the article mentioned above. In it the author presented an analysis about the importance of the emotional intelligence as an educational strategy in order to improve the employability.Since the late twentieth century, the interest in the employability and the emotional intelligence plays an essential role in academic and professional success. One of the basis objectives of the implementation of European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is the learning ability to achieve theemployability on the basis of quality higher education.The current professional requirements are increasingly demanding faster changes. The educational future is unthinkable without professional emotional learning that promoted personal, social and academic success, and without the use of methodologies that facilitates students to be able to adapt and live in a permanent transformation world.The employability is a factor that predicts the ability to succeed in getting a job, considering some variables such as motivation, interest, perseverance and involvement in the work, own strengths and weaknesses, communication skills and leadership ability, among others. Also, the employability includes aspects related to the knowledge, know-how and knowledge to be.

The competences and confrontations for the control and the power of emotional intelligence play a crucial role in achieving personal and professional successSo, many studies, Berrrocal, García et al. have shown that lack of emotional skills leads to problems in and outside the classroom.Moreover, organizations demand skills for people to learn to act appropriately in the labor market, and one of them is precisely emotional intelligence. Consequently, the emotional components related to the abilities are demanding by the actual labor market perform a important function in achieving a better and more productive life and student´s professional career.The emotional intelligence is a concept increasingly appreciated having an influence on the learning process of students, improving their ability to teamwork and leadership, which allows better interpersonal communication and have a strong impact on life subsequent work. It has an influence on student learning process, which enhances the ability for team work and leadership, allowing better communication and relationships between people who have a strong impact on later working life. Read more...........

Hair loss is the major side effect associated with Escitalopram medicine

First stage of major depressive disorder was diagnosed in 28 year woman. She was treated with escitalopram up to 10mg/day and her condition improved, with mild side effects of gastrointestinal discomfort and slight hair fall. After three months of medication hair fall had become more severe and the patient was distressed with this condition. Even dermatologist confirmed no other dermatological reasons for hair fall. The medication was stopped after fourth months and she could recover hairs quickly.It has been found that Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) can induce hair loss as a rare and reversible side effect that may develop in the first few month of treatment and that is resolved after stopping the taking of the drug.

A number of dermatological side effects of this type of medication may occur, such as redness or a rash. Also, for hair, the side effects are not restricted to only hair loss, they can also include changes to the hair structure and colour.However, hair loss may be limited and self-restricting, in that sometimes the condition may be general and in other cases, it can involve the hair over the entire body.Alopecia covers all forms of hair loss, ranging from simple or partial hair loss to a total loss of body hair. It is difficult to detect clinically until about 25% or more of the hairis lost.

Therefore, hair loss is usually a subjective complaint by the patient themself after noticing an increased loss of hair, while physicians often do not enquire about this side effect and may not recognise it, and even if they are made aware of it they don’t usually connect it directly with the medication being taken.Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are widely used to treat depressive disorders and a wide range of other disorders, such as eating disorders, OCD anxiety and borderline personality disorders. Hair loss is a rare side effect of psychotropic agents.In the literature, valproic acid and lithium and carbamazepine are among the most commonly prescribed psychotropic agents. Read more...........

Are There Unconscious Influences on Judicial Decisions?

Unconscious influences on judicial decisions; Unconscious influences; Conscious will; Judicial decisions; Judicial intuition; Sentencing decisions; Judicial decision making; Legal decision makers; Psychology of law; Legal psychologyRecently Newell and Shanks [1, herefrom N&S] published a major article in which they critically addressed the issue of unconscious influences in human decision making, which is a theoretical and research problem of considerable importance from several standpoints. In philosophical terms, it touches on the notion ofthe existence of conscious will. In terms of psychology and neuroscience, it concerns the brain/mind question with regard to the neural versus the consciously intentional determination of action. Finally, the problem potentially has immense implications in socially significant decision making – which is the key concern of the present opinion article.

It is difficult to disagree with the negative slant of the review by N&S concerning the evidence that had been claimed to favor unconscious influences in decision making. Careful methodologists appreciate the authors’ thorough argumentation in debunking the frequently unreplicable, and sometimes trite, allegedly counter-intuitive experimental results from the sensationalist wing of “social cognition” in psychology. As just two of the many possible examples, there is, first, the careful examination by N&S of the accumulated negative evidence concerning the startling claim by Nisbett and Wilson that people (“actors”) are no more aware of the “true causes” of their behavior than are the mere observers of that behavior. Read more.......

Can We Measure Sexual Interest in Pedophiles Using a Sexual Distractor Task?

Pedophilic disorder, a subtype of paraphilia, is defined as a recurrent sexual interest in prepubescent children, which is characterized by persistent thoughts, fantasies, urges, sexual arousal or behavior. A deviant sexual preference is one of the major predictors for sexual recidivism of sexual offenders . Currently, the Western European standard for the assessment of sexual interest are self-reports. But it is known that self-reports and questionnaires are susceptible to denial or faking. It has been suggested to combine self-reports,questionnaires, physiological and indirect measures of sexual deviant interest. Indirect measures assess either physiological information about the participant or use cognitive approaches of different kinds to gather information, instead of asking the participant directly about his sexuality.

In recent years a whole range of indirect measures have been developed, which are based on different cognitive approaches. The Implicit Association Test (IAT), for example, is based on the knowledge that (dependent on the individual sexual preference) certain categories are more strongly associated with the concept of sexual arousal than others. Subjective sexual arousal can be defined as an emotional experience, which includes the awareness of autonomic arousal, expectation of reward, and motivated desire. Resting upon this definition, the information processing approach of Spiering and Everaerd assumes that sexually relevant features of a stimulus are preattentively selected and automatically induce focal attention to these sexually relevant aspects. Based on this approach, Fromberger et al. used an eye tracking technology to investigate pedophiles in an initial orientation approach. Read more..............

Autism Spectrum Disorder and Co-Existing Conditions

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition for which there is no known cause or cure. Autism is a highly variable disorder, the most prominent difficulties of which include aberrant behaviour, poor social skills and disrupted communication skills. Difficulties in social communication andinteraction feature in the diagnostic criteria for ASD.While language difficulties are a core characteristic of autism, as with the disorder itself, linguistic functioning can be highly variable within those on the spectrum. Some children develop fluent speech while others never begin to speak at all. Verbal and nonverbal communications are vital the formation of social interactions, and thus, any investigation into the nature of linguistic difficulties in ASD may help us to further understand basis of the condition.

Language difficulties in ASD, ADHD and Anxiety:

Interestingly, impediments in linguistic information processing have also been documented in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a condition that commonly occurs together with ASD. Investigating the shared nature of linguistic processing difficulties (if any) in conditions that commonly occur together will contribute to a larger research effort to identify whether coexisting conditions in ASD stem from the same basic cause (i.e., are additional conditions simply characteristics of the ASD itself), or are entirely separate conditions (i.e., the coexisting conditions are true separate conditions). Read more...........

Effects of Men’s detention on women

A study was done in Palestinian women too check the impact of men’s detention on their spouse. For this study 360 women who had been imprisoned by their spouse were selected completed their self -report and questionnaires on UCLAPTSD (posttraumatic stress disorders symptoms) and general health problems. Results reported that detention had a large impact on women’s health such as, general health problems, somatic complains, social dysfunction, anxiety and depression regardless of how much time husband spent in detention.

The detention of a husband, partner or spouse has a significant psychological impact on the wellbeing of partners, with possible large emotional difficulties as a consequence, such as loneliness, feelings of isolation, and symptoms of depression, posttraumatic stress (PTSD) and anxiety, to medical and health problems, and even the development of unhealthy behaviors and antisocial activities. Imprisonment of a partner may also lead to relational problems and possibly divorce, to social dysfunction and to problems in interactions with significant others. Besides, wives of an imprisoned husband are regularly facing huge challenges regarding their parental role.Further, stigmatization and shame about their husbands action are also commonly found.

However, this extended body of research has mainly focused on the consequences of husbands being arrested in western nations and being detained because of criminal conduct. Little is yet known about the psychological impact of detention of husbands/spouses in contexts of ongoing political and armed conflict. One of these contexts of protracted armed conflict are the Palestinian Occupied Territories (POT), where since 1967, there are ongoing political conflicts between Israel and the Palestinian people. Read more...........

Female Genital Mutilation: From the Life Story of Girls in Remote Villages in Pokot County, Kenya

The procedure of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) comprises the involvement of partial or total removal of the external female genitalia. There are some risks associated with FGM/C including both short term and long term consequences. The short term consequences are severe pain, shock, haemorrhage (bleeding), tetanus or sepsis (bacterial infection), urine retention, open sores in the genital region and injury to nearby genitaltissue. The long term consequences including recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts, infertility, an increased risk of childbirth complications and newborn death .There were other consequences as well including death, life-long physical disability, life-long disability in sexual life, hindering natural physical movements, absence of erogenous feelings in sexual intercourse, severe pain and bleeding during and/or immediately after sexual intercourse, and cases of maternal death during delivery.

In many setting where FGM/C is practiced, it is justified because there is a social consensus that if households or individuals do not perform FGM/C on their girls/women, they risk being excluded, criticized, ridiculed, stigmatized or the household would unable to find a suitable partner to marriage for their daughters. Coyne and Coyne speak of the ‘identity economics’ perpetuating FGM/C, and point out the role of older, circumcised females as being key players in perpetuating FGM/C. Although the government of Kenya has made this practice illegal with laws passed long ago, the people of Pokot regularly disobey the laws and continue practicing FGM/C, sometimes secretly and sometimes openly. As a result, by August 2009 close to 80% of Pokot girls took part in FGM/C in order to become eligible for marriage in the traditional society. Because of continued practices of FGM/C, the international community has continued support to abolish or eradicate the harmful and risky practice. Read more..............

Symptoms of MDD

Co-existence of irritability and anxiety was observed in the MDD (major depressive disorders). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), is a study to understand the various components of irritability and anxiety, impact and their relationship with MDD. Clinical data of the MDD patients were collected from open labelled antidepressant treatment. From the results it is clear that approximately 50% of patients failed to ADTs, and suffered with symptoms of anxious distress and irritability due to lower ADT response rates.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by several diagnostic or core symptoms and feelings such as sadness, loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities, sleep and/or appetite disturbances, and fatigue. However, clinically, depression is often accompanied by symptoms outside of the diagnostic criteria such as anxiety and irritability.Over the past 20 years, apreponderance of literature has suggested a subtype of MDD with anxioussymptoms. 

In 2013, the clinical significance of anxious features in depressed patients was acknowledged in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) with the addition of criteria for an anxious distress specifier for MDD. The “with anxious distress” specifier is defined as the presence of at least two of the following five symptoms during most days of a major depressive episode: 1) feeling keyed up or tense, 2) feeling unusually restless, 3) difficulty concentrating because of worry, 4) fear that something awful may happen, and 5) feeling that the individual might lose control of himself or herself. In a 2014 study, patients meeting DSM-5 criteria for the anxious distress specifier reported poorer psychosocial functioning and quality of life than depressed patients who did not meet these criteria. Read more.............

Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)

Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD) refers to the presentation of children with persistent irritability and frequent episodes of extreme behavioral dyscontrol. It has been recently added to the depressive disorders for children

up to 12 years of age in DSM 5.

What is disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD)?:Far beyond temper tantrums, DMDD is characterized by severe and recurrent temper outbursts that are grossly out of proportion in intensity or duration to the situation. These occur, onaverage, three or more times each week for one year or more. Between outbursts, children with DMDD display a persistently irritable or angry mood, most of the day and nearly every day, that is observable by parents, teachers, or peers. A diagnosis requires the above symptoms to be present in at least two settings (at home, at school, or with peers) for 12 or more months, and symptoms must be severe in at least one of these settings. During this period, the child must not have gone three or more consecutive months without symptoms. The onset of symptoms must be before age 10, and a DMDD diagnosis should not be made for the first time before age 6 or after age 18.

DMDD, a new diagnosis in DSM 5, why?

Researchers identified many problems in diagnosis of childhood bipolar disorder that necessitated the addition of DMDD as a new diagnostic category in DSM 5. These problems were reflected by the fact that diagnosis of bipolar disorder (BD) in children went up 4000% from 1994 to 2003. Such huge increase in BD diagnosis was thought to be caused by “loose” translation of DSM-IV (1994) criteria for BD when applied to children. Read more.............

Evaluation and Development of a Self-help Resource for Muslim Patients with Depression

A number of policy statements and guidelines promote the use of culturally appropriate treatment for service users from minority ethnic and faith groups . Reviews of clinical trials and interventions provide little evidence about minority religious groups, however and detailed descriptions of interventions for Muslim patients are rarely available . More evidence is therefore needed about culturesensitive models of therapy and specific resources that practitioners might utilize.

There is evidence that some people within Muslim communities experience higher levels of depression which are more chronic in nature than in the general population. Muslim patients are also more likely to use religious coping techniques thanindividuals from most other religious groups in the UK  this is therefore a potentially important focus for culturally appropriate mental health treatments. 

There is a significant body of literature which shows that religion may influence wellbeing through pathways that are behavioural, psychological, social and physiological. This literature identifies a distinction between ‘negative religious coping’ i.e., feeling abandoned or punished by God or unsupported by one’s religious community and ‘positive religious coping’. The former can increase depression and anxiety and pain severity for people with physical illnesses . ‘Positive religious coping’, on the other hand, is associated with reduced levels of depression and the use of an internalized spiritual belief system to provide strategies that promote hope and resilience . Religious beliefs and practices that encourage a proactive approach to dealing with problems, rather than relying on divine intervention, are also more likely to help people overcome depression. Read more................

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) In Childhood and Adolescence

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder, characterized by repetitive unwanted obsessions and compulsions, with a prevalence of 0.5-1% to 4% in childhood and adolescence. Recent appraisals of OCD using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) and The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)-IV criteria show more cross national variability than formerly reported. No cases have been reported in metropolitan China and rates of 12-month OCD among adults are 0.1% in Nigeria, 0.5% in The Netherlands, 0.6% in Germany, 0.6% in South Korea, 0.7% in Australia, 1% in the United States (US), and 3% in Turkey. Median prevalence in 16 European countries is 0.7%. Further, in general US and European rates for OCD lie within the international range. With some exceptions, the lowest rates of anxiety disorders (including OCD) are consistently found in Asia and Africa, and are frequently replicated by lower rates of disorder among US populations of Asian and African descent.

The 2 primary classifications used for mental health diagnoses are the DSM and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). The essential differences between these 2 systems are that ICD is the official world classification of mental disorders endorsed by the World Health Organization, while the DSM is a United States (US) based system, but followed in many other countries too. The major focus of the ICD is on clinical utility, with reduction of number of diagnoses. The ICD provides diagnostic descriptions, and guidance, but does not employ operational criteria and gives special attention to primary care and lowand middle- income countries. The DSM, on the contrary, is focused mainly on secondary psychiatric care in high income countries, tends to increase the number of diagnoses with each succeeding revision and is a diagnostic system that depends on operational criteria using a polythetic system for most conditions (i.e. combination of criteria that need not all be the same. The DSM IV TR defines obsessions and compulsions as: Obsessions: persistent ideas, thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced as inappropriate or intrusive and that cause anxiety and distress. The content of the obsession is often perceived as alien and not under the person’s control. 

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Social-Psychological-Health Predictors of Fondness of Arkenstone among Indonesians

During 2014-2015, Indonesia experienced the fever of arkenstone. This emerging fondness of arkenstone, or agate, (“batuk akik” in Indonesian) among people is indicated by a growing population of stone hunters, stone smiths and mostly, people who accessorize their fingers with colorful arkenstone on rings. This trend hits Indonesian like a tidal wave, as it affects not only ordinary citizens but also government officials; from Minister of Manpower, Hanif Dhakiri—who collects arkenstones and view them as part of national culture  to Minister of Social Affairs, Khofifah IndarParawansa who stated arkenstone craftsmen/stone smiths as one of the new occupation in East Java and considered it to be effective in reducing the number of divorce in the area. The arkenstone itself, known as ‘agate’ in geological terms, is a mineral structure consisting of various components of hard and colorful silicon layers. As the popularity of the mineral among people raised so is the price. Depending on various aspects such as size, pattern, color, texture and origins, the price may vary from a few hundred thousand to millions of rupiah.

However, there are yet any studies conducted to investigate the cause of this ‘fever’. All we know from the news, articles and the increasing number of arkenstone trader is that people buy, collect and admire them for many purposes. This sudden trend has also left us puzzled, as this is similar to the flowerhorn fish trend back in the early 2000s where many people started to breed them for good luck and prosperity. This is the first article, to our knowledge, to ever investigate the psychosocial aspects underlying the arkenstone trends among Indonesian by outlining a few possible social-psychological factors that might have caused the trend. We propose that individual’s Aesthetic Style, Health Beliefs, Illusory Belief, and Connectedness to Nature play roles in determining the favoring of arkenstone. 

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The Internal Side of the Person-Centered Approach and Meditative Practice

As the Chinese energy arts have an outer dimension (Kung Fu, wing shu, Wushu) and an internal component (Tai Chi Chuan, Gi Gong), the Centered Approach to Person(ACP) presents itself as a similar expression.Its external aspect is within the relational quality that the therapist offers the client, living fabric whose fibers network over by a dynamic tension that chairs the six conditions set by Rogers including 3 nodal attitudes, own therapist, play a decisive role.

For the therapeutic process to occur, it must have:

• Two persons are in psychological contact.

• The first person, whom we will call the client, is in a state of internal disagreement, vulnerability or anxiety.

• The second person, whom we call the therapist, is in a state of internal agreement at least for the duration of the interview and in relation to the object of his relationship with the client.

• The therapist experiences feelings of unconditional positive regard towards the subject.

• The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client’s internal frame of reference.

• The customer perceives - if only as a measure in the presence of minimal - 4 and 5, i.e., unconditional positive regard and empathic understanding that the therapist showed him

The internal dimension of the CPA meets in two complementary areas: work on oneself therapist during personal therapy, and during his experiential training, both initial and continuing (supervision).I will not pretend here that meditative practice can only be reduced to this internal aspect converged with attitudes that the therapist offers him even. Elle refers above all to what John Welwood calls “a psychology of enlightenment” that recognizes “the broader area of consciousness stripped of ego. Domain on which I will not venture here, with regard to the proper spiritual aspect of meditation.  Read more......

: Psychological Effects of War and Violence on Children

Between 1945 and 1992, there were more than 149 major wars, killing more than 23 million people. Children have, of course, always been caught up in warfare. They usually have little choice but to experience, at minimum, the same horrors as their parents- as casualties or even combatants. Recent developments in warfare have significantly heightened the dangers for children. It is, during the last decade, that 2 million children have been killed; 4-5 million have been disabled, more than 1 million orphaned or separated from their parents, and 12 million dislocated from their home.

War and terrorism, are man perpetrated acts of violence, have emotionally and psychologically affected generations of children and young people for the rest of their lives. A study has estimated that one out of three children who live in war zones could be vulnerable to develop some form of PTSD,psychopathological symptoms, and lower psychosocial functioning levels duringtheir life time, which points to the volatile and violent environment they are living in. Among those children exposed to war-related stressors for a longer period, it is generally estimated that the prevalence of posttraumatic stress symptomatology varies from 10 to 90%, manifested by anxiety disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder and other psychiatric morbidities including depression, disruptive behaviors, and somatic symptoms. Read more......

Immediate Psychological Reactions in the Emergency Department Following Exposure to Potentially Traumatic Events

Although a significant percentage of admissions to the Emergency Department (ED) are subsequent to potentially traumatic events, little is known about the immediate mental health needs of these patients. Longer term follow up studies have shown that between 17-35 % of ED admissions after traumatic events develop posttraumatic stress disorder(PTSD)(Shalev & Freedman, 2005). Immediate psychological reactions to traumatic events have always been considered salient to the development of PTSD; indeed, until the publication of DSM 5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) these initial reactions formed part of the definition of a traumatic event (Karam et al., 2010). Studies have shown that both levels of distress and symptoms of dissociation in the early aftermath of a traumatic event are predictive of PTSD (Nishi et al., 2010).

In terms of immediate mental health interventions, a number of publications have outlined the use of Psychological First Aid (PFA) in the hours following a traumatic event (Brymer et al., 2007) .These guidelines give important direction for clinicians and others in contact with individuals in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, and their use is predicated on common reactions seen during these hours.However, most data available regarding these very early reactions have been collected retrospectively. In some cases, individuals reported what happened during and after the event months or even years afterwards (Nishi et al., 2010).This brings into question the reliability of such reports, since these have been shown to be less consistent in those suffering from PTSD (David, Akerib, Gaston, & Brunet, 2010). Read more.............

What Determines Salt and Pepper Passage? A Brief Commentary on the Published Reports

In the spirit of openness and transparency, my attention was drawn to these papers because research of  was cited. On looking up the source , I was led to the other two.The first of the three recent works  is an investigation of the role that sex of requester and sex of sender might play in the behavior of passing the salt. In this proposal for a research study, Minér anticipated an opposite-sex effect, perhaps due to the factor of attraction. That is, salt passing would be faster when a male asks a female than when a male asks another male, and would also be faster when a female asks a male than when a female asks another female. This paper also generalized the discussion of the passage of salt to the passage of pepper, arguing that pepper would be passed more slowly than salt because it is less common to shake pepper over the chips and peanuts that would be present on the table in the experimental situation. It was speculated that pepper may be more likely to cause sneezing than salt, interfering with response time. This proposal was presented in some detail, with numbers backing up the predictions.

In the second publication, Minér et al. propose generalizing the work in another way: to investigate the attraction hypothesis directly by experimentally manipulating the attractiveness of the requester. This would be accomplished by creating an extra-long nose for half of the conditions. That is, the request is made by a person with a long nose or a normal short nose. My work  was cited because of the finding that schematic faces with long noses were rated as less attractive than faces with short noses. In addition, like Minér, Minér et al. included pepper passage along with salt passage. It was speculated that the combination of a long nose and pepper is special because together they might encourage more sneezing, causing a marked slowing of response time over and above the two main effects.  For more.....

Psychiatry and Religion, What Psychiatrists and Religion Professionals Can Do?

Will These Pills Cast Jinn Out?

It's not uncommon for a Psychiatrist to hear such question when He /She prescribe medications for a Psychiatric Disorder and he has to give an answer. And while thinking about the answer he has to put into consideration the cultural and religious beliefs of the patient and how to avoid challenging them and at the same time he has to explain scientific terms in a simple way. If you're not familiar with the Jinn this is one of the beliefs according to Islam that Jinns are completely separate creatures createdby Allah from fire and they all serve God like angels and culturally people believe that they can possess someone and usually the first thing to in some societies is to seek help from Sheikhs or someone who could cast the Jinn out or does the Exorcism. Among Christians they also believe in Satanic Possessions as it is mentioned in the Bible. 

Exorcism is also known in Judaism and Hinduism. Symptoms can suggest that there is a paranormal activity, patients hear voices patients feel that they're being watched or feeling sad or down all the time or on the other hand they may be elated and excessively happy, Psychiatry has definitions and codes for all these symptoms and has pharmacological and psychological treatment but who will seek the help and how? That's the Question that we face now, can Religion and Psychiatry cooperate together towards the welfare of the patients?

Is There a Conflict in the First Place?  For more........

Common mental disorders in South west Ethiopia

Mental disorders are a global public health agenda and about 14% of the global burden of disease has been attributed to neuropsychiatric disorders, mostly due to the chronically disabling nature of depression, other common mental disorders and substance use disorders. This is expected to rise to 15% by the year 2020 which would make the disorders the second leading cause of health disability worldwide. Unipolar depressive disorders alone lead to 12.15% of years lived with disability, and rank as the third leading contributor to the global burden of diseases. More than 150 million persons suffer from depression at any point in time and nearly 1 million commit suicide every year. Four of the six leading causes of years lived with disability are due to neuropsychiatric disorders (depression, alcohol-use disorders, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder). More than 90 million suffer from an alcohol or other substance use disorders.The burden will be the worst in low and middle income countries where the impact of poverty and other communicable diseases are highly rampant. According to projections in 2030 depression will be the leading cause of disability globally accounting for approximately 6% of the total disability.

Community based surveys across the world revealed that the prevalence of common mental disorders among the general populations is very high. In the United States (US) national Comorbidity survey, lifetime prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders was 20.8% and 28.8%, respectivel.Twelve-month prevalence estimates of mood and anxiety range from 6.6% to 18.1% across surveys from Australia and the US community . In the European countries such as Greece and Sweden the magnitude of common mental disorders is high ranging from 14-17.2% while in eastern Asia the prevalence is around 8.8%. Read more......

Neurotransmitters and Epilepsy

I studied my PhD in Biomedical Sciences specialized in Neurosciences in the University of Guadalajara, University Center for Health Sciences, earning Honorable Mention in the exam to obtained the degree. As a result of my Doctoral project I got four articles published in various international journals, one of which I am the first author and I have presented results in three posters at different International Congresses. During that period, my studies focused on determining the contribution of chemical neurotransmission systems on high frequency oscillations associated withepileptogenic processes in the laboratory of Neurophysiology and Neurochemistry in University Center of Biological and Agriculture Sciences in University of Guadalajara, where I worked with Dr. Laura Medina-Ceja who was my mentor. 

In her laboratory we develops electrophysiology techniques for detection of high frequency oscillations, stereotaxic surgery for implanting electrodes and guide cannula, microdialysis and HPLC techniques, on-line measurements of glutamate by fluorescence, and implementation of different experimental models of epilepsy (acute and chronic). We obtained very interesting results on the modulation of neurotransmitter systems in the high-frequency oscillations (250-500 Hz) involved in hippocampal epileptogenesis, especially in temporal lobe epilepsy. Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common type of partial seizures in adults, affecting at least 20% of all patients with epilepsy . The main features of the TLE may be reproduced in chronic models, such a pilocarpine model. We use the model of pilocarpine because mimics the key features of human TLE. In this model have been observed high frequency oscillations, called “fast ripples” of 250 to 500 Hz. These fluctuations play an important role in hippocampal epileptogenesis, acting as generators of pathological synaptic changes in specific brain areas. Read more.......

Why Addiction Treatment Professionals and Researchers Can No Longer Continue to Ignore Issues Related to the Other “S” in the BPSS Model

For many years, addiction treatment professionals and researchers have stressed the importance of holistic approaches to both treatment for and recovery from any form of addiction. Based in the “disease concept,” as initially outlined by the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book and then later by the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text,this very important insight has forever changed the addiction treatment field (and indeed society as a whole) for the better by stressing the interconnectedness of the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of addiction and recovery.

More recently, prominent researchers, such as Juhnke and Hagedorn, Oakley and Ksir, DiClemente, Lawson et al., and Perkinson and Jongsma, have promoted the expansion of the traditional disease conceptinto the now prevalent Biopsychosocial Spiritual Model or BPSS Model. It has been observed that some addiction treatment professionals and researchers (especially those who have been practicing for many years using the traditional disease concept model as the foundation of their life’s work) have hesitated to adopt the use of the BPSS Model. Read more....

Case Report - Fetal Alcohol Exposure

Since I was in medical school in 1968, I have been seeing African-American children who have bad tempers, poor educational achievement, poor social skills, and poor judgment. In medical school these problems were referred to as mild mental retardation and Minimal Brain Dysfunction. A little more than ten years later, while working at the Chicago Board of Education, I saw 274children who had these same problems to varying degrees, and by then these children were characterized by various labels, e.g., Trainably Mentally Handicapped (TMH), Educationally Mentally Handicapped (EMH), Minimal Brain Dysfunction, Neurosis, etc. because child psychiatric diagnosis was, like adult psychiatric diagnosis, becoming more descriptive in nature. 

The trend for descriptive diagnoses was relevant at the time because it is rare in psychiatry to find a specific etiology for psychiatric illnesses and most problem behaviors were and still is caused by multiple factors. In psychiatry, we frequently do not know the etiology of the behaviors we observe that may constitute signs of mental illness or behavioral disturbances, yet we have to try to figure out medications and social or psychological interventions that ameliorate the mental illness or problem behaviors.

However, as science progresses, as was done for cretinism and phenylketonuria, psychiatry’s goal is to develop an etiologic understanding of as many psychiatric disorders as possible, because, it puts our profession in a better position to help the patients who come to us for treatment of their difficulties in life.