Young people’s mental health services are at crisis point. GPs are having to cope with the consequences of our failure to focus on prevention, and a lack of access to specialist services. We may not be able to change the world we have created for our young people, but we need to take action to ensure that help is […]
Over a period of years, between 10 and 20 per cent of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder who are taking medication at a maintenance dose will have a relapse. This is despite the fact that they are stating that they are taking their medication as normal. The process typically happens gradually, although it may […]
This is a type of personality disorder, which is marked out by the sufferers need for constant attention and exaggerated show of emotion. It tends to occur more in women than men. Individuals with HPD are lively, dramatic, enthusiastic, and flirtatious. They may be inappropriately sexually provocative, express strong emotions with an impressionistic style, and […]
For all sorts of reasons, people who have been taking medication for depression (or related conditions including anxiety and OCD) for many years may find that it seems to have stopped working. This is pretty dreadful for them, and presents a challenge for their clinicians. When I used to man a telephone helpline for an […]
This is a complex eating disorder which is characterised by low body weight accompanied by a body image distortion. The sufferer has an obsessive fear of putting on weight, so they control their calorie intake by starvation, vomiting, excessive exercise and other weight control methods According to The Royal College of Psychiatrists, Anorexia nervosa is […]
When we think of healthcare, I expect the majority of us would think of broken arms, twisted ankles, or the dreaded winter flu that threatens our physical health. Of course, this is a fair enough assumption as hospitals and GPs primarily exist to treat physical ailments that might befall us, and the primary job of […]
Until recently, agoraphobia was defined as a fear of open spaces. It now also includes several other related fears such as a fear of entering shops, fear of crowds and public places, or of travelling alone on trains, buses or aeroplanes. It also includes the anxiety associated with being unable to reach a place of […]
I became a doctor influenced by my late father, a single-handed general practitioner. He, like many doctors in the 1960’s came as a foreigner to work in the newly formed, but already struggling NHS. His practice was our home – our living room by evening became the patient’s waiting room by day, our dining room […]