Half a century ago, a suicidal young woman named Marsha Linehan spent more than two years in a psychiatric hospital. Locked as tightly in her own personal torment as in her seclusion room, she vowed not only that she would get out, but that she would get well and help...

You can really break down the medication options for ADHD to stimulants or non-stimulants. In deciding what medication is best, prescribers consider side effects, whether it is appropriate to prescribe a controlled substance based on diversion or abuse potential, as well as practical issues such as how complicated the required...

Evidence-based treatments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) include medication and behavioral interventions. While medications have been shown to reduce ADHD-related symptoms and functional impairments across settings, effects tend to last only as long as the medication is active within the body and brain (Paykina N and Greenhill LL. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Pharmacological...

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Editor’s note: Dr. Williams is the author or co-author of a number of books. His most recently published book is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, Second Edition (Guilford Press, 2013) which he wrote with John Teasdale and Zindel Segal. He is also a co-author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to...

Mindfulness training (MT) helps to counter individuals’ tendency toward rumination about the past and future.Mindfulness is both the process and state of being present with whatever is happening in the moment with purposeful management of attention. This is often cultivated by sitting meditation, in which one sits in a comfortable...

Approximately half of Americans will have a psychiatric disorder that will meet DSM-IV criteria in their lifetime, with the first onset usually occurring in childhood or adolescence (Kessler RC et al, Arch Gen Psychiatry 2005;62(6):593–603). While there have been many pharmacological and psychotherapeutic advances in treating psychiatric disorders, there remains...

Western thinking about mental illness, modeled after physical disease, assumes that psychological suffering is abnormal. For example, the DSM-IV uses “clinically significant distress or impairment” to draw the boundary between normal and abnormal. Psychopathology then becomes a target for therapy.Some mindfulness-based psychotherapies question this entire notion. ACT, for instance, doubts...

When it comes to mindfulness-based therapy, it’s a true case of what’s old is new again.Mindfulness-based treatments have been described as psychotherapy’s “third wave,” coming on the heels of behaviorist approaches and cognitive interventions, respectively. While seemingly new, mindfulness can be traced back to antiquity. Current secular approaches are clinical...

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