In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) plans to release the fifth edition of the DSM. We are all aware that there may be some significant changes in personality disorder criteria in the DSM-5, which has created some controversy.

The combination of buprenorphine and naloxone (Suboxone) has become a popular replacement therapy for heroin dependence. However, it’s not yet clear how effective it is for prescription opioid dependence, or whether adjunctive counseling provides any additional benefit over the drug alone.

“Self-management” is a newly popular buzzword among clinicians treating the seriously mentally ill.

After reading these articles, you should be able to…

Patients often come into my office to be “tested for ADHD,” and I explain to them that the diagnosis depends on a thorough clinical interview. Nonetheless, rating scales can be useful.

In 2006, an FDA panel recommended all manufacturers of stimulants to add a “black box” warning about an increased risk of “serious cardiovascular events.”

To begin with, you have to specify whether you are thinking in terms of DSM-IV criteria or probable DSM-5 criteria. The major difference is that currently you have to establish that ADHD symptoms began before age seven, whereas DSM-5 is more lenient, requiring that they began by age 12.

For years, we have read articles about the promise of pharmacogenetic testing to help us choose and monitor medication treatment.

We know that the postpartum period is a risky time for women who have a history of depression, especially if they experienced postpartum depression in the past. But several questions about mood and pregnancy are still unanswered.

It has been over a year now since the approval of vilazodone (Viibryd). As you may recall from our review of the drug in TCPR April 2011, vilazodone is an SSRI with partial agonism at the 5HT1A receptor.