In Practice

A Practicing Doctor's Views on Psychiatry and Contemporary Culture.

By Dr. Peter Kramer

Nice Work If You Can Get It

By Peter D. Kramer on June 20, 2009 - 3:46pm in In Practice

Just a note to say that I have an essay in the Wall Street Journal "Culture" section about good work and its effect on identity and private life. Read More

FWIW

By Peter D. Kramer on June 17, 2009 - 4:36am in In Practice

I'm always curious about what the New York Times considers news. Today it features a debunking report based on a JAMA overview piece that undercuts a famous study, by Avshalom Caspi, of what the press dubbed the "depression gene." That research had found that different variants of the (to use its prior sobriquet) "Woody Allen gene" made people more or less liable to the effects of stress, and thus more or less vulnerable to depression and suicide. Read More

One Patient, One Doctor, One Year

By Peter D. Kramer on March 30, 2009 - 7:24am in In Practice

I'm back to recommend another book by a medical colleague who is also a good friend. Today sees the publication of The Addict, by Michael Stein. Michael is an internist specializing in the treatment of infectious disease, but his work with drug addicts displays the sensitivity and insight of the best psychotherapy. Read More

Ave atque Vale

By Peter D. Kramer on March 11, 2009 - 9:06am in In Practice

I have received a number of emails from readers asking about the disappearance of my postings to "In Practice." I am grateful for the expressions of concern and encouragement, but I have decided to set this blog aside - at the least, to stop contributing to it regularly. From the start, the blog was a one-year experiment. The year is up, and I have had to weigh the effects of my participation. Read More

Fuhgeddaboudit

By Peter D. Kramer on February 19, 2009 - 8:28am in In Practice

If we had a drug that could erase bad memories, should we use it? Read More

As They Say on Facebook: Status Update

By Peter D. Kramer on February 18, 2009 - 11:28am in In Practice

Just a note to let readers know that shortly (morning West Coast, afternoon, East) I will be participating in "AirTalk with Larry Mantle," on public radio. The topic is the ethics of memory modulation - via medications, such as propranolol, that may be able to interfere with the consolidation of fearful associations. (One British headline for a story on the topic reads: "Pill to erase bad memories: Ethical furore over drugs 'that threaten human identity.'") Read More

Why Ski

By Peter D. Kramer on February 17, 2009 - 9:08am in In Practice

The family took a trip to the mountains this weekend. Skiing is an impossible sport. From where we start, the drive north takes four and a half hours, if you don't hit bad weather or traffic, but you always do. This time, on our way up black ice slowed the interstate to thirty, allowing for a leisurely view of the spinouts. Then there's the equipment. Once, when the kids were young, my wife and I started listing items that needed to make it to the slopes; we stopped counting when we reached on one hundred. The expense, the risk - who needs any of it?

Yesterday, on the ride home in the van, someone asked, "What do we like about skiing?" Read More

More Naked Emperors

By Peter D. Kramer on February 11, 2009 - 8:29am in In Practice

Readers of this blog will be familiar with the skeptical stance that holds the efficacy of psychiatric interventions—medication, psychotherapy, magnetic stimulation, and the rest—to be largely unproven. Readers may be less aware of doubts about placebos. A clever book review in this week's New England Journal of Medicine reminds us of the shaky science supporting the notion of a placebo response. Read More

His Own Country

By Peter D. Kramer on February 9, 2009 - 8:33am in In Practice

Abraham Vergehese's new novel, Cutting for Stone, raises the question: can a page-turner be high art? Read More

Antidepressants and Suicide: WHO Scientists Weigh In

By Peter D. Kramer on February 4, 2009 - 10:29am in In Practice

On the question of new antidepressants and suicide, the evidence we have has been synthesized, and the results are in: the medications prevent suicides in adults, and especially in the elderly. For children and adolescents, we simply don't know - and the gap in our knowledge has had dangerous effects. Read More