Mood Swings

A Psychiatrist Surveys the Mind and the Wider World

Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, MD, MPH is director of the mood disorders and psychopharmacology programs in the department of psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. See full bio

Mood Swings

February 7, 2010

The psychiatric wisdom of John Kenneth Galbraith

I've been reading a lot of John Kenneth Galbraith recently. Galbraith, the economist and Kennedy confidante, died a few years ago at a ripe age, soon thereafter followed by his right-wing opponent and friend William Buckley. It seems to me that in the age of the talking heads, we have no one even approaching the stature of Galbraith or Buckley, on either left or right. Read More

January 31, 2010

Iran: Psychiatric reflections

Trying to make sense of Iran Read More

January 23, 2010

What's the matter with Massachusetts?

I'm sitting in the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, looking out at the deep blue waters of Boston Harbor - an ironic place to muse on why this state voted for a Republican to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy, and thereby practically ruin his beloved health care reform. Read More

December 21, 2009

Obama in Oslo: Between King and Machiavelli

When I attended some of the Obama inauguration events on the Washington mall, I noticed that one of the most popular t-shirts showed the faces of Obama and Martin Luther King, with the legend: The Dream Achieved. Recently, in the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, Obama had to directly address how his politics relate to those of his cultural predecessor as an African-American leader. How could he justify his role as leader of wars with his prize, and his status as King's successor? It was not until I recently went to the Middle East for a psychiatric conference in Qatar that I began to understand the dilemma. Sometimes you have to leave America to understand it. Read More

December 14, 2009

Death by DSM

Can DSM lead to fatal mistakes? Read More

October 13, 2009

The pseudoscience of bipolar overdiagnosis: Relax, you're really not bipolar

What do claims of bipolar overdiagnosis and cargo cults from the South Seas have in common? Read More

August 26, 2009

For Ted Kennedy and a Friend: An Appreciation

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep. Read More

August 10, 2009

Suddenly I was just watching a movie

Recently, one of my patients commented, a few weeks after starting lithium: "One day I was watching a movie, and suddenly I was just watching a movie." Read More

June 22, 2009

Professor Anti-Stigma

One might call it Pope’s rule: Your motives are revealed by your focus. An interesting hypothesis, especially as confirmed in cases like that of Professor Anti-Stigma. Read More

June 22, 2009

The politics of radical empathy

The psychological concept that became the core of the politics of Gandhi and King was empathy, love in simpler language. A simple idea, endorsed by all, engaged by few. Read More

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