Side Effects

From quirky to serious, trends in psychology and psychiatry.

by Christopher Lane, Ph.D.

The Smart Way to Cut Prescription Drug Prices

How can the U.S. lower the cost of prescription medicines? One of our senators has a smart and appealing plan. Read More

DSM-5 Is Diagnosed, With a Stinging Rebuke to the APA

As we challenge the diagnostic madness of the APA, let's not whitewash the regrettable history of its product, the DSM. Read More

Faith According to the Bible(s)

What is faith? And does it matter that different translations of the Bible describe it in very different ways? Read More

American Sex and American Psychiatry

The APA is trying to determine how much sex we can fantasize about. This kind of endeavor can only end badly. Read More

Social Media and Social Loneliness

Is Facebook increasing social isolation or merely helping to expose it? Read More

Is Psychiatric Accuracy a Challenge?

Last week, The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry likened the act of psychiatric diagnosis to a blind man calling an elephant a snake or a tree trunk. Hardly reassuring—the journal's editors were discussing major problems affecting DSM-5 and ICD-11. Read More

Evolution Before Darwin

What does our fixation on Darwin obscure? Read More

When Pregnant Women Are Depressed

The study, published last week in the Archives of General Psychiatry and based on cross-checked, self-reported results by close to 8,000 pregnant women in the Netherlands, found that "the reduction in fetal head growth was greater... Read More

What's Wrong With Modern Psychiatry?

Who is running the show in American psychiatry: the APA, the DSM task force, or the pharmaceutical industry? Read More

Antipsychotic Medication, Seniors, and Children

Studies point repeatedly to the risks of giving antipsychotic medication to seniors, yet prescription rates remain stubbornly high. Read More

Good Grief: The APA Plans to Give the Bereaved Two Weeks to Conclude Their Mourning

Another week, another fiasco for the American Psychiatric Association. "The Lancet," Britain's leading medical journal, editorialized today about a major DSM-5 proposal, calling it "dangerously simplistic and flawed." Read More

DSM-5 Controversy Is Now Firmly Transatlantic

Why the APA's lower diagnostic thresholds are causing widespread concern. Read More

Why Does Richard Dawkins Take Issue With Agnosticism?

Hitchens vs. Dawkins: Two ways of thinking about agnosticism. Read More

Panic Disorder in the Age of Anxiety

A recent New York Times op-ed argued that we are "well-medicated" in our anxiety. Is that actually true? Read More

Debates About Agnosticism Are as Old as the Concept Itself

A 19th-century debate about faith and evidence is still highly relevant. Read More

"Shame" and Sex Addiction

Does obsessiveness about sex really belong in a manual of mental disorders? Read More

The American Psychiatric Association's Trial Balloons

DSM-5 is being touted as the most transparent DSM going, but recent developments make clear that the manual's approval process is rigged, not transparent at all. Read More

Saving Psychiatry from Itself: The DSM-5 Controversy Heats Up Again

An Open Letter to the DSM-5 task force is generating widespread interest. Here are just a few reasons why. Read More

Are Christianity and Darwinism Really Diametrically Opposed?

In 2007, pollsters at Gallup found that "more Americans accept the theory of creationism than evolution." That finding suggested the influence of several factors, the agency explained, including how closely beliefs about evolution correlate with religious behavior. Read More

Americans Are Being Aggressively Over-Diagnosed

Americans are being "aggressively over-diagnosed" with psychiatric disorders. The source of that warning may surprise you: It's coming from Fox News. Read More

DSM-5 Is Almost Certain to Expand the Criteria for Social Anxiety Disorder

When DSM-5 is published, the number of shy children diagnosed with social anxiety disorder will almost certainly explode. Read More

The Meltdown in the Markets Is Leading to a Surge in Addictions among Traders

Why addiction rates are surging among traders—and why that matters, especially now. Read More

When the Remedy Is Far Worse than the Disease

A new product for "Shift Work Disorder" should be raising flags. Read More

Putting the "Muscular" Back in Muscular Christianity

Are Christian men experiencing something of an identity or gender crisis? Read More

"Curing" Homosexuality

What do Michele Bachmann's husband and 300 clinics in Ecuador have in common? Read More

Does Psychiatry Too Often "Oversell" Itself? One Psychiatrist's Warning

If psychiatry too often oversells itself, what exactly has the public overbought? An interesting debate about this is running in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books. Read More

Antidepressant Withdrawal Syndrome: Findings, Recommendations, and Resources

Studies of SSRI antidepressants point repeatedly to a common, often intense withdrawal syndrome when treatment ends. Why has it taken researchers so long to identify the problem correctly? Read More

Fighting Cancer with Science and Nature

Some natural agents have been shown to kill cancer cells very effectively. But cultures differ greatly in how they respond to such possibilities. Read More

Merchants of Doubt

A vitally important new book, just out in paperback, examines how manufactured controversies in science have been used to "spread confusion on many of the most important issues of our time." The journal Science considers it required reading. Read More