Disorders | Hawaii Psychiatric

The True Nature Of Schizophrenia

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One of the most baffling mental health gaffes committed by pop culture in the last ten years has been the confusion of schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder. This confusion is being cleared up as schizophrenia becomes better understood by the public.

Although the word “schizophrenia” translates to “split mind” in Latin, the split doesn’t refer to personality. It refers instead to the mind turning against itself. The most pronounced symptoms of schizophrenia are related to deep-seated paranoia. The schizophrenic may have grand delusions that the world is plotting against him, and this belief is often reinforced by hallucinations. Schizophrenia is primarily a condition of a mind at war with its own perception.

Though most symptoms are reflected in the schizophrenic’s discourse, there are a few behavioral markers as well. Schizophrenia often involves dementia-like speech disorders-words sometimes fall in random order, and sentences may not make any sense in relation to one another. In advanced cases, the schizophrenic may have pronounced trouble speaking normally, and may even go catatonic.

Schizophrenics may drift from reality as we know it, but they are not by their very nature dangerous. The true danger of schizophrenia is to the victims themselves. The disorder keeps them from functioning in society, holding down jobs, maintaining friendships, and even communicating. Most schizophrenics withdraw, and many become homeless or commit suicide. The undiagnosed, untreated schizophrenic has a very low quality of life.

Because of the paranoid effects of schizophrenia, not to mention the communication issues, most schizophrenics are diagnosed thanks to the intervention of a family member or loved one. If you have a friend who is displaying increasingly inchoate and antisocial behavior, talk to them about the possibility of schizophrenia and ask them to see an experienced mental help professional. Modern antipsychotic drugs and neural rehabilitation can help schizophrenics to overcome the disorder and lead happy, normal lives.

Filed Under: Health, Mental Health, Psychiatric Consultant Tagged With: Delusion, Disorders, Dissociative identity disorder, Hallucination, Health, Mental health, Personality disorder, Schizophrenia

Seratonin for Satisfaction

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We feel a lot of satisfaction after a big Thanksgiving dinner, and it’s not just because of the food coma and football. Turkey is well known to be high in tryptophan. The body makes tryptophan into seratonin, which is a brain chemical responsible for our feelings of satisfaction and stability.

Seratonin in animals controls the resource-gathering response. When a hungry worm senses some tasty bacteria, seratonin levels spike and the worm stops moving in order to eat. Similarly, when the worm finds a mate, seratonin prevents it from continuing to search.

In higher animals and humans, seratonin also controls the gathering response, with a twist. We are social animals, and seratonin is associated with managing our social resources as well. It helps us take stock of our social standing and adhere to the status quo. If we are naturally prone to fleeing from conflict, seratonin helps us to stand our ground; and if we are naturally dominant, seratonin increases this dominant behavior.

In the palette of mood-altering chemicals, seratonin is complementary to dopamine. While dopamine enhances our desires and our motivation to reach for the things that we want, seratonin enhances our satisfaction with the object of those desires when we receive them. Seratonin causes us to slow down a bit and become content.

It should come as no surprise that seratonin control is a major component of psychiatric medicine. The most successful and popular antidepressant drugs, MAOI inhibitors, help seratonin to stay in play longer, increasing the strength and duration of contentment. This gives people with mood disorders a chance to get on top of their negative emotions, giving them a chance at happiness.

For serious mood disorders, see your mental health provider. But for a daily boost, try a banana! Bananas contain a wealth of tryptophan in balance with other healthy chemicals.

Filed Under: Health, Mental Health, Psychiatric Consultant Tagged With: Antidepressant, Brain, Disorders, Health, Mental health, Professional Resources, Self-Help, Thanksgiving

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

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We all have worries. Some are trivial worries, like whether we locked the car; others are big worries like what will happen if our loved ones pass away. Most of us possess the ability to put these worries aside temporarily in order to go about our daily routine. For millions of Americans with obsessive-compulsive disorder, shelving the daily list of worries is easier said than done.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, is a very common mental health disorder. It affects one in fifty Americans, almost the number of people who are affected by athsma. It is often portrayed as a charming quirk-think of Monk’s supernatural ability to notice crime-cracking details, or Bill Murray’s endearing anxieties in What About Bob. However, OCD is neither cute nor trivial to most of its sufferers. Their lives are governed by anxieties that must be satisfied with illogical compulsions. To make matters worse, OCD sufferers are well aware of the irrationality of their anxieties, but they are powerless to divert their thoughts.

The breadth of these obsessions is enormous. Usually pop culture focuses on features like excessive tidiness, repetitive actions, or germophobic symptoms. Other less mediagenic manifestations are nail-biting, hair-pulling, obsessions with even numbers, mind-consuming number and letter games, intrusive and unwanted fantasies, and a habit of anthropomorphizing inanimate objects and worrying about their feelings.

Doctors don’t know yet what causes OCD; there is some evidence for hereditary causes, childhood experience factors, and even a link to frequent cases of strep throat. It can be hard to diagnose, because we all have obsessions and compulsions; often a time and lifestyle hindrance factor is used to decide whether to treat disorders. If obsessions or compulsions are making life less efficient rather than more efficient, and if compulsions rob a candidate of more than an hour every day, a mental health provider typically recommends a course of treatment.

Filed Under: Health, Mental Health, Psychiatric Consultant Tagged With: anxiety, Disorders, Health, Mental health, Obsessive-Compulsive, Obsessive–compulsive disorder, Support Groups, Trichotillomania

The Dope On Dopamine

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What causes fruit to bruise and also has a major effect on mental health? No, it’s not a swift kick- it’s dopamine, a neurotransmitting chemical that helps us to weigh risk and reward. In insects, dopamine levels act as a warning flag to keep a bug away from a previously learned perilous situation. In humans, the mechanism is more complex-dopamine helps us to predict whether a risky behavior will result in a favorable outcome.

In a nutshell, dopamine is elevated when we desire something-when we want to eat good food, accomplish something great, or show affection for a loved one. Healthy levels of dopamine help to motivate us to seek out rewards. In this way, dopamine is a key component in the brain chemistry of creativity, and provides us with the desire to impress the opposite sex. High levels of dopamine decrease inhibition and make individuals more confident, more social, and willing to take constructive risks.

But dopamine also reinforces negative behavior. Smoking, drinking, aggression, illegal drug use, and addiction are all associated with dopamine-based behavior. Cocaine, in particular, enhances dopamine activity. It increases both the amount of dopamine and its useful life, ensuring a swift and strong addictive cycle.

The link between dopamine increase and negative behaviors is a prime argument against “self-medication” for depression and other mental health issues. Depression is a hypodopaminergic disorder, as is schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder; in these states, dopamine function is impaired. Resorting to drugs as a temporary pick-me-up restores dopamine function but comes at a heightened risk of addiction.

People with low dopamine function can’t simply take a shot of dopamine for mood relief-the dopamine in an injection can’t pass the extremely particular blood-brain barrier, so synthetic dopamine stays in the body rather than the brain. Mental health providers instead seek to treat these illnesses by retraining the brain through cognitive therapy. Over time, the brain’s ability to produce and process dopamine often can be repaired with a bit of professional assistance.

Filed Under: Health, Mental Health, Psychiatric Consultant Tagged With: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Cocaine, Disorders, Dopamine, Health, Mental health, Schizophrenia, Substance abuse

The Stigma of Childhood Mood Disorders

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When it comes to your mental health, age isn’t a factor. Modern psychology is tearing down the assumption that certain disorders must be associated with certain stages of life. We now recognize depression in toddlers, ADHD in adults, and body dysmorphic disorder in children and the elderly.

While the psychology community and the public generally accept novel adult diagnoses, society hesitates when it comes to children. For example, in the August 25, 2010 New York Times Magazine article, Can Preschoolers Be Depressed? doctors admitted that health care providers often sugarcoat their diagnosis of childhood depression. In order to shield the child from the burden of such a heavy psychological label, doctors report euphemistically: “adjustment disorder with depressed mood- or “N.O.S.”, meaning not otherwise specified.

Other doctors decry this practice-by denying children the gravity of their diagnosis, they are doing a disservice to the child’s distress. Without specifying the child’s disorder, they are preventing the child from getting specific care. Doctors who diagnose euphemistically are also preventing widespread understanding and acceptance of childhood mood disorders.

This is especially unfortunate, because children’s brains are excellent candidates for cognitive therapy. As a child’s brain grows, it is capable of learning and forming neural pathways at a much faster rate than adults. Without good psychiatric care, the child’s disorder is likely to amplify by adulthood. A good child counselor can help a child with mood disorder to work through his anxiety so that it will diminish greatly as he grows older.

If you suspect that your child has a mood disorder, you may experience a similar aversion to the stigma of a conclusive psychological diagnosis. Many parents feel guilt over their child’s mood disorder. It is important to keep in mind that the disorder is not your fault-child mood issues are often hereditary, or caused by the child’s specific reactions to situations that aren’t threatening to most children. As a child’s caretaker, you have the most power over his psychology, and you can use this to help him out of his disorder into a functional and wonderful adulthood. Start by getting him diagnosed.

Filed Under: Health, Mental Health, Psychiatric Consultant Tagged With: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Child, Disorders, Health, Health care, Major depressive disorder, Mental health, Mood disorder

The ADHD Controversy

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Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, has become almost a clichÃ© of public mental health debate in the last decade. To summarize public commentary, this developmental disorder is either tearing up our schools or does not exist. It is either undiagnosed due to lack of teacher and clinician awareness, or it is overdiagnosed to give schools an excuse to drug unruly students. We either need to know more about it, or stop hearing about it altogether.

Though the controversy over ADHD continues, there is certainly a good body of evidence that shows that the disorder itself is no myth. Brain scans conclusively show less dopamine transporter activity in the brains of ADHD patients than the brains of the unaffected. Currently, this neurological discrepancy can be smoothed over with a combination of mental health counseling, corrective drugs, and vigilance.

Because psychological medicine is capable of helping properly diagnosed ADHD patients, it seems that the most important kernel of the controversy is whether we are overdiagnosing or underdiagnosing. Even though there are neurological markers, most doctors diagnose without an expensive and uncomfortable PET scan of the brain, so they must go on behavioral markers alone.

In many cases, it’s straightforward; a child who exhibits an impaired ability to focus and to control impulses is considered a candidate. If these symptoms are affecting multiple areas of her life, such as her classwork, her social life, her behavior on the playground, or her behavior at home, usually a doctor recommends treatment for ADHD.

However, these symptoms can potentially be caused by other situations: reaction to a family crisis, an underlying medical problem, childhood depression or anxiety, or even hearing and vision impairment.

If your child is experiencing symptoms of ADHD, don’t avoid a mental health consultation just to avoid burdening the child with the label. Your child can get care that will help her succeed, or your mental health provider may uncover another issue that has been causing her disruptive behavior.

Filed Under: Health, Mental Health, Psychiatric Consultant Tagged With: ADD and ADHD, Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Child and Adolescent, Disorders, Health, Medicine, Mental disorder, Mental health

It’s Not Easy to “Snap Out of It”

Thanks to numerous discussions on informative talk shows we’re all probably aware of the signs of clinical depression. When a person is suffering from this type of mental health issue they tend to isolate themselves. There is a loss of appetite, a loss of sleep and a general loss of caring about anything. It becomes a strain to simply get out of bed. When a depression has gotten that bad, then it’s time to get some professional help. No one should spend their lives living like that and with the help of psychiatric care, there is no reason to.

Clinical depression is often thought of as a creeping kind of mental disorder. You don’t just wake up one morning and find yourself clinically depressed. Instead, the debilitating symptoms can slowly enter into your lifestyle and force you into an undesirable state. Just as it takes time for this disorder to take hold, it takes time to bring you back into the light, so to speak. Working with experienced psychiatric counselors is a positive step towards stronger mental health wellness. They’ll know the best course of treatment for your depression. Remember how it was before you felt depressed? You can get back there if you work towards that goal.

We all get into an occasional funk every now and then. Cloudy skies can make us feel blue or the ending of a favorite television show. Those are extremely minor reasons for feeling depressed but what about reasons that run deeper? Depending on the circumstances you might choose to share your feelings of depression with a close friend or family member. Hopefully, if that were to happen, you’d find a sympathetic shoulder to lean on. But what happens if these feelings persist? Those sympathetic friends might ultimately advise you to “snap out of it.” The kind of advice can come from caring but for some people it can be ill advised. If you or someone you know is suffering from deep depression then “snapping out of it” just isn’t an option.
Thanks to numerous discussions on informative talk shows we’re all probably aware of the signs of clinical depression. When a person is suffering from this type of mental health issue they tend to isolate themselves. There is a loss of appetite, a loss of sleep and a general loss of caring about anything. It becomes a strain to simply get out of bed. When a depression has gotten that bad, then it’s time to get some professional help. No one should spend their lives living like that and with the help of psychiatric care, there is no reason to.
Clinical depression is often thought of as a creeping kind of mental disorder. You don’t just wake up one morning and find yourself clinically depressed. Instead, the debilitating symptoms can slowly enter into your lifestyle and force you into an undesirable state. Just as it takes time for this disorder to take hold, it takes time to bring you back into the light, so to speak. Working with experienced psychiatric counselors is a positive step towards stronger mental health wellness. They’ll know the best course of treatment for your depression. Remember how it was before you felt depressed? You can get back there if you work towards that goal.

Filed Under: Discussion, Health, Mental Health Tagged With: depression, Disorders, Mental health

Could Your Lack of Focus Be ADD?

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In the world of mental health, Attention Deficit Disorder is a concern that commonly faces children and teens. Kids who have been diagnosed with ADD have trouble focusing on their school work and can become a disruptive element in the classroom. With counseling and therapy a child diagnosed with ADD can actually make strides towards improving their day to day routines. But did you know that ADD isn’t just a disorder effecting kids but can also be part of struggles facing adults? The truth is that many adults have been diagnosed with ADD and have sought out various treatment options to help them take back control of their focus.

We all get distracted and that’s no reason to sound the alarm bells. Adult ADD becomes an issue when those minor distractions begin to take over a major portion of your day. This can have an impact on your work, your relationships and merely getting through all you need to do during the course of a typical day. There can be several underlying factors that can contribute to a bout of ADD. One of the dominate factors is a chemical imbalance in the brain. Although that sounds very intense and scary it’s actually quite common. Thanks to advances in modern medical technology, doctors have made great strides in mapping out the patterns of the brain. As a result, there have been numerous drug therapies created to treat common imbalances. Just like adding vitamins to help your physical body, these therapies are like supplements for brain.

The proper and most effective course of treatment for adult ADD can be found through the type of counseling you get with a trained psychiatrist. They will not only be able to properly diagnose the disorder but also prescribe those drug therapies that can help with the issue. There is nothing wrong with discovering you might have a “kid’s disorder.” What’s wrong would be letting it go untreated.

Filed Under: Discussion, Health, Psychiatric Consultant Tagged With: ADD and ADHD, Disorders, Mental health

Get Back on Track With the Right Psychiatric Care

There are several types of mental breakdowns that need intense treatment to help the sufferer. When there these types of huge psychiatric breakdowns a person’s life can be turned upside down. Extreme cases of schizophrenia and clinical depression can begin a downward spiral of emotional and physical turmoil. When these breaks happen, it’s obvious that the patients need immediate help. But what about the moderate issues of mental health? You may approach some temporary emotional discomfort with the idea that “time will heal all wounds.” Suppose “time” doesn’t work? This is why millions of folks seek out the experienced help of psychiatric care professionals to help them get back on the right track.

One of the most common forms of moderate mental health concerns are issues dealing with anxiety. There a dozens of factors that can cause a person to feel overwhelmed and anxious. Even when the practical matter is solved like finally landing a job or paying a bill those feelings of anxiety can linger. Often there are a series of triggers that set off bouts of unease for a person who has anxiety issues. Understanding what those triggers might be can go a long way towards finding lasting comfort. However, in some cases mere introspective therapy alone isn’t enough of a coping mechanism to overcome these issues. That’s when a patient can be guided through various psychiatric drug therapy options to help “smooth out the rough edges.”

Taking anti-depression or anti-anxiety drugs is like adding an extra layer of protection. We know we’re supposed to have daily doses of vitamins and minerals to insure that our body is working at peak efficiency but what about the brain? There are many positive drug supplements that can reboot perceptions and help a patient see things more clearly. We’ve all seen the ads on television for these types of drugs. Working with your doctor, you can become fully informed about these products and determine which ones might be beneficial for you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to feel good.

Filed Under: Health, Psychiatric Consultant Tagged With: Disorders, Mental health, Psychiatry

Trouble in Paradise?

Visitors to Hawaii often marvel at the lush tropical settings and inviting personality of the locals. Even staying on the islands for just a weekend is long enough to know you’ve found paradise. That’s a perfect attitude for the tourists to have but in reality, Hawaii is just like every other state in the union. Folks work hard, raise their families and sometimes struggle with complex mental health issues. Just because you might live in paradise doesn’t mean there won’t be troubles.

When you consider some specific mental health issues you’re really thinking about an imbalance. The brain is an amazing organ but often is can falter. This leads to breakdowns and these breakdowns can uproot lives. The challenge is to properly diagnose these imbalances and find the most effective treatment available. There have been great strides made in drug therapies over the years that have allowed sufferers to resume a productive and happy lifestyle.

Many patients who have had mental health problems often describe themselves as living in the dark. Yes, in sunny Hawaii you can still be living in the dark! This “darkness” is clouded with confusion and shame. The confusion comes from not understanding why you are reacting to certain situations with extreme behavior patterns. The shame comes from being embarrassed and not wanting to be a burden for your love ones. The irony is that your love ones just want you to get better.

If you or someone you love has reached a point where something is definitely wrong with their mental health, then it’s essential to seek out qualified guidance. The first wave of relief will come when you realize you won’t be alone in your struggles. There are many dedicated and well trained professionals standing by to help. Whether the issues are small or large, finding the right help can help reset your lives and get you back to paradise.

Filed Under: Health, Psychiatric Consultant, Treatment Tagged With: Disorders, Health, Mental health