The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) now allows pilots to continue their in-air responsibilities if they are on certain antidepressants. Historically, pilots have not been allowed to fly while taking antidepressants as many of the original antidepressants had side effects which could be extremely serious if they occurred in flight. Side effects such as seizures or […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.In 1953, the year the Rosenbergs were convicted in the electric chair, Esther Greenwood (a.k.a. Elly Higginbottom), poet Sylvia Plath’s alter ego (further complicating the picture, Plath wrote under the pen name “Victoria Lucas”), underwent electroshock therapy. Electricity, neurological connections, high-strung emotion, madness, suicide (which the real-life Plath committed ten years after the setting of […]
By: Evander LomkeEmily White is a lawyer who lived alone for six years in her 30s and said those were years of “savage loneliness.” She has written a book about this, “Lonely: A memoir”, just published by Harper Collins. Ms. White describes many of the pop psychology attitudes that even serious therapists adope. “Living alone gives you […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.The New York Post recently hired Ashley Dupre to write a column on relationships, “Ask Ashley”, and it appears each Sunday. Recently, Cara, age 35, residing in Park Slope, asked Ashley the following: “My boyfriend and I recently moved in together. I’m anal about keeping a straight apartment. How can I approach this so I […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.How might Eudes’ views be judged by others who are knowledgeable about psychology, psychiatry, and spirituality? Robert Coles, M.D., psychiatrist at Harvard University has for four decades emphasized the need for modern mental-health workers to combine spirituality with mental-health therapy. John Cardinal O’Connor, while known for his strong and formidable presence, also had a master’s […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.“The problem with OCD,” John Eudes says, “is that it leads to a mode of perception and thinking that is too abstract, too narrow. God is life-giving, not a taskmaster or harsh judge of solitary behaviors, as OCD or scrupulosity suggests. To fight OCD, one has to develop other images and thoughts based on reality […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.As professionals in the mental-health fields try harder with cognitive behavior therapy and medications, over and over, one might imagine that this is a manifestation of the same mechanism of OCD. Where might other sources of help be found, especially for those suffering with scrupulosity? Can a Trappist monk, who is also a Georgetown-trained physician […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.Although Monk and Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good as It Gets brought smiles as well as sympathy to those who never heard of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and even a certain peacefulness among OCD sufferers that, finally, their peers might see them not as weird but as true persons, a sad reality remains. Obsessive […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.This week brings an intriguing story from Germany that raises questions concerning the duty to warn others when there is imminent danger of behaviors such as child abuse, suicide, or violent behaviors. In a story reported by the New York Times, a German psychiatrist has made public allegations that he warned a Roman Catholic Archdiocese […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.How might the manner of treatment in which behaviors indicative of mental-health problems on campuses be related to violence? The recent murders by a professor who was denied tenure in Alabama bring the issue of FACULTY mental health to the fore. Heather Munro Prescott has some tantalizing ideas on the massacre that recently occurred in […]
By: William Van Ornum, Ph.D.
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