Tag: BJPsych Bulletin

Reading of the Week: Young in Therapy: Need But Not Great Results – the New Lancet Paper; Also, the Wellness Industry & the Rumpelstiltskin Effect

October 2, 2025 /

From the Editor

Therapy can be life changing – especially for young adults who may be at the beginning of illness. The stakes are high but what are the outcomes?

In a new Lancet Psychiatry paper, Rob Saunders (of University College London) and his co-authors attempt to answer this question. They drew on an impressive dataset – from the National Health Service, with more than 1.6 million participants – and compared outcomes (both scales and service specific scores) between young and working age adults. “In a dataset of all individuals receiving psychological therapies for common mental disorders in a national service programme, we found that young adults had poorer outcomes than working age adults.” We discuss the paper and its implications.

With a few clicks of the mouse, our patients can read what we read – including the latest journals. But they also can access a world of half-truths, misleading claims, and falsehoods. In the second selection, a new episode of Quick Takes, I speak with Jonathan Stea, a University of Calgary psychologist and a bestselling author, about his research on the wellness industry. “The beating heart of the wellness industry is pseudoscience.”

And in the third selection from BJPsych Bulletin, Alan Levinovitz (of James Madison University) and Dr. Awais Aftab (of Case Western Reserve University) argue that there is benefit in a diagnosis. In a clever paper, they coin the term Rumpelstiltskin effect (yes, after the Grimm story) – that is, “the therapeutic effect of a clinical diagnosis, independent of any other intervention.” Are they persuasive?

DG


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Reading of the Week: ECT & Maintenance – the New JAMA Psych Paper; Also, Social Contagion & Psychiatry and Dr. Julie Trivedi on Resilience

December 12, 2024 /

From the Editor

He didn’t get better despite several medication trials. Exhausted and feeling suicidal, he chose ECT. The change was incredible. When he returned to the clinic after discharge – bright and energetic – a member of the outpatient team didn’t recognize him. 

But how can we keep people like my patient well and out of hospital? How strong is the evidence supporting maintenance ECT? Dr. Anders Jørgensen (of the University of Copenhagen) and his co-authors attempt to answer these questions in a new JAMA Psychiatry paper. Drawing on a Danish national database and spanning almost two decades of data, they analyzed outcomes for nearly 20 0000 patients who began ECT, including the risk of hospitalizations. “In this cohort study involving patients who had ECT, continuing ECT was associated with a decreased risk of rehospitalization after the acute ECT series and also associated with reduced treatment costs.” We consider the paper and its implications.

Denmark: a land of islands, picturesque cities, and maintenance ECT

In the second selection, Dr. Joel Paris (of McGill University) ponders the societal increase in psychiatric problems, arguing that social contagion may be a factor. In a new BJPsych Bulletin paper, he focuses on non-suicidal self-injurious behaviour. “When clinical symptoms or mental disorders rapidly increase in prevalence, social contagion should be considered as a likely mechanism shaping changes in the form of psychopathology.”

And in the third selection from JAMA, Dr. Julie B. Trivedi (of The University of Texas System) discusses her depression and its treatment. She notes her hospitalization – and her coming to terms with her illness, as a physician, a parent, and a person. “Today, I am focused on bringing light to topics that are stigmatized, talking about topics like mental health and burnout in health care workers that everyone wants to fix but are without an adequate solution, raising awareness of how to recognize mental health challenges among health care professionals, being an advocate for others, and reminding everyone that help is needed.”

DG

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Reading of the Week: Helping Healthcare Workers Seek Help; Also, Smoking Cessation for Inpatients & Priebe on Why Patients Should Be Called Patients

May 20, 2021 /

From the Editor

How do we connect with them?

With the worst of the third wave now behind us, we are beginning to look forward. But for some, the problems of the pandemic aren’t fading. They will continue to struggle with mental health problems.

Healthcare workers are particularly at risk. They are also, collectively, a group that is difficult to engage. In the first selection, we look at a new paper from The British Journal of Psychiatry. Dr. Doron Amsalem (of Columbia University) and his co-authors do a video intervention to increase treatment seeking. The resulting RCT is impressive. The authors write: “The high proportion of healthcare workers surveyed in this study who reported symptoms of probable generalised anxiety, depression and/or PTSD emphasises the need for intervention aimed at increasing treatment-seeking among US healthcare workers. A three-minute online social contact-based video intervention effectively increased self-reported treatment-seeking intentions among healthcare workers.”

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In the second selection, Richard A. Brown (of the University of Texas at Austin) and his co-authors look at a new approach to an old problem: high smoking rates among people with severe mental illness. Focusing on inpatient hospitalizations, they design an intervention built on motivational interviewing. We consider their JAMA Psychiatry paper.

Is the term patient antiquated? Should we use other terms, like client or service user? In a BJPsych Bulletin paper, Dr. Stefan Priebe (of Queen Mary University of London) argues that we serve patients – and that words matter. “Mental healthcare is based on shared values and scientific evidence. Both require precise thinking, and precise thinking requires an exact and consistent terminology.”

DG

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