Tag: Lieberman

Reading of the Week: Psilocybin for Depression – The New NEJM Paper

April 29, 2021 /

From the Editor

Is this the breakthrough we have been waiting for?

This week, we look at the new study from The New England Journal of Medicine considering psilocybin (a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in some mushrooms) and escitalopram for depression. The paper, written by Robin Carhart-Harris (of Imperial College) and his co-authors, has received much attention. One online news source quipped: “Tripping may be as effective as your antidepressants.”

In this study, psilocybin was compared to the SSRI with a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial. Carhart-Harris et al. find: “On the basis of the change in depression scores on the QIDS-SR-16 at week 6, this trial did not show a significant difference in antidepressant effects between psilocybin and escitalopram in a selected group of patients.”

1200px-psilocybe_semilanceata_6514

We consider the paper and the editorial that runs with it by Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman (of Columbia University). We also ask Dr. Ishrat Husain (of the University of Toronto) for his thoughts. Finally, we mention other cutting-edge treatments.

DG

Continue reading

Reading of the Week: Dr. Lieberman’s Shrinks

March 19, 2015 /

A few years ago, a well-known celebrity — let’s call him Mr. Conway — reluctantly brought his twenty-two-year-old daughter to see me. Elena had taken a leave of absence from Yale, Mr. Conway explained, because of issues surrounding a mysterious drop in her grades. Mrs. Conway nodded assent and added that Elena’s slacking off stemmed from “a lack of motivation and low self-confidence.”
In response to their daughter’s perceived troubles, the Conways had hired a parade of motivational experts, life coaches, and tutors. Despite this pricey coterie of handlers, her behavior failed to improve. In fact, one tutor even volunteered (rather hesitantly, given Mr. Conway’s celebrity) that “something is wrong with Elena.” The Conways dismissed the tutor’s concern as an excuse for his own incompetence and continued to look for ways to help their daughter “snap out of her funk.”

They turned to naturopathic agents and meditation, and when those didn’t help, they shelled out more money for hypnosis and acupuncture. In fact, they had done everything possible to avoid seeing a psychiatrist until “the incident.”

So begins Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman’s new book, Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry. Written with Ogi Ogas, the volume has just been published by Little, Brown and Company.

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman Continue reading