The Identified Patient is a concept where an individual in a family “acts out” in their behavior dysfunction coming from their family when it reaches a point where that patient can no longer tolerate it. What does that mean? Imagine you’re a child in a family where there is much more conflict and anger between your parents than there is cooperation and lovingness. As you step out into the world, something we refer to as Separation, and you run into an obstacle or a victory, you look back...

Although what follows happened more than forty years ago and although eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa do not receive the same attention as they once did, they still occur in 30 million Americans/year and are still one of the most frequent chronic illnesses in adolescence. She weighed in at 85 lbs and looked beyond skeletal on her 5’8” frame. I was the psychiatric resident on call in the UCLA emergency room forty-two years ago when a deathly twenty two year old young woman, who I...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW8HGlTnjjw Ten Words: Anxious Depressed Afraid Frustrated Angry Ashamed Alone Lonely Exhausted Numb Think of the worst you have felt in the past day or week and attach the feeling word from the list above that most accurately describes it. Now say it aloud in your mind and see if you agree with it or want to change it to another word or perhaps more than one word or other words that are not on the list. When you’ve finally selected it say to yourself, “Yeah,...

Some of my colleagues and I have developed a process and program called, "Design Thinking Suicide Prevention," that we have been presenting at mental health conferences . The reason for it is that we have discovered that certain words scare too many people who don't have to deal with mental issues in their family (although that number is becoming smaller and smaller). In fact, just the word "mental" causes people to run for the hills unless it directly affects them or a family member. Design...