We thought you might find a recent interview conducted by David DiSalvo of interest. We have broken it into two parts for easy reading. We’ll publish Part II next week. Also, sorry we haven’t blogged in a while; we were busy traveling in the Mediterranean.

Part I

Depression For Dummies, Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder For Dummies, Borderline Personality Disorder For Dummies–these are just a few of the titles penned by Dr. Laura Smith and Dr. Charles Elliott, a writing duo with a library of psychology and self-help books between them. Tackling challenging topics with an accessible style is their specialty, and has allowed many readers gain a better understanding of anxiety, depression, OCD, and borderline personality disorder, among other topics. They recently spent some time discussing the For Dummies series and a variety of psychology issues and questions with www.Neuronarrative.com

You’ve written several books on depression, anxiety, OCD and related topics, including some of the wildly popular For Dummies books. What led you to the Dummies format to address these topics?

Yes we have; in fact, we’ve just finished our sixth book in the series. As clinical psychologists, we’ve read dozens of self-help books. Most of them focus on how to deal with some specific mental disorder such as depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, or generalized anxiety disorder. Some of these books ignore empirical findings and present an interesting, but highly idiosyncratic and non-data based set of recommendations. Many of the better books in this genre are written by highly renowned researchers and do a great job of presenting the findings from a specific researcher’s approach to the disorder. However, in the past couple of decades, the mental health field has managed to develop a number of empirically based treatment strategies for most emotional disorders. We believe people can profit from knowing about a range of strategies so long as they rest on a research base.

In the For Dummies series, we saw an opportunity to provide consumers with an unusually comprehensive approach to each topic covered. Thus, in all of our books we discuss a variety of empirically supported treatment approaches, diagnostic issues and controversies, related disorders, etiology, prevalence, where and how to find professional help, and ideas for how friends and family can facilitate treatment. For example, in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder For Dummies we discussed the fact that twenty years ago, the only treatments for OCD were exposure and response prevention (ERP) and medication. We were able to review not only ERP, but new mindfulness based approaches, cognitive therapy specifically tailored to OCD, medications, and Deep Brain Stimulation (a very preliminary, but possibly promising strategy).

At the same time, we appreciate the For Dummies series for its nontechnical, no nonsense approach to presenting information. We really enjoy taking complex subjects and presenting them in a way that enables intelligent consumers to understand a topic that may be new to them. Finally, we were thrilled that the editors also encourage the use of humor and a panache of irreverence. We believe that readers enjoy a touch of levity when reading about such serious subjects.

Some fear that the proliferation of medical information, particularly on the internet, is causing widespread self-diagnosis panic. What’s your take on this?

We’re firm believers in the value of information. No doubt, some people panic when they discover on the Internet that they may have a couple of symptoms of some serious disorder yet later learn that they don’t really have the actual illness or disease. But we suspect that for all those who are unnecessarily rattled by what they read, many more discover that they suffer from problems that that they were unaware of, but that can be successfully treated-and generally with greater success than they would have had by not starting treatment until their doctor discovered something at a physical exam months or years down the road.

News concerning the development of psychiatric disorders in children, such as OCD, is on the rise. In your opinion, are parents getting better at identifying symptoms in their kids? And have doctors become more willing to consider the possibility that a child needs psychiatric help?

We do believe that both parents and doctors have greater awareness about these issues than ever before. That awareness is certainly one of the reasons we see disturbing trends in the rise of various mental health issues in kids today as compared to the past. At the same time, some evidence suggests that more than increased awareness lies behind the escalating numbers we’ve seen in the past fifty years or so. Several studies have suggested that the rate of anxiety and depression in kids today greatly exceeds levels we’ve seen in the past.

We’re also concerned that there has appeared to be an over reliance on medications for dealing with these issues. Potent medications are increasingly being prescribed to kids for disorders which were once considered rare in children such as bipolar disorder. We suspect some of these diagnoses are given instead of behavioral disorder diagnoses so that these medications may be employed.
We take a more conservative approach to medications, especially for kids, because of a dearth of long term safety and efficacy studies. In fact, some studies have shown that many of these medications significantly increase risks of diabetes and sometimes set off suicidal thinking. Therefore, our usual recommendation is that treatments should first target the child’s problematic behaviors or moods as well as involve parents, the family, and the school environment. Cognitive behavioral interventions have been found to be especially effective and often obviate the need for medications. When they don’t, medications can be considered, but as judiciously as possible.

Continue reading Part II of the interview…

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Prof.Lakshman (June 26, 2009)

Dave Turo-Shields (June 27, 2009)

From Psych Central's Drs. Laura L. Smith & Charles H. Elliott:
A Recent Interview of Us by David DiSalvo, Part 2 | Anxiety and OCD Exposed (June 30, 2009)

treatment anxiety depression (December 16, 2009)

    Last reviewed: 26 Jun 2009