Contemporary Authors

• (Faculty advisor) Michael J. Murphy and Ronald L. Cowan, BlueprintS in Psychiatry Blackwell Science (Malden, MA), c. 1998
• (Faculty advisor) Michael J. Murphy and Ronald L. Cowan, BlueprintS in Psychiatry Blackwell Science, (Malden, MA), c. 2001
• The Family Guide to Mental Health Care W.W. Norton & Company (New York, NY), 2013
• Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight American Psychiatric Association Publishing (Arlington, VA), 2017
• The Addiction Solution: Treating Our Dependence on Opioids and other Drugs Scribbler (New York, NY), 2018
• Inpatient Psychiatry: Diagnosis and Treatment Williams & Wilkins (Baltimore, MD), c. 1983
• Inpatient Psychiatry: Diagnosis and Treatment ( 2nd edition) Williams & Wilkins (Baltimore, MD), c. 1986
• (With Harvey Milkman) Treatment Choices for Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Lexington Books (Lexington, MA), c. 1990
• Inpatient Psychiatry; Diagnosis and Treatment Williams & Wilkins (Baltimore, MD), c. 1991
• (With Barbara Dickey) Outcomes Assessment in Clinical Practice Williams & Wilkins (Baltimore, MD), c. 1996
• (With Anthony J. Rothschild) Acute Care Psychiatry: Diagnosis & Treatment Williams & Wilkins (Baltimore, MD), c. 1997
• (With Barbara Dickey) Improving Mental Health Care: Commitment to Quality American Psychiatric Pub. (Washington, DC), c. 2001
• (With Waguih William IsHak and Tal Burt) Outcome Measurement in Psychiatry: A Critical Review American Psychiatric Pub. (Washington, DC), c. 2002

1. Acute care psychiatry : diagnosis & treatment https://lccn.loc.gov/96039069 Acute care psychiatry : diagnosis & treatment / edited by Lloyd I. Sederer, Anthony J. Rothschild. Baltimore : Williams & Wilkins, c1997. xviii, 577 p. : ill. ; 27 cm. RC480.6 .A27 1997 ISBN: 0683300067 2. Improving mental health care : commitment to quality https://lccn.loc.gov/2001027945 Improving mental health care : commitment to quality / edited by Barbara Dickey, Lloyd I. Sederer. 1st ed. Washington, DC : American Psychiatric Pub., c2001. xxviii, 341 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. RA790.6 .I463 2001 ISBN: 0880489634 (alk. paper) 3. Inpatient psychiatry : diagnosis and treatment https://lccn.loc.gov/90012728 Inpatient psychiatry : diagnosis and treatment / editor, Lloyd I. Sederer. 3rd ed. Baltimore : Williams & Wilkins, c1991. xii, 460 p. ; 26 cm. RC439 .I5 1991 ISBN: 0683076299 4. Inpatient psychiatry : diagnosis and treatment https://lccn.loc.gov/85022670 Inpatient psychiatry : diagnosis and treatment / editor, Lloyd I. Sederer. 2nd ed. Baltimore : Williams & Wilkins, c1986. xii, 399 p. : ill. ; 26 cm. ISBN: 0683076280 5. Inpatient psychiatry : diagnosis and treatment https://lccn.loc.gov/82008553 Inpatient psychiatry : diagnosis and treatment / editor, Lloyd I. Sederer. Baltimore : Williams & Wilkins, c1983. xii, 337 p. : ill. ; 27 cm. ISBN: 0683076272 6. Outcome measurement in psychiatry : a critical review https://lccn.loc.gov/2001060301 Outcome measurement in psychiatry : a critical review / edited by Waguih William IsHak, Tal Burt, Lloyd I. Sederer. 1st ed. Washington, DC : American Psychiatric Pub., c2002. xx, 466 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. RC454.4 .O84 2002 ISBN: 0880481196 (alk. paper) 7. Outcomes assessment in clinical practice https://lccn.loc.gov/95004785 Outcomes assessment in clinical practice / edited by Lloyd I. Sederer, Barbara Dickey. Baltimore : Williams & Wilkins, c1996. xvii, 301 p. : ill. ; 26 cm. RC454.4 .O855 1996 ISBN: 0683076302 8. Treatment choices for alcoholism and substance abuse https://lccn.loc.gov/89013192 Treatment choices for alcoholism and substance abuse / edited by Harvey Milkman, Lloyd I. Sederer. Lexington, Mass. : Lexington Books, c1990. xxxii, 395 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. RC565 .T745 1990 ISBN: 0669200190 (alk. paper) 9. Blueprints in psychiatry https://lccn.loc.gov/00044411 Murphy, Michael, 1966- Blueprints in psychiatry / Michael J. Murphy, Ronald L. Cowan ; faculty advisor, Lloyd I. Sederer. 2nd ed. Malden, MA : Blackwell Science, c2001. xiii, 123 p. : ill. ; 26 cm. RC457.2 .M87 2001 ISBN: 0632043261 10. Blueprints in psychiatry https://lccn.loc.gov/97007347 Murphy, Michael J., 1966- Blueprints in psychiatry / Michael J. Murphy, Ronald L. Cowan ; faculty advisor, Lloyd I. Sederer. Malden, Mass. : Blackwell Science, c1998. x, 80 p. : ill. ; 26 cm. ISBN: 0865425035 (pb) 11. The addiction solution : treating our dependence on opioids and other drugs https://lccn.loc.gov/2017061754 Sederer, Lloyd I., author. The addiction solution : treating our dependence on opioids and other drugs / by Lloyd I. Sederer, MD. First Scribner hardcover edition. New York : Scribner, 2018. pages cm RC564.29 .S43 2018 ISBN: 9781501179440 (hc)9781501179457 (tp) 12. The family guide to mental health care https://lccn.loc.gov/2013007244 Sederer, Lloyd I. The family guide to mental health care / Lloyd I Sederer, MD ; foreword by Glenn Close. First edition. New York ; London : W.W. Norton & Company, [2013] xxii, 312 pages ; 25 cm RA790.6 .S43 2013 ISBN: 9780393707946 (hardcover) 13. Improving mental health : four secrets in plain sight https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035449 Sederer, Lloyd I., author. Improving mental health : four secrets in plain sight / Lloyd I. Sederer, M.D., Medical Editor for Mental Health of the Huffington Post and Chief Medical Officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health, New York, New York. First edition. Arlington, VA : American Psychiatric Association Publishing, [2017] xx, 109 pages : illustrations ; 19 cm RC454 .S3985 2017 ISBN: 9781615370825 (hc : alk. paper)

• Ask Dr. Lloyd - https://www.askdrlloyd.com/bio

  Lloyd Sederer, MD

  Dr. Lloyd is an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia/Mailman School of Public Health and Chief Medical Officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH), the nation’s largest state mental health system.

  ​

  Previously, Dr. Lloyd served as the Executive Deputy Commissioner for Mental Hygiene Services in NYC, the City’s “chief psychiatrist”. He also has been Medical Director and Executive Vice President of McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, a Harvard teaching hospital, and Director of the Division of Clinical Services for the American Psychiatric Association.

  ​

  In 2013, Dr. Lloyd was given the Irma Bland Award for Excellence in Teaching Residents by the American Psychiatric Association, which in 2009 recognized him as the Psychiatric Administrator of the Year. He also has been awarded a Scholar-in-Residence grant by the Rockefeller Foundation and an Exemplary Psychiatrist award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). He has published seven books for professional audiences and five books for lay audiences, as well as 500 articles in medical journals, non-medical publications and book, film, TV and theatre reviews including in TheAtlantic.com, The New York Times/The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The NY Daily News, The Washington Post.com, Commonweal Magazine, and Psychology Today. He has been Medical Editor for Mental Health for the Huff Post where over 250 of his posts and videos appeared and also wrote a regular column on mental health and the addictions for US News & World Report.

  ​

  Dr. Lloyd appears regularly on radio and television and has given a TEDx talk about mental illness and the family.

• National Council for Behavioral Health - https://ncc.expoplanner.com/index.cfm?do=expomap.handoutSpeakerDetails&event_id=17&speaker_id=6730

  Sederer, Lloyd
  New York State Office of Mental Health

  MTED1: TED Talk: Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight
  Speaker(s): Sederer, Lloyd
  Handouts:
  • MTED1_Sederer_1.pdf

  Speaker Bio:
  LLOYD I. SEDERER, M.D., is Chief Medical Officer of the New York State Office
  of Mental Health (OMH), the nation's largest state mental health system. He provides medical leadership for a mental health system which annually serves over 700,000 people and operates 22 hospitals, 90 clinics, two research institutes, and oversees community services throughout a state of ~ 19 million people.

  Dr. Sederer is an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia/Mailman School of Public Health.
  Previously, Dr. Sederer served as the Executive Deputy Commissioner for Mental Hygiene
  Services in NYC, the City’s “chief psychiatrist”. He also has been Medical Director and Executive
  Vice President of McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, a Harvard teaching hospital, and Director of
  the Division of Clinical Services for the American Psychiatric Association.

  In 2013, Dr. Sederer was given the Irma Bland Award for Excellence in Teaching Residents by
  the American Psychiatric Association, which in 2009 recognized him as the Psychiatric
  Administrator of the Year. He also has been awarded a Scholar-in-Residence grant by the
  Rockefeller Foundation and an Exemplary Psychiatrist award from the National Alliance on
  Mental Illness (NAMI). He has published seven books for professional audiences and (soon) three books for lay audiences, as well as 500 articles in medical journals and non-medical publications including TheAtlantic.com, The New York Times/The International HeraldTribune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post.com, Commonweal Magazine, and Psychology Today. He is Medical Editor for Mental Health for The Huffington Post where over 250 of his posts, reviews and videos have appeared. He is now also a contributing writer on mental health and the addictions for US News & World Report and is a monthly regular on Sirius-XM Insight Radio.

  In 2013, Dr. Sederer published The Family Guide to Mental Health Care (Foreword by
  Glenn Close), for families of people with mental illness. He also has co-authored, with Jay
  Neugeboren & Michael Friedman, The Diagnostic Manual of Mishegas (The DMOM), a parody of the DSM-5. His two new books are Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain
  Sight, which will be published in November 2016, and Controversies in Mental
  Health and the Addictions (an annotated compilation of his general audience writings), which is scheduled for release in January 2017.

  His TEDx talk about mental illness and the family can be viewed at:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRO0-JXuFMY
  A short video on mental illness and violence is at http://www.mentalhealthchannel.tv/episode/how-to-stop-the-mentally-illfrom-
  becoming-violent

  His website is http://www.askdrlloyd.com and on Twitter at @askdrlloyd

• The New York Academy of Medicine - https://nyam.org/fellows/fellow-profile-lloyd-sederer/

  Fellow Profile: Lloyd Sederer, MD

  HomeFellows

  Lloyd Sederer, MD, joined the Academy as a Fellow in 2003.

  Lloyd Sederer, MDAcademy Fellow Lloyd Sederer, MD, is Chief Medical Officer of the NYS Office of Mental Health, Medical Editor for Mental Health for The Huffington Post, and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia/Mailman School of Public Health. At Columbia, he co-teaches medical writing for the lay public in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Sederer shared with us his path as a writer and his passion for writing for the lay public.

  Dr. Sederer has written professionally since he was a resident, including seven textbooks and many journal and book articles. About seven years ago, however, after transitioning from being a clinician and hospital clinical administrator to being a public health doctor (first for NYC and then for NYS) he felt his communications needed to change. He wanted to write for a different and broader audience than the academic community—in particular, people who have mental illness and their families.

  “I wanted to reach consumers with information that would help individuals and their loved ones better understand and manage mental illnesses, and also connect to the advocacy community, whose work often determines what programs are supported and what resources are allocated,” Dr. Sederer said.

  Fueled by this goal, Dr. Sederer submitted a piece to The Huffington Post, which was promptly accepted and published. He continued to contribute regularly, and about five years ago, he was asked to become The Huff Post’s Medical Editor for Mental Health.

  “That’s been a really terrific experience because I’ve learned a lot about online publishing and have been able to bring a lot of people on board—people who are experts and whose voice I think it’s important be heard by the lay community,” Dr. Sederer said.

  Dr. Sederer has now written close to 300 essays, opinion pieces, and book and movie/TV reviews for The Huffington Post as well as U.S. News & World Report, Psychology Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Commonweal Magazine, and TheAtlantic.com. He also has a two-book deal with WW Norton, including The Family Guide to Mental Health Care (2013).

  He has also had the opportunity to share his passion for writing for the lay public through teaching. He co-teaches a writing workshop at Columbia University with Deborah Cabaniss, MD, now in its 10th semester, and has so far taught two popular workshops at the Academy with Drew Ramsey, MD and Lisa Gornick, PhD, co-sponsored by the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and the Academy Section on Psychiatry.

  Dr. Sederer gets many ideas for pieces from seeing up close the delivery and financing of health and mental health care in his day job as Chief Medical Officer of the NYS Office of Mental Health; he writes on weeknights, weekends, and in hotels when he travels to Albany for work. He stresses that he writes for pleasure and purpose, not money:

  “If you think you’re going to make a living at this, think again. I get no pay from The Huffington Post. Whether you’re a professional, not just a doctor but a laywer, community worker, or someone in administration or business, it’s about wanting to put one’s ideas out there and have an exchange in a public forum. People need to have a voice, and online publishing has become an extraordinary avenue that barely existed five or 10 years ago.”

  To professionals who want to write for the lay public, Dr. Sederer’s advice is to seek encouragement and coaching, get started, and keep practicing. He shared some wisdom from one of his teachers, Bill Zinsser, a journalist and author of On Writing Well, who died last year:

  “He taught me writing is like plumbing. There’s not a mood you have to be into to do it—you just get up and do it. The more you do, the better you get. The more you’re around other people who do it, the more skills you learn.”

• Columbia University - https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/people/our-faculty/lis2108

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  Biography
  LLOYD I. SEDERER, M.D., is Chief Medical Officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH), the nation's largest state mental health system. Dr. Sederer is an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia/Mailman School of Public Health. Previously, Dr. Sederer served as the Executive Deputy Commissioner for Mental Hygiene Services in NYC, the City's chief psychiatrist. He also has been Medical Director and Executive Vice President of McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, a Harvard teaching hospital, and Director of the Division of Clinical Services for the American Psychiatric Association. He has published seven books for professional audiences and four books for lay and student audiences, as well as 500 articles in medical journals and non-medical publications. He is Medical Editor for Mental Health for The Huffington Post, and a contributing writer on mental health and the addictions for US News & World Report. He is a monthly regular on Sirius-XM Insight Radio. His two new books are Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight for lay and professional audiences (2017); and Controversies in Mental Health and the Addictions, an annotated compilation of his on-line writings for college and university courses (2017). In early 2018, Scribner (Simon & Schuster) will be publishing his next book on drugs in America. Website is http://www.askdrlloyd.com - Twitter is @askdrlloyd

• Huffington Post - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/lloyd-i-sederer-md

  Lloyd I. Sederer, MD
  Chief Medical Officer, New York State Office of Mental Health

  LLOYD I. SEDERER, M.D., is Chief Medical Officer for the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH), the nation's largest state mental health system. As New York's “chief psychiatrist”, he provides medical leadership for a mental health system which annually serves over 700,000 people and includes 22 hospitals, 90 clinics, two research institutes, and community services throughout a state of ~ 19 million people.

  Dr. Sederer is an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia/Mailman School of Public Health.

  Previously, Dr. Sederer served as the Executive Deputy Commissioner for Mental Hygiene Services in NYC, the City’s “chief psychiatrist”. He also has been Medical Director and Executive Vice President of McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, a Harvard teaching hospital, and Director of the Division of Clinical Services for the American Psychiatric Association.

  In 2013, Dr. Sederer was given the Irma Bland Award for Excellence in Teaching Residents by the American Psychiatric Association, which in 2009 recognized him as the Psychiatric Administrator of the Year. He also has been awarded a Scholar-in-Residence grant by the Rockefeller Foundation and an Exemplary Psychiatrist award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness. He has published seven books for professional audiences and two books for lay audiences, as well as ~ 500 articles in medical journals and non-medical publications like TheAtlantic.com, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Commonweal Magazine, and Psychology Today. He is now also writing a regular column on mental health for US News & World Report.
  He appears monthly on SiriusXM's Tell Me Everything, hosted by John Fugelsang.

  His previous books (2013) are The Family Guide to Mental Health Care (Foreword by Glenn Close), is for families of people with mental illness and (co-authored with Jay Neugeboren and Michael Friedman, is The Diagnostic Manual of Mishegas (The DMOM), a parody on the DSM.
  His recent books are Improving Mental: Four Secrets in Plain Sight (2017) and Controversies in Mental Health & The Addictions, an annotated compilation of his essays, reviews and commentaries (2017). In May 2018 Scribner (Simon & Schuster) will be releasing his next book, The Addiction Solution: Treating Our Dependence on Opioids and Other Drugs. Follow him on Twitter: @askdrlloyd Dr. Sederer’s website is www.askdrlloyd.com.

• New York Journal of Books - https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/reviewer/lloyd-sederer

  loyd Sederer
  http://www.askdrlloyd.com

  Lloyd I. Sederer, MD, is Chief Medical Officer for the NYS Office of Mental Health, the nation’s largest state mental health agency; Adjunct Professor at the Columbia/Mailman School of Public Health; and Contributing Writer for Psychology Today and the NY Daily News, among other publications.

  He has served as Mental Health commissioner for NYC; Medical Director/EVP for McLean Hospital, a Harvard teaching facility; and as Director of Clinical Services for the American Psychiatric Association.

  He has written hundreds of articles on mental health, the addictions and book, film, TV and theatre reviews, and has published a dozen books. He appears regularly on radio and television.

• Linked In - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lloyd-sederer-md-5677ab17/

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  My Mission is to help you or your loved one gain understanding of mental illnesses, addictions, their prevention and treatment. There is hope to achieve what we all want - a life with relationships, work, and contribution.

  Bio:
  Dr. Lloyd is often referred to as New York's “Chief Psychiatrist.”

  He is the Chief Medical Officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH), the nation’s largest state mental health system. He provides medical leadership for a mental health system which annually serves over 700,000 people and includes 22 hospitals, 90 clinics, two research institutes, and community services throughout a state of ~ 19 million people.

  Previously, Dr. Lloyd served as the Executive Deputy Commissioner for Mental Hygiene Services in NYC. He also has been Medical Director and Executive Vice President of McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, a Harvard teaching hospital, and Director of the Division of Clinical Services for the American Psychiatric Association.

  He is Medical Editor for Mental Health for the Huffington Post where over 250 of his posts and videos have appeared. He is also writing a regular column on mental health for US News & World Report.

  He has published seven books for professional audiences and four books for lay audiences, as well as over 400 articles in medical journals and non-medical publications including TheAtlantic.com, The New York Times/The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post.com, Commonweal Magazine, and Psychology Today.

  Dr. Lloyd appears regularly on radio and television and has given a TEDx talk about mental illness and the family.
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  A terse and gripping social indictment and study of human character - by a very fine novelist.

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  Hello Session
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  Hello session allows you to improve your mental health confidentially with a click. Individuals can connect with psychiatrists and therapists directly through secure video calls or primary care doctors may obtain consultations on their behalf. Everyone deserves the opportunity to find their best self… and say hello.
  NYS Office of Mental Health
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The Addiction Solution: Treating Our
Dependence on Opioids and Other
Drugs
Karen Springen
Booklist.
114.15 (Apr. 1, 2018): p40. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
* The Addiction Solution: Treating Our Dependence on Opioids and Other Drugs. By Lloyd I. Sederer. May 2018. 224p. Scribner, $26 (9781501179440); e-book (9781501179464). 362.29.
In this timely, well-written look at addiction, Sederer, chief medical officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health, zeroes in on the power of substances "to pirate away a life." He uses statistics to powerful effect; for example, drug overdose deaths (52,404 in 2015) exceed motor vehicle accidents and gunshot wounds as preventable causes of mortality, and sales of prescription opioids in the U.S. were four times greater in 2010 than in 1999. Sederer notes that people of all ages, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds struggle with addiction to drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, but he focuses on opioids--OxyContin, Percodan, Vicodin, morphine, heroin, and fentanyl. Disguising the identities of the patients he profiles, he explains their struggles and offers solutions, including early prevention and effective treatment based on understanding psychological and social reasons for starting and continuing addictive behaviors, not in criminalizing drug abuse or demonizing people. Sederer includes many historical details, including the fact that the German company, Bayer, invented heroin, which was used to treat children and adults, and he draws on many cultural sources to reveal the complex social and personal factors underlying addiction and encourage empathy.--Karen Springen
1 of 13 6/19/18, 11:10 PM
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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Springen, Karen. "The Addiction Solution: Treating Our Dependence on Opioids and Other
Drugs." Booklist, 1 Apr. 2018, p. 40. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com /apps/doc/A534956815/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=6d2e01bb. Accessed 20 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534956815
2 of 13 6/19/18, 11:10 PM

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Sederer, Lloyd I.: THE ADDICTION SOLUTION
Kirkus Reviews.
(Mar. 15, 2018): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Sederer, Lloyd I. THE ADDICTION SOLUTION Scribner (Adult Nonfiction) $26.00 5, 8 ISBN: 978-1-5011-7944-0
An exploration of drug addiction and the various treatment options.
In this slim but fairly comprehensive work, Sederer (Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight, 2016, etc.), the chief medical officer for the New York State Office of Mental Health, aims to inform individuals, families, and communities of the complex issues surrounding drug abuse and addiction, whether the addiction involves prescription pain killers or recreational substances such as marijuana or cocaine. He also focuses on the far-ranging challenges of treatment options, how they can be influenced by physiological issues and often undermined by governmental policies. Sederer begins by identifying 10 key factors for determining how an individual will interact with a psychoactive substance, with regard to personal, contextual, and neurological issues. They include aspects such as age, environmental setting, and the purity, potency, and composition of the particular drugs. In the second part, the author outlines the various approaches to treatments, beginning with healthy alternatives for combating personal struggles that may trigger drug use in the first place--e.g., exercise and sports, mindfulness practices such as yoga and meditation. He later provides an in-depth overview of the more substantial principles and forms of treatments, ranging from 12-step programs to medication- assisted treatments. Ultimately, Sederer doesn't recommend just one single course of action. Recovery is possible when individuals are willing and able to "stay the course." While the author doesn't offer much in the way of groundbreaking remedies, he provides a lucid foundation for responding to this complex challenge. As an answer to how we can best respond to our country's opioid epidemic, he concludes, "the answers are public health in nature: prevention, early intervention, effective and comprehensive treatment programs, and a cultural shift toward understanding not just the neuroscience of addiction but also the psychological and social dimensions central to the commencement and continuation of addictive behaviors."
A well-informed and accessible guide to treating addiction.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sederer, Lloyd I.: THE ADDICTION SOLUTION." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2018. Book
Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530650573/GPS?u=schlager&
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A shoulder to lean on: for those
caring for loved ones fighting cancer
or depression, Sederer and Pogrebin
talk best practices
Publishers Weekly.
260.8 (Feb. 25, 2013): p158. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2013 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Family Guide to Mental Health Care Lloyd I. Sederer, M.D. Norton, $25.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-393-70794-6
Sederer sees families as an early-warning system 'for mental illness, and here, New York State's top mental health official gives kin of the mentally ill a thoughtful, compassionate, and fact- packed guide for recognizing illness and getting help. "[T]reatment approaches for mental illnesses are no different from treatment approaches for other serious and persistent medical illnesses," Sederer writes. Recovery takes time--"Never, ever, give up." With passionate optimism, Sederer examines the facts about diagnoses, treatments, and doctors, and suggests questions to ask at every step of the way: What symptoms are being treated? Why this medication? Is the treatment working? There are heartbreaking case studies, but there are success stories too, including his own and that of a fellow doctor and author who is "thriving" with illness. The heart of this remarkable resource, however, is a wide-ranging breakdown of the "faces of mental illness," including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, as well as eating, personality, and bipolar disorders--and how each may manifest. "Trust your instincts," he urges. "To do the right thing, you must face the unwanted visitor of mental illness and act before it defeats the person you love--and you as well." With a moving forward by actress Glenn Close, who calls mental illness "a family affair," this extraordinary guide offers valuable information and inspiration. Agent: Jeanne Dube, Forte Associates. (Apr. 15)
How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who's Sick Letty Cottin Pogrebin. PublicAffairs, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-161039-283-9
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Pogrebin, a veteran feminist, author, and cofounder (with Gloria Steinem) of Ms. magazine, uses her experience with breast cancer--she was diagnosed in September 2009 at age 70--and nearly 80 interviews with friends and patients to craft this bluntly practical and gently humorous guide to the dos and don'ts of caring for the ill. The list of tips is formidably long, and includes plenty of helpful advice: Don't ask "how" someone is feeling, ask "what" they're feeling; never start a sentence with "Oh my God!"; and be sure to say things like, "Tell me how I can help," and "I'm bringing dinner"--or ice cream, laughter, or pot (to which she gives "the grand prize for Most Restorative Gift"). There are also accounts of patients themselves, like writer Nora Ephron, who surprisingly chose to keep her fatal illness a secret from friends. But it's the bravery and wisdom Pogrebin (Three Daughters) brought to her own battle that lifts this guide from a mere list of sickroom rules to invaluable lessons for sickness and health. Her cancer, she writes, "taught me the blessings of silence" and that there are times "when the kindest thing you can do" for the ill "is to confer upon them the honor of the ordinary." Agent: David Kuhn, Kuhn Projects. (Apr. 9)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"A shoulder to lean on: for those caring for loved ones fighting cancer or depression, Sederer and
Pogrebin talk best practices." Publishers Weekly, 25 Feb. 2013, p. 158. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A320734275/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=99549372. Accessed 20 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A320734275
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Mapping the mind: The Family
Guide to Mental Health care Advice
on helping your loved ones
Anne R. Gearity
America.
210.10 (Mar. 24, 2014): p36+. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2014 America Press, Inc.. All rights reserved. http://americamagazine.org/
Full Text:
I recently met with a young psychiatrist who said, "Five years ago, I wouldn't have tolerated those behaviors," referring to fairly typical symptoms of children and adults with mental illness. His candor was a little surprising--he had chosen to specialize in psychi-atry--but not unusual. Many people continue to assume that these behaviors are chosen or, at very least, that they can be controlled.
Dr. Lloyd Sederer has spent his impressive medical career in psychiatry and demonstrates both his knowledge and sensitivity in his book, The Family Guide to Mental Health Care. The subtitle identifies his intended audience: "Advice on helping your loved ones" because "every year, 1 in 4 adults in the United States will experience a mental illness ... well over 50 million adults and children in the United States fall ill each year." He ofers another sobering figure: "An astonishing 80 percent of Americans with treatable mental disorders do not receive proper diagnosis and effective treatment." He then provides families with information and tools to aid them significantly in making sure this harrowing reality can be changed.
In large measure because living brains cannot easily be opened and examined, as can other body organs, mental functioning remains mysterious. The brain is a very complex organ that directs and dictates much of body functioning. Since the expanded use of functional M.R.I. imaging, many brain processes are now better understood. The 1990s, called the "decade of the brain," proved exciting but unfinished. Now research can better explain how genetic predisposition influences ease in life or onset of dis-ease. But genetic expression requires activation, and from infancy brains rely on input from the environments we inhabit, environments that are constructed with biological, psychological and social forces.
The etiology of mental illness has been challenging to understand, and the National Institute of Mental Health is increasing efforts through the recently announced Brain Initiative. There have been significant advances in pharmacological treatments, but most honest providers admit that the reasons for medical relief remain unclear and occasionally accidental, as evidenced by placebo effects. Richard Friedman, M.D., wrote in The New York Times (8/19) that: "knowing how a drug works in the brain doesn't necessarily reveal the cause of the illness." In child
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psychiatry, there is increasing reliance on of label use, prescribing medications to relieve physiological agitation and body dysregulation, suggesting that mental illness is felt in the body as well as the brain.
A second challenge is the exquisite interplay between brain functioning and mind influence. David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, recently warned against over-reliance on neu- roscience to fully explain human functioning. "The brain is not the mind. It is probably impossible to look at a map of brain activity and predict or even understand the emotions, reactions, hopes and desires of the mind" (6/17). Our brains are capable of neuron mis-firing, but our minds are also capable of feats of agency and meaning--making that block or facilitate change.
And fnally, mental illness continues to trigger bias and prejudice. It is still common to hear that problems are "all in his head." Mental illness is attributed to character failures. Emotional intensity remains suspect within many families and communities, especially when this intensity is paired with seemingly irrational behaviors. And often judgment replaces sympathy, as if the suffering person is fabricating disease, deserves disease or is, at the very least, unwilling to recover.
Dr. Sederer challenges these biases: "Mental illness is an equal opportunity thief that steals individual and family stability." He offers ample and accessible information about diagnostic categories, about the course of illness and about both biological and psychosocial treatments that can alleviate symptoms and restore functioning. He addresses illness that may be situational and temporary, and illness that can be life-long and life-altering. He offers families the knowledge and the courage to demand good mental health care. He is open about deficits in the existing mental health system of care. But the diffculties of diagnosis (no blood tests, no mechanical tools for identifying cause) and challenges to find the best treatment are secondary to this persistent prejudice about mental illness and the painful diffculties of helping the person with mental illness accept that this is an illness.
Some years ago a colleague who was both a gifted psychologist and a person with serious mental illness explained how hard it was to accept well-intentioned advice when delusions are an active part of your illness, when your brain causes confusion, when your senses and perceptions are altered. Just as physical pain can alter one's sense of reality, so can mental illness, but so much more since we must rely on our brains to orient us to what is going on.
Families and friends ask what they should do. The Family Guide to Mental Health Care provides steps toward kind support and guidance. Pervading Dr. Sederer's book is a strong recognition that human company is a powerful mediator of pain and that relationship support can alleviate the desolation and isolation that are frequently companion symptoms of mental illness. His examples encourage better fluency when talking about illness and helping ill persons to recognize symptoms and behavioral effects that compromise functioning and disrupt important relationship connections. He uses this important phrase--wellness self-man-agement--to describe the complex processes of recovery and stabilization and help families realize how best to support someone living with mental illness.
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Recently, in another New York Times article (10/1), the New York chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (N.A.M.I) reiterated the data Dr. Sederer cites: "Only 61 percent of Americans think it appropriate to tell family members about a mental illness diagnosis, 43 percent approve of telling friends about a diagnosis, and just 13 percent of telling co-workers." Recognizing that mental illness remains a stigma, they initiated a public service campaign that includes this message: "1 in 4 Americans are impacted by mental illness. Make a promise to listen." The Family Guide to Mental Health Care provides families with valuable resources, but maybe everyone should read it. To change attitudes about mental illness requires that everyone listen and understand.
Anne R. Gearity has a mental health practice in Minneapolis and teaches at the University of Minnesota. She is an elected member of the National Academies of Practice.
ANNE R. GEARITY
By Lloyd I. Sederer, M.D.
W. W. Norton & Company. 328p $25.95 Gearity, Anne R.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Gearity, Anne R. "Mapping the mind: The Family Guide to Mental Health care Advice on
helping your loved ones." America, 24 Mar. 2014, p. 36+. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A367711756/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=e1f066db. Accessed 20 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A367711756
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The Family Guide to Mental Health
Care
Tony Miksanek
Booklist.
109.16 (Apr. 15, 2013): p10. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2013 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
The Family Guide to Mental Health Care.
By Lloyd I. Sederer.
Apr. 2013. 256p. Norton, $25.95 (9780393707946). 616.89.
More than 50 million Americans experience some form of mental illness annually. A large number of these individuals fail to get appropriate treatment. Some don't even receive a correct diagnosis. Sederer's guide helps folks (particularly family members and friends of people afflicted with psychiatric conditions) familiarize themselves with all aspects of mental illness: symptoms, treatment, prevention, health-insurance issues, and the law. Tucked in the middle of this useful guide is a valuable chapter, "A World of Hurt: The Faces of Mental Illness," that summarizes many mental-health disorders--generalized anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, panic, personality, bipolar, binge eating--as well as depression and schizophrenia but not alcohol or substance abuse. Treatments of these problems, including medications, psychotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), are described. Written by a psychiatrist who is a mental-health administrator, the presentation is practical and compassionate. The main message about mental illness is urgent and uplifting: recovery is possible but requires effort, excellent treatment, assistance from loved ones, patience, and steadfast hope.--Tony Miksanek
Miksanek, Tony
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Miksanek, Tony. "The Family Guide to Mental Health Care." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2013, p. 10. Book
Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A327988333/GPS?u=schlager& sid=GPS&xid=4310f1a3. Accessed 20 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A327988333
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The Family Guide to Mental Health Care
California Bookwatch.
(June 2013): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2013 Midwest Book Review http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
The Family Guide to Mental Health Care Lloyd I. Sederer, MD
W.W. Norton
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 9780393707946, $25.95, www.wwnorton.com
The Family Guide to Mental Health Care: Advice on Helping Your Loved Ones comes from the medical director of the country's largest state mental health system and provides the first in-depth coverage directed to families struggling with a loved one's mental illness. Families receive a wealth of information on not only the disorder, but how to assess professionals helping them, and how to locate the right treatment. From depression to schizophrenia, this covers medications, how the mental health system works, and how families can work with systems to gain the best benefits from it. The result is an invaluable 'must' bible packed with resources for any family facing mental illness.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Family Guide to Mental Health Care." California Bookwatch, June 2013. Book Review
Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A334710357/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=77a8f539. Accessed 20 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A334710357
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The family guide to mental health care
Reference & Research Book News.
28.3 (June 2013): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2013 Ringgold, Inc. http://www.ringgold.com/
Full Text:
9780393707946
The family guide to mental health care. Sederer, Lloyd I.
W.W. Norton
2013
312 pages
$25.95
Hardcover
RA790
Author Sederer, medical director of New York State's Office of Mental Health and mental health editor for the Huffington Post, offers down-to-earth advice and inspiration for families and general readers; the book will also be useful for those who encounter patients and families in their work. Vignettes and a conversational style guide readers through the maze of the mental health care system. Emphasis is on symptoms, diagnosis, medications, and what to expect from visits to practitioners, with only brief overviews of paying for mental health care and dealing with legal issues such as consent and estate planning. The book offers 'walk-throughs' of a real- life ER, a peer-run recovery program, and supportive housing, and includes a list of books and websites, plus symptom assessment scales. An introduction by actress Glenn Close is included.
([c] Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The family guide to mental health care." Reference & Research Book News, June 2013. Book
Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A332372362/GPS?u=schlager& sid=GPS&xid=88f1dfc5. Accessed 20 June 2018.
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Springen, Karen. "The Addiction Solution: Treating Our Dependence on Opioids and Other Drugs." Booklist, 1 Apr. 2018, p. 40. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534956815/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=6d2e01bb. Accessed 20 June 2018. "Sederer, Lloyd I.: THE ADDICTION SOLUTION." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2018. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530650573/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=93d0d143. Accessed 20 June 2018. "A shoulder to lean on: for those caring for loved ones fighting cancer or depression, Sederer and Pogrebin talk best practices." Publishers Weekly, 25 Feb. 2013, p. 158. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A320734275/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=99549372. Accessed 20 June 2018. Gearity, Anne R. "Mapping the mind: The Family Guide to Mental Health care Advice on helping your loved ones." America, 24 Mar. 2014, p. 36+. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A367711756/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=e1f066db. Accessed 20 June 2018. Miksanek, Tony. "The Family Guide to Mental Health Care." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2013, p. 10. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A327988333/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=4310f1a3. Accessed 20 June 2018. "The Family Guide to Mental Health Care." California Bookwatch, June 2013. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A334710357/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=77a8f539. Accessed 20 June 2018. "The family guide to mental health care." Reference & Research Book News, June 2013. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A332372362/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=88f1dfc5. Accessed 20 June 2018.

• RtoR
  https://www.rtor.org/2015/05/14/rtor-family-resource-collection-book-review-of-the-family-guide-to-mental-health-care/
  Word count: 1204

  RtoR Family Resource Collection: Book Review of The Family Guide to Mental Health Care
  Posted on May 14, 2015 by Jay Boll, Editor in Chief

  bookFor Mental Health Awareness Month, Resources to Recover kicks off its new Family Resource Collection with the one book that is indispensable to any family facing serious mental health concerns. Dr. Lloyd I. Sederer’s The Family Guide to Mental Health Care is a comprehensive guide to the identification, care and treatment of mental illness. There may be more thorough examinations of specific diagnoses, and plenty of books have been written on the experience of mental illness in the family. But this is the only book I am aware of that covers all major mental illnesses, from first recognition to aftercare and recovery, written with families in mind.

  Dr. Sederer is the Medical Director of the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH), the Medical Editor for Mental Health of The Huffington Post, and a prolific blogger and writer of books and articles. The Family Guide to Mental Health Care projects the expert authority you would expect from the chief clinician of the largest public mental health system in the country. Yet, he writes with the clarity of a born communicator and the sensitivity of someone who, if not having lived with mental illness in his own family, deeply understands the plight of those who have.

  The Family Guide is not a defense of the public system he presides over. As a family member myself, I was grateful for the way he frankly acknowledges the limitations of that system and offers the ordinary people who may have cause to use it practical information and advice on how to get the most from it.

  The book’s “Eight Guideposts to Navigating Mental Illness” are great example of this blend of expert advise and sensitivity This section of The Family Guide is so affirming of families – “trust your perceptions”, “mental illness is not your fault” – yet is also full of practical advice: “stop fighting,” “be open to reluctance and listen carefully,” “extract an agreement for a small, specific, and immediate step in the right direction.”
  Eight Guideposts to Navigating Mental Illness

  Analyze the behavior.
  Remember it’s not your fault.
  Trust yourself.
  Don’t go it alone.
  Seek help as soon as possible.
  Don’t get into fights.
  Learn how to bend the mental health system to your needs.
  Settle in for the siege and never give up.

  ​I found this section of the book so helpful that I wrote a post about it last year and even added three more Guideposts to the list:

  Take time out for your own recovery and mental health.
  Stay on the same page with other members of the family.
  Believe that your loved one and you can have a good life despite mental illness.

  The Family Guide contains sections on the major mental health disorders: Depression and Anxiety Disorders, Eating and Personality Disorders, Schizophrenia, Acute Psychotic Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder. These sections of the book are informative and very clearly written. Much of this information is available on the Internet, but cannot be found anywhere else in one comprehensive, easy-to-understand printed format like this book.

  Other helpful sections of the book include chapters on Principles of Good Care; Getting Help: The Referral, the Doctor, the Meeting; and The Places You May Go, which informs family members of what they may encounter in the various settings where mental illness is treated, such as outpatient clinics, emergency rooms and inpatient psychiatric units.

  As a former rehabilitation specialist, I was pleased to see a chapter on the often overlooked subjects of psychotherapy and rehabilitation (see my post on Rehabilitation: The Awkward Third Wheel). The medical model of mental health care tends to focus on the treatment of acute symptoms and psychopharmacology (covered in the chapter, Medications: What to Know and What to Ask). But psychotherapy and rehabilitation services are how recovery actually occurs and it is refreshing to see such attention to these topics from the Medical Director of NY OMH.

  Dr. Sederer takes a righteous and responsible view on mental health recovery, which is not just a matter of respecting patients’ right to self-determination and allowing them to make their own way through the perplexing world of life with mental illness. “Patients and their families must be willing to take the steps needed to put them on the road to recovery.”

  In one of my favorite passages of the book, Sederer writes…

  Family and friends must learn to set aside their confusion, sadness and anger… They must learn to overcome their reluctance to the idea that someone they love is mentally ill in order to fight for what their loved one needs to get well. All too often that battle will be with their loved one, who may not recognize that anything is wrong in the first place. Families also must become tough-minded, informed consumers and advocates for their loved one.”

  Dr. Sederer may preside over the medical office of a huge mental health bureaucracy but he is anything but a bureaucrat. As one of the family members for whom this book is written, I frequently found myself thinking ‘This guy really gets it.’ He clearly understands the anguish and frustration families feel when a loved one is diagnosed with a serious mental illness and becomes involved in the public mental health system. He also has an expert understanding of mental illness and how the system works to help those affected by it.

  The Internet has become the go-to source for all variety of health and health care information. Lloyd Sederer’s The Family Guide to Mental Health Care is a perfect example of why we still need printed books: all the information gathered in a single source that you can reference through a simple Table of Contents, Subject Index and Appendices. This one belongs on every family’s bookshelf.

  Related posts:
  First Appointments: Choosing the Right Psychiatrist, Therapist of Other Mental Health Professional
  Rehabilitation: The Awkward Third Wheel in Mental Health Care

  The Family Guide to Mental Health Care

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  of the Day in observance of Mental Health Awareness Month
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  About Latest Posts

  Jay Boll, Editor in Chief
  Jay Boll, LMSW, writes about mental health from dual perspectives: as a professional with more than thirty-five years of experience working with homeless youth and adults with mental illness, and as a family member who has witnessed the impact of mental illness up close and personal.

  “There are many sides to mental health recovery.Jay’s blog takes The Family Side.

• Psychiatric Times
  http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/film-and-book-reviews/family-guide-mental-health-care
  Word count: 669

  The Family Guide to Mental Health Care

  James Phelps, MD

  Jun 24, 2013
  Volume:
  30
  Issue:
  6

  Film And Book Reviews, Cultural Psychiatry

  family involvement

  If your practice or your advocacy efforts place you anywhere near people encountering the mental health system for the first time, please have a look at this book. Piles of them—the books, not the patients—should be sitting in the waiting area of every mental health center and emergency department (ED).

  A brief literature search suggests there is nothing published like this book. In any case, this one is comprehensive while remaining so welcoming; it is so authoritative and yet unintimidating, one need not look further.

  The author is Medical Director of the New York Office of Mental Health, before which he was Mental Health Commissioner for New York City. The accumulated wisdom of these and previous years on the faculty at Harvard are evident throughout. Dr Sederer has a very direct sense of the needs of everyday patients and their families.

  The section on medications, titled “What to Know, What to Ask,” provides an example of the author’s approach. It discusses how pharmaceutical companies influence the publication of clinical trials, and the impact of pharmaceutical drug detailing. The section emphasizes the importance of being an informed consumer and being prepared for a discussion of options with one’s doctor or nurse practitioner. The entire book is like this: a savvy yet fully academic, informed approach to getting the best possible care from the current poorly organized system of care (which an ED colleague of mine has termed a “non-system”).

  Only one paragraph in the entire book disappoints: Dr Sederer’s lucid explanation of why one does not get an MRI to diagnose psychiatric illnesses is followed by an emphasis on how little we know about the causes of mental illnesses or how treatments work. Some might say that recent advances in genetics and molecular neuroscience support a somewhat more hopeful view of psychiatry’s grasp of causation and mechanism.

  Amazon’s “Look Inside” provides the Table of Contents and the full Foreword by Glenn Close, who offers a personal example of why this book is so necessary. Have a look. Although there might not be anything particularly new here for a psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner, this book is useful for families.

  Our current non-system of mental health care has no obvious door, nor does it have a personal guide to help a newcomer find appropriate resources or providers. Patients and their families have to learn as they go. With the Affordable Care Act (ACA; aka ObamaCare), however, many states are reorganizing their Medicaid programs. Some, like Oregon, hope to soon use the same system for Medicare and even for public employees. Perhaps here is a window of opportunity for mental health care to become more accessible, through the emerging “medical homes” the ACA advocates.

  Such an improvement would add one more location where a patient could hope to find, in a better-organized mental health care system, piles of this book: not just in mental health centers and EDs, but in medical home lobbies as well. Surely Dr Sederer would regard this as a fitting thank you for his laudable efforts.

  By Lloyd I. Sederer, MD; New York: WW Norton and Company; 2013 • 256 pages • $25.95 (hardcover)
  Disclosures:

  Dr Phelps is Director of the Mood Disorders Program at Samaritan Mental Health in Corvallis, Ore. His Web site, PsychEducation.org, gathers no information on visitors and produces no income for him or others. He is the author of Why Am I Still Depressed? Recognizing and Managing the Ups and Downs of Bipolar II and Soft Bipolar Disorder (New York: McGraw-Hill; 2006), from which he receives royalties. Dr Phelps stopped accepting honoraria from pharmaceutical companies in 2008. He is the Bipolar Disorder Section Editor for Psychiatric Times.

• Kirkus
  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/lloyd-i-sederer/improving-mental-health/
  Word count: 400

  IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH
  Four Secrets in Plain Sight
  by Lloyd I. Sederer
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  KIRKUS REVIEW

  A noted mental health professional casts light on “some of the dark avenues of our lives.”

  Writing for his fellow psychiatric practitioners, but in language accessible to lay readers, Sederer (The Family Guide to Mental Health Care, 2013, etc.)—chief medical officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health and the medical editor for mental health for the Huffington Post—identifies what he characterizes as four “secrets” that illustrate “opportunities in plain sight” for therapy. One is the thesis that “behavior serves a purpose.” That purpose may not be readily discernible, but, the author writes, a cornerstone of good psychiatric practice is finding the right language to allow the patient room for self-expression: “We have to ask more, in a manner that allows a person to respond, over time, knowing that they will not be judged or harmed when allowing another person access to their private and sometimes previously inaccessible thinking.” The challenges are numerous, but Sederer’s insistence on there being a discoverable reason for mental illness helps ferret out why, for instance, smart young people should fall victim to anorexia nervosa or what logic underlies manic depression. The author writes that mental health is a product of both nature and nurture; we cannot help our genes, and people have only so much control over whether their families are supportive or they are able to earn a decent living. It is in that scenario of environmental control that another of Sederer’s secrets emerges, namely that “chronic stress is the enemy.” The stress response, like all behavior, has a purpose, but acute inflammation and the endless fight or flight of modern life takes its toll. Blending cutting-edge science with therapeutic art (“positive thinking is good protection against stress and beneficial to our health”), the author offers an optimistic view of what we can do to improve our well-being.

  A helpful owner’s manual for those in possession of emotions—and, more to the point, those possessed by them.
  Pub Date: Nov. 1st, 2016
  ISBN: 978-1-61537-082-5
  Page count: 134pp
  Publisher: American Psychiatric Association Publishing
  Review Posted Online: May 9th, 2017

• Jewish Book Council
  https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/improving-mental-health
  Word count: 146

  mproving Mental Health
  Lloyd I. Sederer

  American Psychiatric Association Publishing 2017
  109 Pages $29
  ISBN: 978-1615370825
  amazon indiebound
  barnesandnoble

  Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight, offers four foundational truths and insights from a long career.
  It is a book of patient stories; historical incidents and notable people; book, TV and film references; and (non-jargon) science reporting to reveal and illuminate each of the four secrets I meant to propose. It is written for practicing psychiatrists, general medical and pediatric doctors, psychologists, social workers, counselors, nurses, and trainees in all these disciplines to illustrate what they could do more of in everyday practice. It is also written for people with mental and addictive disorders and their loved ones about what they too can do to make an immediate difference in their health, mental health and lives.

• National Council for Behavioral Health
  https://www.thenationalcouncil.org/BH365/2013/07/26/the-family-guide-to-mental-health-care/
  Word count: 888

  The Family Guide to Mental Health Care

  Interview with Lloyd Sederer, MD — Speaker, Conference ‘13

  Psychiatrist Dr. Lloyd Sederer is the Chief Medical Officer for the New York State Office of Mental Health. He was in active psychiatry practice providing direct care for nearly 30 years and continues to help patients with mental illness and their families by consulting on complex cases. He is a prolific writer and the mental health editor for The Huffington Post. Lloyd Sederer’s The Family Guide to Mental Health Care is an excellent resource for families struggling with a loved one’s mental illness. In this book, families can find answers to help them understand a variety of disorders, assess whether doctors are really helping them, identify the right treatments, and learn how to navigate the system and pay for treatment. Dr. Sederer shares insights from his book.

  Meena: Why did you write the Family Guide to Mental Health Care?
  Lloyd: Whether it’s bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, PTSD, or eating disorder — people must learn that these illnesses last and they need to find good services and stay in treatment. However, for most families that I learned from over the years, the biggest challenge was understanding and managing the mental health system, and the second challenge was helping their loved one get care when their loved one did not want care. That is such a heartbreaking problem — when you care for somebody and you see that help is possible, but they won’t get it.

  Meena: What keeps people from getting care?
  Lloyd: Sometimes it’s the illness itself. With some of the more serious mental illnesses, including those involving psychosis, people don’t believe that they’re sick. Or they’ve had bad experiences with the mental health system. Or they don’t know enough about the illness to believe that anything can be done. About 80 percent of people with mental illness don’t get the care they need.

  Meena: As a family member, how can I get a loved one in denial about his or her mental illness to make a decision for care?
  Lloyd: Whether it’s heart disease, diabetes, or depression, people have to come to believe that it’s in their interest to take care of themselves and to manage their illness. It starts with understanding what the person wants.

  It starts with a family understanding what a person wants. Families are the biggest support that any of us can have. There’s no resource greater than that for a person who has a persistent illness.

  It starts with a doctor understanding what a person wants. Then, helping that person understand that the way they take care of their health and manage their illness will enable them to get what they want. Just exhorting people, telling them what to do, doesn’t work.

  Meena: You point out that it can be extremely difficult. You caution families not to get into fights, and to not ever give up.
  Lloyd: Sometimes what looks like an impossible situation or one that’s going to go on forever, doesn’t. Sometimes if you wait, if you don’t burn bridges, if you help people continue to rebuild themselves in tiny ways, the moment comes along where things turn. They turn in the right direction and people begin to rebuild their lives.

  Meena: In your book, you encourage a family member to talk to the doctor in advance of visit with the patient. Given HIPAA rules, can doctors have this type of conversation with a family member?
  Lloyd: There’s a big difference between talking and listening. As a family member, you can say to the doctor, “Look, I know you don’t have consent. I know you can’t tell me anything, but you can listen. There’s no law against your listening and I want to tell you some things that are really important and that you’re not going to hear from the patient.”

  In a recent Wall Street Journal article, I talk about the issues of privacy and liberty and how these laws were created a long time ago with good intent, but under different circumstances. Today, lawmakers need to listen more carefully to families and to people who’ve recovered and rebuild the law to make it more effective.

  Meena: Your book provides a powerful roadmap for families struggling with mental illness. Do you think families could also benefit from other forms of support and training?
  Lloyd: Yes, there is a tremendous amount of illiteracy about mental health in this country. Programs like Mental Health First Aid, which can be taught to so many people, are effective in advancing mental health literacy. They help people understand that these problems are common. They tell people you can have certain basic skills that enable you to reach out to support somebody. You don’t have to have a degree in psychology to do that. But you can make a big difference.

  Read the full interview in the special National Council Magazine on Mental Health First Aid. And order The Family Guide to Mental Health Care at Norton or Amazon.

• Huffington Post
  https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/book-review-of-improving-mental-health-four-secrets_us_591a0a6ae4b086d2d0d8d1d5
  Word count: 823

  BOOK REVIEW OF “IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH: FOUR SECRETS IN PLAIN SIGHT” by Lloyd Sederer
  05/15/2017 04:11 pm ET

  Book Review by Carol W. Berman, M.D.

  of Lloyd I. Sederer, M.D.’s IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH: Four Secrets in Plain Sight

  Dr. Lloyd Sederer’s new book, IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH: Four Secrets in Plain Sight, is an easy read for any of us. Published by the APA, the inside book jacket states that this book is designed for psychiatrists, other mental health professionals, medical doctors, and patients and their families. We all can be reminded of the “four secrets in plain sight”, but I believe patients and their families will benefit the most from this book. Dr. Sederer is the chief medical officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, and the medical editor for mental health at the Huffington Post. This is his tenth book, seven for a professional audience and three for the lay public.

  Dr. Sederer writes clearly and well about four fundamental truths that he calls “secrets.” These insights from his long career are 1) behavior serves a purpose, 2) the power of attachment, 3) less is more, and 4) chronic stress is the enemy.

  There is no doubt that we must keep in mind that 1) behavior serves a purpose. He quotes Dr. Groves, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital when Dr. Sederer directed the inpatient psychiatric unit there, who describes four types of “hateful patients”: dependent clingers, entitled demanders, manipulative help-rejecters, and self-destructive deniers. Nowadays we would classify these patients into personality disorders, but Dr. Groves’ purpose in labeling these difficult patients was to help doctors keep working with them when the impulse was to reject them. The dependent clinger is always there, impossible to get rid of, begging for care to the point that exhausts doctors. The entitled demanders are negative and hostile to their caregivers, who may not realize that these patients are terrified of abandonment. Manipulative help-rejecters try and try to get help which they promptly reject once they obtain it. Finally, self-destructive deniers continue to abuse drugs or alcohol and then deny any problem, because they are so afraid of getting better. All of the behaviors of these four types serve a purpose. We, clinicians, are urged to suspend everyday logic and pre-conceived notions so that we can try to solve the problems of each patient, who may turn us off at first.

  For 2) the power of attachment, Dr. Sederer reminds us of the wild child of Aveyron, France, who in the late 1700’s was found abandoned in a forest. Villagers took him home and tried to teach him language and manners, but he couldn’t learn because he had missed attachment to other humans in his early years. Then he discusses the sad cases of Harlow’s monkeys who were separated from their mothers in infancy and then experimented upon by observing if they preferred wire mother substitutes to cloth substitutes. The macaque monkeys liked the cloth surrogates much better and if they had one of these, they were soothed and less anxious. Primacy of attachment is the point here and thus, the importance of our therapeutic alliances with patients, who may have had insecure attachments in infancy.

  The chapter that deals with 3) less is more - - starts off with the Hippocratic oath: “First do no harm.” In our enthusiasm to help patients, we doctors might be tempted to do too much, when less is often called for. He gives examples of intensive psychotherapy with schizophrenic patients, which may have negative effects. Then he focuses on the CATIE trials (Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness) which surprisingly found first-generation antipsychotics no more effective than our newer, second-generation antipsychotics, except for Clozaril.

  His last points about 4) chronic stress is the enemy - - addresses adverse childhood experiences (ACE)of abuse, neglect, and seriously troubled households. He wisely associates multiple ACEs as risk factors for addictions, depression, heart, lung, and liver disease, STD’s, intimate partner violence, smoking, suicide attempts, and unintended pregnancies. Dr. Sederer tells us about telomeres, the caps on the ends of DNA, which shorten with stress and inflammation. Long telomeres are correlated with long life.

  In conclusion, Dr. Sederer wants us psychiatrists to invest more in prevention and early intervention with our patients. He says only 10% of our health is determined by health care, while 90% of the determinates of our health derive from lifetime physical and social environments. In other words, we should eat well, sleep the right number of hours (7-8), and try our best to keep our stress levels down. He believes that “the greatest gains in the next 10 years for people with mental and addictive disorders, and their families, will come from better executing what we now know.” I completely agree with him.

• U.S. News
  https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2018-05-11/dr-lloyd-sederer-on-treating-and-preventing-addiction
  Word count: 1426

  Breaking Addiction's Grip

  Psychiatrist and public health official Lloyd Sederer discusses proven solutions to treat and prevent addiction.
  By Gabrielle Levy Political ReporterMay 11, 2018, at 6:00 a.m.
  U.S. News & World Report

  Breaking Addiction's Grip
  More

  Dr. Lloyd Sederer's new book, The Addiction Solution, describes the scope of the challenges that make addiction so tough to shake, as well as research-tested methods for prevention and treatment.(Getty Images)

  An opioid epidemic is ravaging the nation, and American families, public health officials and lawmakers are in search of solutions that can both stem the tide of legal and illegal drugs flooding their communities and provide effective, accessible methods to help release those hooked from the grip of addiction.

  [

  READ: A Personal Look at a National Opioid Problem ]

  In his new book, psychiatrist and the chief medical officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health Dr. Lloyd Sederer, describes the scope of the challenges that make addiction so tough to shake, as well as research-tested methods for prevention and treatment. Sederer recently spoke with U.S. News about the path to recovery and why lawmakers should abandon failed policies. Excerpts:

  The country is suffering one of its worst drug epidemics in the opioid crisis. How would you rate the Trump administration's response?

  Ineffective strategies have unfortunately had a bit of renaissance in the current administration. I like a quote from Winston Churchill: "You can rely on Americans to do the right thing after they've tried everything else." We have the right things, and we have proof that they work. We're just not using them because we're spending so much energy – programmatic energy, policy, money – on two principally failed strategies, one I call control and the other, consequences.

  Probably the most glaring example of control is Prohibition, trying to prevent people from getting what they want. Good luck with that; that failed miserably, but it did create an everlasting mafia. Then you fast forward a number of decades and [President Richard] Nixon coins the term "War on Drugs," and that was carried forward by [President Ronald] Reagan. The idea was that you could actually wage war on substances.

  Lately, it's been – let's amp up law enforcement to deal with the opioid epidemic, let's amp up enforcement, let's give more money to cops to arrest people. The attorney general says 'let's use our federal laws that make cannabis illegal, go to states where it's a legal recreational drug and arrest those people and maximize this sentences.' This is so dated and useless.

  Consequences means scare tactics. 'This drug's going to kill you, this drug's going to fry your brain!' So this is public service announcements, media ads and sending cops or convicted felons to schools to scare kids. That's totally ineffective and in fact the irony is when you use scare tactics with teenagers, they're drawn to it. The teenage brain is neurologically wired towards novelty and risk.

  (Simon & Schuster)

  Why do we keep returning to these strategies, if, as you say, they don't work?

  Some of it is ideological. Some of it is an example of just how ineffective government has been. There's not a small number of people who believe, still, addiction is a weakness, it's a character problem, and you don't coddle people like that, you throw the hammer on them. The prospect of giving good money to people who didn't do their share, that's a very conservative position. Why should we support people who don't contribute? And in this case, not only don't contribute but deplete the public treasury, or steal or prostitute themselves, mostly to get a fix so they don't go into withdrawal.

  There are very strong moral forces, and this is a very puritanical country still. So this idea of coming down hard on drug users or drug dealers, execute them, as the president said in some talk not too long ago.

  There's also a touch of racism about this, because when you look at the demographics of people in prisons in the United States – we have the highest rate of imprisonment in the world by far – they're people of color and poor people, and a good portion of them are there for nonviolent crimes. People don't realize that the hammer will start to fall on Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire, and Vermont, and southern Massachusetts – epicenters of the opioid epidemic – which are white and middle America.

  Many readers may be surprised at your description of why people begin using drugs: "People use drugs for a purpose. They work." Do you believe the way we as a society views drugs is fundamentally mistaken?

  I think that the two principal strategies, control and consequences, that have been used in this country for well over 100 years are indeed mistaken because they're ineffective, and they're very costly in terms of human lives and money. So until we move to solutions that are built on understanding the complex relationship between a person and a drug – that person's biology, that person's psychology, that person's social setting and the drug – we'll be trapped in the ineffective solutions that have gone on a very long time, and there are effective solutions.

  What are the treatments that do work to reduce and treat addiction?

  One of my activities, successful over the years, has been introducing depression measurement and intervention in primary care settings, an instrument that the patient fills out that quantifies your depression state, and if you have a number that's in a moderate or very severe range, that goes into the medical record. What we need now is an analog to that for drinking and drug use.

  Comprehensive treatment sounds like a slogan, but if you understand the brain in a simple way, there's a circle in the brain that's triggered by opioids, by tobacco, by having a baby or being a new mom or new dad, or seeing a rainbow. There's a reward center in our brain, and that's like the accelerator pedal for getting the brain going about something that feels good, that's the pleasure center, and there's a dopamine spike, and that leads to a cascade of other sections in the brain that are related to motivation, which is about wanting to get more about what made you feel good. And then there are areas of the brain that register memory by cues, smells, taste or vision. Each of those represents a touchstone for intervention. If you just focus on one area, just give people medication, or just give people psychotherapy, or help them with relapse prevention, each one of them helps, but each one of these interventions is additive to the other.

  What sorts of broader policy recommendations would you suggest local and federal officials adopt?

  When you think about public health – how we've made dramatic reductions in infectious diseases in the world, principally through vaccination and sanitation – the same principles of prevention, screening or early detection, early intervention, treatment and certain research apply.

  [

  PHOTOS: The Big Picture – April 2018 ]

  It took a while for [Albert] Sabin to find the polio vaccine. It took a while to figure out how to keep people alive with HIV/AIDS. Good money went into that, and it paid off.

  The prevention programs, aimed at elementary school kids, aimed at middle school kids, and their parents have been studied and they're effective, but we don't use them. And they're not actually high cost programs, but they cost. And school budgets more or less can't afford them, they have no money, they can't buy supplies for their kids. So there has to be state and federal money to do that, not from bake sales.

  This is a complex condition, and there are solutions, but you have to advocate for them. And that advocacy not only for your loved ones but who you vote for, because governments, elected officials, hew to what the voters demand. And that's what voters have to start demanding, which is not lock them up, but prevent, screen, treat, and then put more money into research.

  Gabrielle Levy, Political Reporter

  Gabrielle Levy covers politics for U.S. News & World Report. Follow her on Twitter (@gabbilevy)... READ MORE »

• CBS Denver
  https://denver.cbslocal.com/2018/05/22/lloyd-sederer-growing-numb-opioid-epidemic/
  Word count: 917

  Are We Growing Numb To The Opioid Epidemic?
  May 22, 2018 at 10:45 am
  Filed Under:Health, Opioid Epidemic, Simon & Schuster

  By Lloyd I. Sederer, MD, author of The Addiction Solution: Treating Our Dependence on Opioids and Other Drugs (out now on Simon & Schuster)

  It’s clear to me, as a public health doctor and journalist, that there have been fewer news stories on the opioid epidemic in recent months, in print, online, and on the radio and TV. While I don’t have a major survey to point to, my work demands that I pay attention to this epidemic and the stories written about it — and that I encourage others to take it seriously as well.

  Have we grown numb to the people who are dying every day? To the families thrown into the pain addiction creates? To the hellish financial and social consequences in many communities, especially in epicenters of the epidemic?
  addiction solution by lloyd sederer md Are We Growing Numb To The Opioid Epidemic?

  Cover of “The Addiction Solution” by Lloyd Sederer, MD (Courtesy of Simon & Schuster)

  Numbness is well known to happen in the face of persistent and horrific information, especially when no real hope is in sight. Numbness is a central symptom, an enveloping experience, for people who have been traumatized. I’m not arguing that the reading public suffers from collective PTSD – with its constellation of symptoms like nightmares, flashbacks, and being easily startled – but I fear that our numbness, nevertheless, may close us off from taking action as a country to rein in the deaths and destruction caused by disease.

  Numbness can be protective. It’s natural for us to want to defend ourselves from circumstances that seem overwhelming and without evident solution. Some say that this attitude toward addiction can best be described as “compassion fatigue,” but I suspect there is more than that at play. It is not our compassion that’s being tested: it is our capacity for hope.

  It has been eight months since the President declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency. Yet it is frankly hard to imagine anything but higher overdose rates and more addiction in the foreseeable future, if current trends continue. At the federal level, the money allocated so far to fight the epidemic was called a “pittance” by the New York Times Editorial Board on April 21st. Talk of non-opioid analgesics, while perhaps helpful for current and future pain sufferers, is hardly a solution for the millions of people already addicted. Criminal justice approaches, like border interdiction, arrest and maximally sentencing drug dealers — even “executing” some — has never, in the long history of the War on Drugs, been successful. Moreover, these approaches towards drug use are part of why our country has the greatest number of prisoners on earth, a good proportion for non-violent drug offenses. Clearly criminalizing addiction has not worked, ever — and, of course, this approach also disproportionately falls on people of color and those living in poverty.

  Numbness makes sense when there is a grave problem, like this epidemic, coupled with big talk and little substantive action. The news must begin to accent solutions, ones that work.

  We have a remarkable history of overcoming epidemics by using public health strategies. Think of polio, diphtheria, Ebola. Consider how infectious diseases have been massively curbed by sanitation, vaccines, and clean water. Take a look at our falling levels of cigarette addiction.

  The epidemic of opioid use, and the use of other psychoactive drugs, has proven public health solutions. And that is undoubtedly welcome news.

  We have successful, workable prevention strategies with youth as early as elementary school. We have tools to reach parents and provide them with the skills to protect their kids amidst their huge access to drugs. We know that much of our efforts must be in screening for drug and alcohol problems early, in primary care doctors’ offices and at schools, because early detection and intervention are much more effective than trying to treat a disease after it’s already taken root. And we must work to provide ample access to affordable, proven treatments – through insurance, not just privately paid – and programs that combine psychological, medical and support approaches, for the legions already under the powerful grip of addiction. We have all of these solutions, yet their availability remains scarce. That’s why there is no horizon yet for this epidemic.

  A well-known maxim, attributed to Churchill in the darkest days of WWII, is that “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing … after they’ve tried everything else.”

  We can succeed. The news can be worth seeing and hearing, not becoming numb to, once we close the gap between what we know and what we do. That will be difficult, costly, and take time — though it certainly won’t be as costly or time-intensive as failing. That means the sooner we start, the better.

  Lloyd I. Sederer, MD, is a psychiatrist, public health doctor, and medical journalist. He is also an adjunct professor at the Columbia/Mailman School of Public Health and a monthly regular on Tell Me Everything, the SiriusXM radio show hosted by John Fugelsang. His recent books include The Addiction Solution; Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight; and Controversies in Mental Health and the Addictions.

• Shelf Awareness
  http://www.shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=722&share=true#m12664
  Word count: 320

  The Addiction Solution: Treating Our Dependence on Opioids and Other Drugs
  by Lloyd I. Sederer

  "Drug taking is a highly complex and variable human and social phenomenon... [that] is not going away." Material on addiction is seemingly limitless, and choosing who and what to believe can be treacherous territory when lives are at risk. Lloyd Sederer, M.D., chief mental health officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health, brings a prestigious pedigree to his perspective, The Addiction Solution.

  Sederer engenders confidence on numerous fronts, particularly in acknowledging that drugs are winning the "War on Drugs" by a landslide; that current drug policies are actually institutionalized racism; and that there is no "one-size-fits-all" answer to a very individualized epidemic. Confining his discussion to illegal drugs and the abuse of legal drugs, Sederer presents a straightforward, plain-language overview of available options and best-care treatment scenarios.

  He advocates the use of social values and family influence over "control and consequences," which he considers a "puritan approach" akin to tilting at windmills. Moreover, a community methodology emphasizes identification of risk and the importance of eliminating adverse childhood experiences. As Frederick Douglass said, "It is easier to build strong children than repair broken men."

  Summarizing available methods and treatments, Sederer believes single-method recovery (i.e., 12-step) is not the road to maximum success. He recommends a multifaceted plan attacking addiction on multiple fronts that enhance one another. The Addiction Solution offers guidance; it is not a textbook or exhaustive treatise. It proposes tools to fight the disease and plainly, though not overly simplistically, suggests the best means to implement them. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

  Discover: The chief medical officer for the largest state mental health agency in the U.S. provides insight and opinions on how to start winning the war on drugs.
  Scribner, $26, hardcover, 224p., 9781501179440

• Psychiatric Times
  http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/film-and-book-reviews/improving-mental-health-four-secrets-plain-sight
  Word count: 810

  Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight

  Annette L. Hanson, MD

  Aug 7, 2017
  Volume:
  34
  Issue:
  8

  Film And Book Reviews, Career

  BOOK REVIEW

  Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight

  by Lloyd I. Sederer, MD; Arlington, Virginia: American Psychiatric Association Publishing, 2017

  129 pages • $29.00 (hardcover)

  Dr. Lloyd Sederer, Chief Medical Officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, has written an easily accessible and enjoyable book of practical wisdom relevant to patients, practitioners, and the general public. It is a captivating blend of storytelling and factual context told in a relaxed, warm style.

  Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight presents 4 key elements that are basic to understanding human mental health needs. Dr. Sederer explains how neglect of these elements can lead to distress, dysfunction, and mental illness. Billed as “secrets,” these concepts are fundamental to psychiatric practice: understanding human motivation, maintaining relationships, managing stress, and approaching treatment conservatively. Each of these principles is illustrated by a series of patient vignettes and stories drawn from history and popular media.

  The book is divided into 4 parts that explain each element. In Chapter 1, “Behavior Serves a Purpose,” there are several examples of human behaviors that are self-defeating or overtly bizarre, such as hateful or demanding patients and those with violent or psychotically disorganized behavior; these examples are accompanied by a sensitive dissection of the need or vulnerability that drives the behavior. Even experienced clinicians would benefit from Dr. Sederer’s observation that understanding these behaviors “replaces darkness with light, distortion with reason, blame with tolerance, dismissal with discussion, and powerlessness with problem-solving.”

  The second chapter, “The Power of Attachment,” presents a historical overview of attachment and object relations theory from Klein and Freud to Henry Harlow. This is followed by a discussion of attachment styles and an explanation of how disruption of attachments in early life creates adult dysfunction. An excellent discussion of the therapeutic alliance explains how a stable and mature attachment can overcome childhood neglect and trauma.

  In the third chapter, “As a Rule, Less Is More,” the author provides an honest and unsparing self-appraisal of psychiatry’s misadventures in psychopharmacology and psychotherapy. I, too, trained in the era when rapid neuroleptization was the treatment of choice for acute-phase psychosis, but that practice is now being abandoned for more thoughtful and well-rounded interventions provided by programs for early-onset psychosis. This chapter discusses the importance of early intervention, what these programs provide, and how they benefit patients and families.

  The principle of “less is more” also applies to psychotherapy, a topic rarely acknowledged or discussed among psychiatrists. Early-career psychiatrists and mental health practitioners in training would be well advised to read Dr. Sederer’s historical review of recovered memory therapy and the injury this treatment caused to patients and their families. This chapter is a cogent reminder that the wrong psychotherapy, or even an established therapy given for the wrong purpose, can be harmful.

  Finally, the chapter entitled “Chronic Stress Is the Enemy” introduces the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, which links early abuse and neglect to future psychiatric illness and other negative social consequences. On a more hopeful note, there are several recommendations for evidence-based interventions to prevent these consequences.

  The last chapter provides an exhaustive review of the neurophysiologic mechanism of the stress response, as well as an overview of the literature that links PTSD and depression to chronic stress. Of all the material presented in this book, I found this aspect to be the most theoretical. While it is useful as a proposed mechanism to link psychiatric to medical illness, there is less known about the utility of the stress-reduction techniques recommended in the book.

  I enjoyed this book because Dr. Sederer’s enthusiasm and love for his work shine through every page, particularly when he discusses the importance of love and social connections. He clearly has taken the time to develop a thoughtful and sensitive paradigm for well-rounded patient care. His emphasis on the environment and social determinants of mental illness is a “call to action” for every mental health professional and lay reader.

  This article was originally published on 7/6/2017 and has since been updated.
  Disclosures:

  Dr. Hanson is Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship Program at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland.
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  Self-Disclosure by Psychiatrists
  Erikson Stages of Psychiatry Residency

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