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Biomedical subjects

M Weissberg

Publications and source records attributed to M Weissberg.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Toward an understanding of violence: neurobehavioral aspects of unwarranted physical aggression: Aspen Neurobehavioral Conference consensus statement.

OBJECTIVE: Violence is a global problem that poses a major challenge to individuals and society. This document is a consensus statement on neurobehavioral aspects of violence as one approach to its understanding and control. BACKGROUND: This consensus group was convened under the auspices of the Aspen Neurobehavioral Conference, an annual consensus conference devoted to the understanding of issues related to mind and brain. The conference is supported by the Brain Injury Association and by individual philanthropic contributions. Participants were selected by conference organizers to represent leading opinion in neurology, neuropsychology, psychiatry, trauma surgery, nursing, evolutionary psychology, medical ethics, and law. METHODS: A literature review of the role of the brain in violent behavior was conducted and combined with expert opinion from the group. The major goal was to survey this field so as to identify major areas of interest that could be targeted for further research. Additional review was secured from the other attendees at the Aspen Neurobehavioral Conference. RESULTS: The group met in the spring of 1998 and 1999 for two 5-day sessions, between which individual assignments were carried out. The consensus statement was prepared after the second meeting, and agreement on the statement was reached by participants after final review of the document. CONCLUSIONS: Violence can result from brain dysfunction, although social and evolutionary factors also contribute. Study of the neurobehavioral aspects of violence, particularly frontal lobe dysfunction, altered serotonin metabolism, and the influence of heredity, promises to lead to a deeper understanding of the causes and solution of this urgent problem.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Less is more: the case for "basic" psychiatry and the Colorado Medical Student Log.

Because of the rapid growth of our field, psychiatric educators are faced with two related questions. Are we teaching our students about too many things thereby making it difficult for them to discern our essential message(s)? And, two, have we really decided on what our essential message(s) actually is? The answer is "yes" to the former and "no" to the latter. The problem is deceptively simple: as distinct from what we teach, as a profession we have not yet parsed out the minimum we expect our students to really know-and really know how to do-by the time they graduate from our schools. We, therefore, developed the menu and method of the Colorado Medical Student Log which articulates the minimal educational goals for our students: ten core clinical experiences and ten core psychiatric screens. The log also provides an easy method by which we can be satisfied that our minimal goals are being met.

Colorado↗
PubMed1993

Multiple personality disorder and iatrogenesis: the cautionary tale of Anna O.

An examination of Breuer's treatment of Anna O. illustrates some of the controversies surrounding the recent rise of case reports of multiple personality disorder. Anna O., the first patient of the cathartic method, psychoanalysis, and dynamic psychiatry, fits current criteria for multiple personality disorder. Breuer's treatment, however, may have contributed to her states of absence; the timing, type, and intensity of Breuer's interventions make it possible that he unwittingly encouraged and amplified Anna's dissociations, reified her ego fragments, and then explained Anna's symptoms with the pseudomemories and confabulations recovered from Anna while she was hypnotized. A review of Breuer's treatment highlights some of the controversial aspects of multiple personality disorder, specifically its possible vulnerability to iatrogenesis via suggestion and unconscious collusion and other factors. The current stance of some multiple personality disorder enthusiasts, opaque to their participation in interactions that may lead to certain patient productions, resembles the older psychoanalytic stance exemplified by the early Breuer and Freud. The dialectic of the therapist as a neutral observer versus as an influential participant continues to be a focus of controversy, both within psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and in the understandings of the etiology and treatment of multiple personality disorder.

Catharsis↗
PubMed1990

The meagerness of physicians' training in emergency psychiatric intervention.

This study was undertaken to determine how much training physicians receive in emergency psychiatric intervention (EPI) during their residency programs. In 1988 the author mailed a questionnaire to 256 program directors of residencies in the major nonpsychiatry specialties. A total of 236 (92%) responded. Their responses indicate that emergency medicine and family practice residency programs provide the most training in EPI, followed by pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics-gynecology, and surgery. But overall, EPI training was meager. The findings indicate that 75% of the programs never assigned EPI-oriented readings to the residents and 70% of the programs never gave lectures or seminars on that subject. The author concludes that EPI skills are frequently absent in current medical practice because physicians have not been taught these skills; he recommends that more training is essential and indicates what it might consist of.

Education, Medical↗
PubMed1989

Coping with the suicidal elderly: a physician's guide.

Advancing age is associated with a markedly increased risk of suicide. In the United States, one fourth of all suicides are carried out by citizens age 60 or older. The majority of American elders who commit suicide use a firearm to do so. Most suicidal elders look to their primary care physician for help, although they may not directly express their plan. Therefore, physicians must be alert to clues. By far the principal risk factor for suicide is major depression. The risk is heightened by recent losses, alcohol or drug abuse, psychosis, cognitive decline, and chronic disease. Hopelessness, anhedonia, self-reproach, guilt, and a formed lethal plan are signs of a life-threatening suicidal crisis which requires urgent intervention. Physicians must act decisively in recognition of the fact that suicidality is a transient, treatable condition.

Aged↗