In this episode, we talk to Mark Lukach, author of the book My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward: A Memoir, about his experiences as the loved one of someone with new onset symptoms of mania, depression, suicidality, and psychosis. Mark tells us the story of his wife Giulia and how their future changed unexpectedly when they were 27 years old and she was first hospitalized on a psych ward.He describes why he wrote his article and then his book (no other books on caregiving in a romant [...]

Psyched! a psychiatry blog - Episodes

His Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward: An Interview on Love, Writing, and Mental Illness (with Mark Lukach)

In our interview with Carol Tamminga, MD, we discuss biological psychiatry and the evolution of the field of psychiatry to now include a greater understanding of the neurobiologic underpinnings of disease through brain imaging, genetics, and circuits. We talk about the "battle" between biologic and psychologic and whether this should exist.Dr. Tamminga also discusses her groundbreaking research on schizophrenia and how trying to find biological confirmation for DSM diagnoses led her to finding " [...]

The Last Undiscovered Organ in the Body (with Carol Tamminga, M.D.)

In the final part of our discussion with Janae Sharp, Janae further discusses the loss of her husband and how best to support others through grief. She details some unique differences in responses by others when her husband died by suicide (eg, no GoFundMe pages, but requests for donations!) and emphasizes the importance of other survivors and their stories to her and her new community. She responds to the question of whether she is "sensationalizing" her husband’s death, but focuses on he [...]

Digital and Community Solutions After a Physician Suicide (part 3 of 3 with Janae Sharp)

In the second part of our interview with Janae Sharp, she discusses why she feels she has been a different kind and less restricted voice for physician suicide awareness. She notes that it is important for physicians to speak on this issue and that there is true power in community. However, she feels physicians are more silent on this issue as they tend to avoid "unsafe" and "uncertain" topics and are ultimately afraid of the potential repercussions to their licensure. Using her background in so [...]

Physician Suicide and the Need to Talk About It (part 2 of 3 with Janae Sharp)

In Part 1 of our 3-part interview with Janae Sharp—a physician suicide loss survivor and the Founder and CEO of the Sharp Index, a nonprofit dedicated to better physician mental health—Janae shares her story of loss, grief, and her call to action to start her non-profit.She discusses how suicide loss is different from other losses, in part because it is a "messy topic," but also how grief itself is imperfect. She details the experience of telling her 3 children and why she feels [...]

Surviving a Physician Suicide: Imperfect Grief and Shaping the Narrative for the Children Left Behind (part 1 of 3 with Janae Sharp)

Charles Nemeroff, MD, PhD, discusses the role of social influences on biology, using the example of early life trauma. He explains brain changes, inflammation, and genetic risk factors that modulate the development of PTSD or depression in patients with a history of trauma.Keeping in line with epigenetic theory, Dr. Nemeroff discusses what happens to genes during psychotherapy, exploring the interaction between attachment to the therapist and how this contributes to the efficacy.Finally, he answ [...]

Abuse, Attachment, and Resilience: Genes and the Environment (with Dr. Nemeroff, part 2 of 2)

Depression is a killing disease: the effects of depression on the body beyond suicideIn the first part of this interview, Dr. Charles Nemeroff, Director of the University of Miami Center on Aging and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of Miami, discusses depression, including its symptoms, epidemiology, and the link to other physical illnesses like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. In particular, he discusses the role of depression in clot [...]

Depression: A Killing Disease (with Dr. Nemeroff, part 1 of 2)

​In the second part of our interview with Melissa Arbuckle, MD, she continues to discuss active learning methods. What makes interaction in a learning environment difficult for people? She then summarizes the use of quantitative measurement in psychiatric care, including in therapy. She details its effectiveness as a tool for self-monitoring in patients and whether it can predict relapse and to quantify a "baseline." She further mentions the use of the Working Alliance Inventory as not onl [...]

Innovation in Psychiatric Education: Interaction and Measurement (with Dr. Arbuckle, part 2 of 2)

In the first part of this interview, Dr. Melissa Arbuckle, Vice Chair for Education and Director of Resident Education in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University and the New York Psychiatric Institute, discusses neuroscience education for psychiatrists and the general public. She focuses on an innovative teaching curriculum that she co-developed called the National Neuroscience Curriculum Initiative and the ways in which this curriculum makes neuroscience accessible, clini [...]

Neuroscience Education: Relevant, Stigma Reducing, and Fun to Learn (with Dr. Arbuckle, part 1 of 2)

Here: Part 3 of 3 with Emeran Mayer, MD, PhD on the mind-gut connection. Dr Mayer talks about the role of the gut in psychiatric illnesses and mood-from a history of forced colectomy in psychiatric patients to an inflammatory diet influencing mood. He answers the question: are we happier when we don’t eat sugar or gluten and should we all be gluten-free? Dr. Mayer is a pioneer of medical research into brain-gut interactions and author of The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation [...]