The Experts Speak - An Educational Service of the Florida Psychiatric Society

Flavie Waters MD, from the University of Western Australia, explains the nature and some of the theories and forms of audio hallucinations. Included are discussions of how hallucinations can occur in non-psychiatric conditions, ideas about methods to accept them if they cannot be controlled, and some interesting associations and differences between hallucinations and others.

Aldo Morales MD, psychiatrist and addictionologist, explains the history, use and nature of buprenorphine in the treatment of opioid addictions.

Robert Moran MD specializes in addiction medicine and psychiatry. He discusses the unique characteristics and challenges of late teenage drug and alcohol abuse. Included are topics about the maturation of the brain, exposure with drugs to developing brains, the time needed for optimum intervention and treatment, the difference between addiction abuse, the role of family in treatment, etc.

Priti Kothari, MD, a child psychiatrist, talks of the specific characteristics and challenges to and for the proper diagnosis and treatment of AHDH children. She also explains how guanfacine, a recently approved medication for childhood AHDH, should be used, as well as how older medications are chosen and used.

Peter McGuffin MD is a professor of psychiatric genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry (London). He speaks about the insights and tools which are developing that will better match a medication to a person, based on the person's genetic make-up.

Bruce Hyman PhD specializes in the cognitive and behavioral treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorders. His OCD workbook has found wide use. He speaks to intensive out-patient modalities to break and modify OCD behavioral patterns.

Psychiatrist Serge Thys talks about the impact and mental health needs of people in his homeland after the earthquake. He discusses the nature of their community cohesiveness, their culture and the changes following the extraordinary trauma that befell them.

Gary Foster PhD is a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University. He speaks to the challenges of obesity, of how it is a mixture of lifestyle and biological problems, what can be done to control it, and how to approach and intervene with this considerable social-medical problem.

Daniel Wolf, MD, uses neuroimaging to study the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. His findings may explain some of the clinical challenges when treating the disorder.

Roz Malmaud PhD offers many valuable insights based on personal clinical experience into the issues of self-cutting, in both sexes. She talks of how the cutter becomes both an abuser and the abused, of the need to release tension, the dangers of cutting, and what types of intervention are needed.

Sheldon Wolf MD, a UCLA neurologist, specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of memory disorders. He speaks in detail of what is needed for a full and proper work-up of dementia, with a focus on how about 25% of the time, the 'dementia' might be reversible.

Garrie Thomson, PhD, who has a clinical practice and is on the board of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, talks of what do to when feeling suicidal or depressed, some statistics, a link to the website for information (www.adsp.com), and a sense of how very successful intervention can be,

SMARxTDISPOSAL is a joint project of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the American Pharmacists Association and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America to recommend safe ways to dispose unused medications. Greg Masson, PhD, discusses these issues and techniques; he is Chief, Branch of Environmental Contaminants, US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Through her own advancing dementia, Francis Goldstein was a very public advocate on behalf of others with dementia. Her media work was in the US and Argentina. Her husband, Jacobo, reflects on these efforts and what it was like to have dementia in the family. Still an active journalist, he was the CNN White House Correspondent for Latin America for 17 years. He knew President Reagan and talks of how Nancy Reagan helped advance the awareness of dementia.

Robert Post MD, discusses data now supports that bipolar disorders can appear in childhood. It may be considered a pediatric onset illness. Dr. Post further offers his observations and findings that too many children are not being diagnosed early enough, or that diagnostic delays result in greater longer term problems or with getting the wrong treatments. He also talks of the diagnostic challenges when facing a troubled child.