Case Studies

Depression & Marital Problems - A Clinical Illustration of "Jenny"

Every health care provider has had experiences that were so powerful that they have forever transformed his or her thinking and approach to patients. The following was such a case. It demonstrated a number of things to me, including the importance of context, the limitations of medication, and the failure of psychiatrists - myself included - to educate their nonmedically trained therapist colleagues in the rapidly progressing biological realm. At a time when the secrets of the brain are being unraveled...Read More

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Postpartum Depression - A Clinical Illustration of "Nancy"

Nancy is a 39-year-old married, employed mother of one very precocious three-year-old girl. She had been in psychotherapy for seven years when she was referred for evaluation of her mood disturbances. As it turns out, Nancy had had a severe postpartum depression (almost to the point of psychosis), which was never evaluated (postpartum thyroid disturbances... Read More

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Bipolar Disorder and Seasonal Affective Disorder - A Clinical Illustration of "Bill"

Bill is a 27-year-old physicist with bipolar SAD, type A. He agreed to take lithium, which eliminated his springtime hypomania, but only partially alleviated his winter depression. Light therapy was added with good results. After three years, Bill married, and two years later he and his wife decided to move to a farm, which is at the same latitude, essentially, as his home of origin (the frequency of SAD goes down as one moves toward the equator and sunlight increases, and vice versa). I will never forget the conversation Bill and I had... Read More

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - A Clinical Illustration of "Mark"

Despite being handsome, tall, personable, and a top student at Yale, Mark was silently struggling with an intense need to count to 100 every time he had a “bad thought”. This he told himself, reduced the thoughts form taking over. What’s more, he had difficulty socializing with his friends, without unobtrusively washing his hands for fear of contamination. And the back of his head had a patchy baldness—the result of years of nervous hair pulling (a tic like behavior), so he always wore a large baseball cap... Read More