Markham's Behavioral Health

Psychiatrists doing better than Psychologists

Data from 97 psychiatrists and 395 psychologists in California were available for the study.

Psychiatrists work longer hours and deal with sicker patients and make a lot more money than psychologists.

Psychiatrists were working on average 46.5 hours per week while Psychologists worked 41.6

Psychiatrists were making on average $62.64 per hour or $130,350.00 per year while Psychologists were making $39.44 per hour or $72,308.00 per year.

Psychiatrists make more because they do medication consultations for briefer periods of time and can see more patients per hour. Also, there seems to be a surplus of Psychologists on the market while Psychiatrists are in short supply. For example, in 1999 there were 11,000 licensed Psychologists in California compared to 5,340 in 1990. That's an 88% increase in a 10 year period.

Psychiatric Social Workers, and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists were not included in this study even though they provide a great deal of mental health and psychotherapeutic services as well.
Psychiatric Services -- Pingitore et al. 53 (8): 977

South Carolina leads nation in domestic violence

South Carolina also has one of the highest DWI fatality rates in the nation. I wonder if there is a connection?

GreenvilleOnline.com - State leads nation in domestic violence

Quote of the day

"If I die, I forgive you; if not, we'll see"

Spanish Proverb

Love Gone Wrong Can Trigger Depression

"A combination of serious loss and humiliation -- especially involving marriage or romantic breakups -- may increase a person's risk for major depression, says a Virginia Commonwealth University study."

Another example of a broken heart which was alluded to yesterday. It also may trigger rage was well which turns into the breeding ground for homicide/suicide.

I like the distinction between loss on the one hand, and humiliation on the other. It may not be the loss per se that leads to the psychiatric symptoms but the devaluation which comes from the humiliation. Some of this may be intentionally inflicted on the sufferer by the perpetrator and some of it may be inadvertent. I wonder if intentional vs. inadvertent shaming would be a factor as well?

PsycPORT.com | Love Gone Wrong Can Trigger Depression

Magnetic Field May Help Smokers Quit

Sounds a little weird to me but I suppose stranger things have happened.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is used in Germany to treat depression and now nicotine addiction and it seems to work.

The brain seems to be a fascinating computer. I think you could screw up your computer processor putting magnets on it too. I know somebody who did this by putting refrigerator magnets on the sides of his processor.

MEDLINEplus: Magnetic Field May Help Smokers Quit

Quote of the day

"When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always be worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better."

Malcolm Forbes

Duplex , the movie

A young couple has a chance to move into a gorgeous duplex in the perfect New York neighborhood. All they have to do is bump off the current tenant, a cute little old lady.

This movie is a dark comedy, and pretty stupid at that. I almost walked out.

I also didn't like the premise that the cute couple, Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore, who want the old lady's upstairs apartment so they can have more room for a kid, and the old lady, living in the rent controlled apartment and so can't be forced to move, who continually makes demands on the nice young couple, her landlords, are mutually exploitive and manipulative up to and including trying to have the old lady killed. There is a studid twist ending so you might want to know how it comes out in the end but it wasn't worth the wait in my opinion. I enjoyed my popcorn more than I did this movie.

Perhaps the movie is prophetic in some way of the conflicts between young adults and the growing senior population. Part of the schtick of this movie is that the young couple can't wait for the old lady to die so they can have her space. She isn't cooperating because she appears to be in good health. So the young couple conspire to kill her off before her natural demise. I wonder if the competition for jobs, desirable housing, and other financial and material resources between young adults and senior citizens is something that will heat up further as the baby boomers move into retirement in greater and greater numbers. As they say, "Art imitates life", or perhaps life may imitate art, or at least this film is somewhat prescient. There may be more truth than is apparent beneath its biting humor.

Duplex (2003)

Beyond Silence, the movie

Beyond Silence is a German movie with English subtitles nominated for Best Foreign Film in 1996. It is a story about Lara who grows up with deaf parents. She interprets for them and they rely heavily on her.

Her paternal aunt introduces her to the clarinet in which she excels and she strives to master the instrument so she can enter the conservatory.

It is a wonderful movie about deaf culture, and the family dynamics which develop within and across generations.

It also is a story about leaving home, and the struggle by the young adult to seek her own fortune, and the father in letting the child go and cutting the apron strings. It also is a wonderul film about father/daughter relationships.

On many levels I learned a lot from this film and highly recommend it.

Jenseits der Stille (1996)

Death of a child.

My next door neighbor lost his 21 year old daughter on Thursday morning, September 25th, when she lost control of her car and crashed into an oncoming car. I went to the calling hours today and I will go to the funeral tomorrow. I didn't know her very well. I have only lived next door for 2 1/2 years and she, as a college student, was often coming and going, but as a father of 6 daughters I felt a protectiveness about her as I do for my own daughters.

People often say mistakenly, "I know how you feel" when of course they don't, but in some ways I do because I lost two children also in a car crash in 1993. Brigid was 5 and Ryan was 8. It indeed is different to loose a daughter at 21. Every grief is individual and unique, but I suppose there is an elite club of parents which no one wants to join, who have lost children.

And I cannot say if I agree with Shaw's quote below that heartbreak is life educating us. In some ways it is an education which no one wants and we avoid at all costs. No one is looking for heartbreak.

My observation is that it can do you in or make you stronger. I have seen many people done in. That is a double tragedy. I have seen some people made stronger, better, and wiser people for it.

I pray that I am a better, wiser person for it because I think that this brings the most honor on my children's memory and stories.

I have found myself grieving since Friday when I learned of Stephanie's death. I grieve for her even though I didn't know her that well, and for her father and the rest of her family and friends. More than anything else, I find myself grieving again for Brigid and Ryan, an endless heartbreak that I will carry to my grave.

Quote of the day

"Heartbreak is life educating us."

George Bernard Shaw