Mar 26, 2021 | Psychiatry
This year’s American Psychiatric Association conference takes place virtually May 1-3. The schedule of talks from Mount Sinai’s faculty is listed below.
Dr. Yehuda presenting at APA in 2019.
Sunday, May 2
Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD: Theory, Technique and Context
Presenter: Rachel Yehuda, PhD
Time: 4:00-5:30pm
Delivering HIV Prevention and Care to Transgender People: An Update
Presenters: Max Lichtenstein, MD, Kenneth Ashley, MD, and Carmen Cassanovas, MD
Time: 4:00-5:30pm
Monday, May 3
Friend, Frenemy, or Foe: The Role of Adolescent Social Media Use in Race Based Trauma
Presenter: Gabrielle Shapiro
Time: 11:30am-1:00pm
To Tweet or Not to Tweet: Social Media Use for Professional Development and for Mental Health Research
Presenter: Kara Bagot, MD
Time: 4:00-5:30pm
Mar 26, 2021 | Psychiatry
This year’s Society of Biological Psychiatry conference takes place virtually April 29-May 1. The schedule of talks from Mount Sinai’s faculty is listed below.
Thursday, April 29
Irritability Partly Accounts for the Association Between Pain and Depression: Findings From the EMBARC and STRIDE Studies and the VitalSign6 Project
Presenter: Manish Jha, MD
When: 5:15-5:30pm (Central Time)
Neurons from PTSD combat veterans (MAP2=magenta, GFAP=yellow, DNA=white). Image courtesy of Michael Breen, PhD.
Friday, April 30
Inflammation and PTSD From the Macro to Microscale
Presenter: Michael Breen, PhD
When: 4:30-6:30pm (Central Time)
Advancing Treatment of Substance Use Disorders Through Computational Modeling
Presenter: Xiaosi Gu, PhD
When: 4:30-6:30pm (Central Time)
Irritability and Aggression in Psychiatric Illnesses: Translational Approaches in Identifying Novel Mechanisms and Treatment Targets
Chair: Manish Jha, MD
Presenter: Scott Russo, PhD
When: 4:30-6:30pm (Central Time)
Maternal Psychiatric Diagnosis and Comorbidities Around Pregnancy
Presenter: Vahe Khachadourian, MD, PhD
When: 5:45-6:00pm (Central Time)
An image from Dr. Frangou’s presentation.
Saturday, May 1
That’s a Wrap: Identifying Myelin as a Treatment Target in Psychosis Across Multiple Scales of Resolution
Presenter: Sophia Frangou, MD, PhD
When: 1:30-3:30pm (Central Time)
Bipolar Disorder: New Biological Insight and Potential Clinical Relevance From Large-Scale Genetic Studies
Presenter: Niamh Mullins, PhD
When: 1:30-3:30pm (Central Time)
Getting Motivated in Stressful Times
Presenter: Ming Hu Han, PhD
When: 5:00-7:00pm (Central Time)
Nov 30, 2020 | Psychiatry
This year’s American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) conference takes place virtually December 6-9. Faculty from the Department of Psychiatry will be contributing via the president’s plenary, panels, study groups, and posters. The schedule of talks is listed below.
Monday, Dec. 7
Loneliness and Social Isolation in the COVID-19 Era: New Directions for Neurobiology and Mental Health Research
Concurrent Panel and Study Group Sessions
When: 1:30-3:30pm
Participant: Dennis Charney, MD
Clinical High Risk (CHR) for Psychosis: Where Do We Go Next?
Concurrent Panel and Study Group Sessions
When: 1:30-3:30pm
Chair: Cheryl Corcoran, MD, MS
Participant: Yulia Landa, PsyD
Irritability: Translational and Transdiagnostic Approaches to Neural Circuitry, Development, and Treatment
When: 1:30-3:30pm
Presenter: Manish Jha, MD
Aggression: Gaps in our Knowledge and Strategies to Enhance Research in the Field
Concurrent Panel and Study Group Sessions
When: 5:30-7:30pm
Participants: Nelly Alia-Klein, PhD; M. Mercedes Perez-Rodriguez, MD, PhD
Tuesday, Dec. 8
Sensitive Postnatal Time Windows for Prefrontal Cortical Circuit Maturation
Concurrent Panel and Study Group Sessions
When: 8:30-10:30am
Presenter: Hirofumi Morishita, MD, PhD
Functional and Systems Genomic Approaches to Psychiatric Disorders
Concurrent Panel and Study Group Sessions
When: 8:30-10:30am
Chair: Kristen Brennand, PhD
Presenter: Laura Huckins, PhD
Mobile DNA in Brain Diseases
Concurrent Mini-Panel Sessions
When: 2:30-3:30pm
Presenter: Sandhya Chandrasekaran, BS
Insight Into Sex Differences in Psychiatric Syndromes From Transcriptomic and Genomic Analyses
Concurrent Panel and Study Group Sessions
When: 5:00-7:00pm
Chair: Eric Nestler, MD, PhD
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Pipeline and Workforce of Physician-Scientists
Concurrent Panel and Study Group Sessions
When: 5:00-7:00pm
Chair: M. Mercedes Perez-Rodriguez, MD, PhD
Moderator: Antonia New, MD
Participant: René Kahn, MD, PhD
Wednesday, Dec. 9
Targeting Brain Circuits for Reward and Affect With Deep Brain Stimulation
Concurrent Panel and Study Group Sessions
When: 8:30-10:30am
Chair: Helen Mayberg, MD
Presenter: Martijn Figee, MD, PhD
Oct 30, 2020 | Psychiatry
Dr. Newman at a lecture in 1988. Image courtesy of the Levy Library’s Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Archives and Records Management.
The Addiction Institute of Mount Sinai received an endowed gift from the Estate of Blanche Ross, facilitated by Trustee Bobbie Abrams, for an annual lecture series. The Dr. Robert Newman Lecture in Addiction aims to attract national academic leaders each year to discuss the most current research and trends in addiction. The lecture is hosted at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in memory of Dr. Newman’s passion to serve patients suffering with addiction.
Dr. Newman was an internationally recognized expert on addiction treatment and one of the early pioneers of viewing addiction as a chronic medical condition. As President and Chief Executive Officer of Beth Israel Medical Center from 1978 to 1997, Dr. Newman worked to expand access to addiction and psychiatric services, HIV and AIDS treatment, and care for the LGBT community. He also oversaw the creation of the Jacob Perlow Hospice, the first Jewish hospice in Manhattan.
As President of Continuum Health Partners from 1997 to 2000, Dr. Newman led the integration and merger of the hospitals now known as Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai West, and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. During that time, he effectively fended off efforts to limit opioid treatment program in the city.
Before joining Beth Israel, Dr. Newman served as Assistant Commissioner of Addiction for the New York City Department of Health, where he was the guiding force in creating and expanding what would become the largest network of methadone maintenance treatment programs in the country. Many of the programs are still in operation through Mount Sinai Beth Israel.
His reach extended beyond the United States as he strongly influenced the landscape of opioid treatment in Germany and Hong Kong. In fact, he was dubbed the “methadone apostle/pope” as he achieved a position of worldwide leadership.
Dr. Newman’s remarkable career was grounded in his commitment to public health and never-ending advocacy for underserved populations, which made a tremendous impact on the communities served by the Mount Sinai Health System. He was a passionate and formidable advocate who was driven to use science to propel his activism, stating: “There are times when researchers have a responsibility to involve themselves in the political process to try to directly influence policy implementation. In such instances, the familiar, perhaps more comfortable role of the scientist must be supplemented by political activism to avoid research becoming a rationale for withholding help and to ensure its appropriate role in influencing policy.”
Sep 10, 2020 | Children's Health, COVID-19, Mental Health, Psychiatry, Your Health
As children head back to school—whether in person or virtually—parents may have some concerns about how they will adapt to a new, potentially stressful academic year. Aliza Pressman, PhD, Co-Founding Director and Director of Clinical Programming for the Mount Sinai Parenting Center, answers some of your questions.
How can I address my children’s anxiety about going back to school in person?
Start by making sure that you are calm and not imposing your own anxiety onto the conversation. Your children will pick up on your energy and you want to be focused on their concerns. Also, remember that your anxiety—and your child’s anxiety—is very reasonable at this challenging time. If your child is anxious, don’t try to get rid of that anxiety. Instead, validate their feelings. Tell them that what they are feeling makes sense. Children have been out of school for a long time and for months have been hearing about the importance of staying away from people. Now they’re going to head back into a building full of people. Of course they are nervous.
Once you’ve validated your child’s emotions, explain that you would not send them back to school if you did not think they would be safe. Go over the precautions that the school is taking to protect teachers and students and, for younger children, remind them about what COVID-19 is and what individual measures they can take to keep themselves safe while at school.
Will my child’s learning be affected by having their teachers wear masks?
This is a natural concern. Our facial expressions are part of how we communicate and masks obscure half the face. One way to prepare your child is to practice communicating and reading people’s emotions when they are wearing a mask. Make a game of it. Have everyone at home wear a mask and guess what each person is trying to say by just using body language. Once your kids go back to school, you can reinforce the lessons they are receiving in the classroom; for instance, have them read to you. You’ll probably pick up cues from your children about what they need, and you can adjust accordingly. Remember, kids are incredibly adaptable, more so than adults.
How can I help my child connect with their friends while attending school remotely?
If your child is attending school remotely, they will probably miss spending time with their friends, and interactive screen time is a great way for them to safely connect. Since screen time may be your child’s only opportunity to socialize, you might even want to allow more screen time than you permitted before the pandemic. Just make sure it doesn’t interrupt family mealtime, homework, or replace outdoor activity.
Also, remember that some kids don’t enjoy online interaction. Some children enjoy a more passive interaction like being in the same virtual room as a friend while doing an art project. This allows children to chat with each other without the pressure of an ongoing conversation. As kids get older, they will be able to tell you how they want to connect with their friends. It may be through a video game, taking an exercise class together, or watching a movie together. Or, they may just want to talk on the phone or text.
How do I talk to my child about what is happening in the world?
Before you talk with your child about current events, make sure that you have come to terms with your own state of mind. You don’t want to enter the conversation with the weight of your own feelings. When you are ready to talk, determine what you want to discuss before beginning the conversation. Whether it is COVID-19, social unrest, or something else, begin by asking what they know and what they’re thinking about regarding the topic. You want to be your child’s first resource with any questions and concerns. Be prepared to explain your opinions.
When should I seek professional help?
If you or your child cannot manage to sleep or eat or are feeling out of control, consider seeking the guidance of a mental health professional. It is completely reasonable to feel overwhelmed; this is an enormously stressful time. And, remember, if your child sees that you are willing to seek help, they will know that it is okay for them to do the same.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Psychiatry
Health care workers will likely be facing significant mental health consequences due to COVID-19. Mental health care providers must be prepared to meet the unique challenge of treating them during and after the pandemic.
COVID-19 has taken a tremendous toll on health care workers including doctors, nurses, trainees, students, social workers, and support staff. The trauma and grief of losing patients, the anxiety over potentially exposing family members to the virus, and fears of contracting COVID-19 will likely result in significant mental health consequences. While the full impact will be shown with time, studies on disasters and epidemics suggest that the exposure to suffering, death, and constant stress will lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and burnout.
To address this, Mount Sinai has launched the Center for Stress, Resilience, and Personal Growth to provide Mount Sinai staff, faculty, and students with no-cost resilience training, mental health screening, individual coaching, and personalized referrals. Deborah Marin, MD, serves as Director, Jonathan M. DePierro, PhD, serves as Clinical Director, and Craig Katz, MD, serves as Senior Advisor. Below, they discuss the top five things to know about providing psychiatric care to health care workers suffering from mental health issues due to COVID-19.
1. The behavioral health consequences. We have already observed a high level of distress in Mount Sinai’s health care workers—Jonathan Ripp, MD, MPH, Director of Mount Sinai’s Office of Well-Being and Resilience, and his team found that 39 percent of 2,579 workers reported clinically significant symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, and depression. These workers may feel disconnected from a sense of meaning and purpose in their work and personal lives and be excessively self-critical for what they did or did not do during the pandemic. These symptoms can result in “presenteeism” (going to work but not being able to work effectively), absenteeism, irritability, chronic exhaustion, and avoidance of work or work-related issues.
2. How to screen for these conditions. Part of “how to screen” includes “who to screen.” Nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians, and physician assistants have received significant media attention; however, it is clear that support staff are equally if not more affected by the pandemic. An example would be a patient transporter who brings patients to and from diagnostic tests and procedures switching gears to transport hundreds of bodies to the morgue. Our research following 9/11 shows some evidence that these support staff members, who are often members of historically disadvantaged groups, will struggle more with long-term mental health effects due to the pandemic.
When assessing health care workers, important risk factors to consider include pre-pandemic and current social support, level of exposure to pandemic-related human suffering, socioeconomic circumstances, pre-pandemic job burnout, and the presence of secondary stressors following the pandemic, such as job loss or childcare concerns. Patients will often not report a symptom unless asked directly, so it is important to be thorough during screening. The National Center for PTSD maintains a list of common measures of trauma-related symptoms and how to obtain each instrument. The American Psychiatric Association also lists DSM-5-specific measurement tools that can assist in screening. There are also many common self-report screening tools, including the PHQ-9, which indexes depression severity; the PHQ-4, a quick screener for depression and anxiety; and the Primary Care PTSD scale for DSM-5. Many of these tools are available for the public as well, so patients can self-monitor.
3. How to treat these conditions. For PTSD, the gold standard psychotherapies are cognitive-behavioral approaches including cognitive processing therapy and exposure therapy. These interventions involve directly and systematically engaging with traumatic memories and revisiting their meaning in a safe, therapeutic space. There is some evidence that non-trauma focused treatments (such as interpersonal psychotherapy) can be helpful too, particularly for patients who cannot tolerate trauma processing. In addition, paroxetine and sertraline are FDA-approved for PTSD, and VA/DoD clinical practice guidelines indicate that there is “moderate quality” evidence to recommend these as well as fluoxetine and venlafaxine for the monotherapy of PTSD. Some patients may benefit from a combination of evidence-based psychotherapy and medication management with these and possibly other medication classes.
For depression and anxiety, in addition to the range of FDA-approved antidepressants and other medications, cognitive-behavioral therapies, interpersonal psychotherapy, and supportive therapy have a strong and reliable evidence base as first-line treatment or in combination with a medication.
4. How to promote resilience. Resilience can be quick for some people, but for others it might be a slow arc toward recovery and rebuilding their lives. Working with collaborators, researchers at Mount Sinai have identified many behaviors that can enhance resilience following adversity, like that posed by the pandemic. These include individual factors including maintaining an optimistic perspective, building emotional and cognitive flexibility, seeking comfort and connection in spiritual practice, and giving and receiving social support. Further, organizational factors that are important for resilience, particularly in health care workers, include cultivating a sense of belonging, connectedness, and mutual respect in teams.
Let’s take one of these factors, cognitive and emotional flexibility, as an example to explore in more detail. We know that individuals who are resilient are often good at seeing situations from many different perspectives. They can use “cognitive reappraisal” to see a challenging situation or negative thought in more positive or neutral terms. One practical application of this skill is seeing the learning potential and the new colleagues that can come from a changing job role, while also acknowledging the inherent challenges in such a transition. This skill, among others, can be cultivated through individual practice or by speaking to a therapist with expertise in cognitive therapies.
5. What to say to patients. While it is essential to screen and, when needed, treat your patients for COVID-related mental health distress, keep in mind that not everyone is comfortable with formal mental health treatment or can equally access care. It is therefore important to talk with patients about numerous options to promote well-being. These include seeking spiritual or religious support, using a mental health or wellness app, or participating in one or more activities that build social connectedness.
Focusing on strengths can also build a sense of hope and therapeutic connection. One approach from Positive Psychology, known as the positive introduction, involves asking patients to tell you a story about one time they handled a difficult situation in a positive way and were particularly proud of how they navigated it.
Dr. Marin is the George and Marion Sokolik Blumenthal Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, specializing in geriatric psychiatry and Alzheimer’s disease. She also serves as Director of Mount Sinai’s Center for Spirituality and Heath and Director of the Ombuds Office.
