1985 after being in practice for just a couple of years, a patient I will call Joanne, came to me for treatment of a panic disorder. I figured it was a pretty straightforward case that the literature, my experience, and my training indicated should respond to therapy or medication. Joanne was a 50-year-old woman in a bad marriage and her youngest daughter was going off to college. I assumed that Joanne was having panic attacks because of the threatened separations both from her daughter and the possible break up of her marriage. Multiple Medication Approach Failed I thought that a
Read More
Posts by Dr. Robert hedaya
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder A Clinical Illustration – Mark
Top Student Sidetracked by OCD 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 from 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. As his life was grinding to a halt,
Read More
Herbal Medicine and Health
Rebecca Snow, MS, CNS, LN, RH(AHG) has been practicing herbal medicine and nutrition for 10 years at the Maryland University of Integrative Health in a variety of roles including Founding Director of the MS in Nutrition and Integrative Health Program and faculty/supervisor in the herbal medicine and nutrition departments. Dr. Hedaya will discuss the following questions with her: 1. How do you see herbal medicine supporting individuals with mental health issues? 2. What is the most important contribution herbs can make to the field of mental health? 3. What is your favorite herb in clinical practice? 4. What about for anxiety and sleep disorders? 5. Bipolar disorder?
Read More
WSJ: “With Every Alzheimer’s Diagnosis the Same Bleak Conversation” & Dr. Hedaya’s Rebuttal
Jeremy Abbate writes in The Wall Street Journal With Every Alzheimer’s Diagnosis the Same Bleak Conversation Aug. 25, 2017 6:44 p.m. ET On an overcast Tuesday morning last October in Northford, Conn., I sat in a second-row pew in a quiet church and watched my father tell a heartwarming story about his older sister, Martha. He recalled an incident from his childhood when, as he recovered from a bike accident that injured his jaw, Martha had baked him a chocolate cake and lovingly cut it into tiny pieces so he could eat it through his stitched mouth. My father told
Read More
Alzheimer’s Disease Letter to the Editor Wall Street Journal
Time for a Better Approach To Alzheimer’s Treatments Alzheimer’s research has failed because of adherence to a flawed model. April 16, 2017 12:32 p.m. ET As a psychopharmacologist who has worked with chronic illnesses such as dementia, neurodegenerative disorders and psychiatric disorders for more than 35 years, I can categorically say that the reason Alzheimer’s research has failed is adherence to a flawed model. Contrary to George Vradenburg and Howard Fillit’s contention, we will not cure or treat Alzheimer’s with drugs (“The FDA Can Declare War on Alzheimer’s,” op-ed, April 5). We will succeed when we focus on prevention of
Read More
Robert Hedaya Explains Other Roots of Psychological Problems
Control, Helplessness, Spirituality
I want to briefly address control, helplessness and spirituality. Depression is thought of as a state of ‘Learned Helplessness’ (Martin Seligman). Generally speaking, we strive to have control over the things that we deem are essential to our self-esteem: power, achievement, money etc. When we perceive that we have lost hope of controlling these things—i.e., we are helpless in controlling them, most of us slide towards depression. The issue, which is not often addressed by professionals, is the fact that there is an embedded assumption here. It is an assumption fostered by our culture and the psychological field. The hidden
Read More
Dr. Hedaya Speaks at Georgetown University Wellness Conference
Achieving Optimal Wellness Conference at Georgetown University Doro Bush Koch, Patricia Reilly Koch and colleagues of the BB&R: a Lifestyle and Wellness Advisory firm hosted the Achieving Optimal Health Conference 2011 at Georgetown University “to inspire, motivate, and educate our attendees to create a healthier and more balanced life.” The program included presentations by Dr. Robert Hedaya, Dr. Richard Carmona, former Surgeon General and the president of the Canyon Ranch Institute; Dr. Michael Roizen, Chief Wellness Officer at the Cleveland Clinic and co-author with Dr. Mehmet Oz of five number-one New York Times bestsellers; and Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of
Read More
Executive Vitality: Mind-Body Connection
We are believers in the mind-body connection. Each affects the other—no way around it. Therefore, we thought it would be useful to seek out some information from a specialist in holistic medicine. We sought advice from functional medicine doctor, Robert Hedaya, M.D., who takes a holistic physiological and psychosocial approach to health and mental health. We asked what, in his opinion, might be some controllable factors that could enhance your work performance. We thought you might be interested in what he had to say. According to Dr. Hedaya (www.wholepsychiatry.com), any or all of following action steps, if tried for two
Read More
Response to “The Angelina Effect”
“The Angelina Effect” [May 27] in Time Magazine details Angelina Jolie’s decision to have a double mastectomy. The May 27th cover story, “The Angelina Effect” was well done. However, what was not covered in the media generally, nor in the article, was the important fact that genetic testing may give false results. Both physicians and the public operate under the mistaken assumption that lab tests, and in particular genetic tests, are always accurate. In fact, they are not. This fact needs to find its way into the public debate around preventative mastectomies. I have been using genetic testing for more than
Read More