Side Effects

From quirky to serious, trends in psychology and psychiatry.

Christopher Lane is the Pearce Miller Research Professor of Literature at Northwestern University and the author of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness. See full bio

October 2, 2009

The High Cost of Trashing Healthcare Reform

The drug and insurance industries have spent $380 million in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totaling close to $1.5 million, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law, Senator Max Baucus. Read More

July 24, 2009

When Does Psychiatric Precision Become Diagnostic Madness?

Serious questions have surfaced about the competence, procedure, and secrecy of the task force given the job of updating the next edition of the psychiatric bible. The two most vocal skeptics, incidentally, are former editors of the manual. Read More

July 22, 2009

Longer-Lashes Syndrome

In a new ad campaign, actress Brooke Shields has taken to recommending prescription treatment for eyelash growth. Yes, Virginia, we now have ads encouraging that our finite medical resources be put toward the creation of "longer, thicker, and darker lashes."

How does the pharmaceutical industry have the nerve to tap an already-lucrative cosmetics market while keeping a straight face medically? Read More

July 14, 2009

China To Stop Shock Therapy On Internet Addicts

A hospital in China has been using electric shock therapy to treat overuse of the Internet. Read More

July 12, 2009

The Price of Conformity: Coping with Life on "Revolutionary Road"

How do you break free without breaking apart? That's the burning question driving the sleeper hit "Revolutionary Road," starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. I missed the film when it first released, but try to convey here why it's worth catching on DVD. It's a powerful, haunting movie that's likely to keep you talking about it hours later. Read More

June 26, 2009

Placebos Do Work: Let's Consider Why

"We not only know placebos work," Harriet Hall explains in a fascinating, well-researched article in Skeptic, "we know there is a hierarchy of effectiveness."

For one thing, telling the patient, "This will relieve your pain" works better than saying "This might help."

June 13, 2009

Let's Avoid Another Culture War

The country can avoid another culture war. But there are worrying signs that not everyone's onboard with that. Read More

June 8, 2009

When Drug Trials Go Terribly Wrong: Lessons from a Bereaved Mother

Mary Weiss, a bereaved mother, lost her son to suicide after a clinical drug trial in Minnesota went horribly wrong. Documents indicate that he was prevented from leaving a drug trial from which 70% of participants later dropped out.

Mary's tireless advocacy for greater patient safety will soon become enshrined in state law: "Dan's Law."

This is her story, told with her permission, which she wanted to share with PT readers. Read More

June 8, 2009

England, My England

"Obama's America is good for you," British journalists are noting with envy, while their own political culture seems "self-loathing, curdled, introspective, hopeless and small."

"For eight years," a columnist at the London Times explains, Brits "could, in equal measure, mock and pity America. Not any more." Read More

June 3, 2009

The Slippery Slope of Bitterness Disorder and Other Psychiatric Diagnoses

I'm happy to debate with fellow PT blogger Stephen Diamond whether bitterness should become a mental disorder. He says yes emphatically; I say no at all costs. How to breach that divide? Well, first we must establish when "justifiable" bitterness turns into a pathology. And that's where the trouble begins and the water starts to muddy.

Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness

Hatred and Civility: The Antisocial Life in Victorian England

Anxiety Basics

From normal butterflies-in-the-stomach to clinically diagnosable conditions such as Panic Disorder, anxiety motivates some people but paralyzes others.

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