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Career Options for How to Become a Therapist: Multiple Pathways Exist
Many individuals find the idea of helping people for a living to be appealing. There is no one path to this type of career. Clinicians, therapists, coaches, social workers, or psychologist, provide psychotherapy and guidance to people. Below are several popular avenues to becoming a professional therapist. Psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a medical doctor that…
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Even when you know it’s fake: The strength of the placebo effect
Almost everyone has heard about the placebo effect – the finding that treatment that have no particularly relevant effect (like a sugar or vitamin pill, or a behavioral equivalent) can make patients feel better. The placebo effect is actually the reason that all FDA approved drugs have to go through a double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial…
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Distinguishing Science and Pseudoscience: How to Judge Whether a Treatment is Worthwhile
From the TV, internet, mail-advertisements, and billboards, we are inundated on a daily basis with solicitation for the newest “cure-all” treatment. This problem is not limited to the psychological community, and it is increasingly prevalent in new-age communities that focus on “holistic” or “energy” treatments. Of course these treatments sounds intrinsically appealing, and we all…
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How doctors treat doctors with drug use problems: Addiction treatment that works
Physician Health Programs (PHP) are reporting an astonishing success rate when it comes to providing addiction treatment for addicted doctors: Only about 20% of doctors ever test positive after being admitted to the program within a 5 year period. More than 70% maintain their license and continue working within the same 5 year period. These…
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Helping Addicts with medications for cravings
If we could make it so drug addicts could stop craving the substances that have brought them to their knees, would relapse rates drop and addiction-treatment success rates soar? I sure hope so! Medications that stop cravings? I’ve already written about a study by the renowned addiction researcher Barry Everitt showing that medications could be…
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Treatments for ADHD – and the forgotten role of motivation
Research on the treatments for ADHD suggest that even the most effective treatments may not be sufficient for improving outcomes for children with ADHD diagnoses. Current treatments have a predominately person-biased approach to conceptualizing and treating the disorder. For example, the largest study conducted to assess the efficacy of ADHD interventions pitted medication and psychosocial…
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Drug use memories and relapse: Can medication provide addiction help?
Originally posted on allaboutaddiction.com: About a year ago, while sitting in a lecture on learning and memory, the idea that certain drugs can affect the emotional responses to memory long after the memory itself has been formed came up. As someone interested in addiction research, the implication for treatment immediately came up in my head:…
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It’s drug time – Circadian rhythms and addiction
From: all-about-addiction.com Like most living creatures, humans have internal biological clocks known as circadian rhythms. These internal cycles synchronize our bodies with the Earth’s 24-hour day/night cycle and prepare us for predictable daily events (1). Circadian rhythms regulate a number of bodily functions including temperature, hormone secretion, bowel movements, and sleep (2). Well, recent research…
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Drug memories and relapse: A light at the end of the tunnel?
From All About Addiction: About a year ago, while sitting in a lecture on learning and memory, the idea that certain drugs can affect the emotional responses to memory long after the memory itself has been formed came up. As someone interested in addiction research, the implication for treatment immediately came up in my head:…