Undiagnosing St Joan: She Does Not Need a Medical or Psychiatric Diagnosis.

This article traces the history of Joan of Arc through her brief life that includes leading an army in defense of France at the age of 17 and ending with her death at the stake at the age of 19. In her activities, St Joan reported that she was guided by voices and visions in which she communicated with venerated spiritual figures such as St Michael and St Margaret. Questions have arisen about the nature of these experiences, and various medical and psychiatric diagnoses have been offered by contemporary experts.

Varieties of Religious (Non)Affiliation: A Primer for Mental Health Practitioners on the "Spiritual but Not Religious" and the "Nones".

Given changing demographics of religiosity and spirituality, this article aims to help clinicians understand contemporary trends in patient religious and spiritual orientation. It first identifies and describes the evolving varieties of religio-spiritual orientation and affiliation, as identified in survey studies. Particular attention is given to the examination of those who identify as spiritual but not religious (SBNR) and None (i.

Religion and Psychiatry in the Age of Neuroscience.

In recent decades, an evolving conversation among religion, psychiatry, and neuroscience has been taking place, transforming how we conceptualize religion and how that conceptualization affects its relation to psychiatry. In this article, we review several dimensions of the dialogue, beginning with its history and the phenomenology of religious experience. We then turn to neuroscientific studies to see how they explain religious experience, and we follow that with two related areas: the benefits of religious beliefs and practices, and the evolutionary foundation of those benefits.

Psychiatric Management, Administration, and Leadership: a Continuum or Distinct Concepts?

To clarify the relationship between the concepts of management, administration, and leadership in psychiatry. The authors provide a review of the conceptual evolution of administrative psychiatry and develop operational definitions of these three domains. Based upon their experiences, they discuss relevant core competencies and personal attributes.

Leading with Lean: Getting the Outcomes we Need with the Funding we Have.

Lean and other quality management methodologies have been used by industry and manufacturing for many years. More recently they have been adopted by health care. The authors describe their experience with the lean way of continuous quality improvement, first developed by Toyota, at one of New York's largest behavioral health departments.

Direct Supervision in Outpatient Psychiatric Graduate Medical Education.

Objective: The authors describe a stimulus case that led training staff to examine and revise the supervision policy of the adult and child and adolescent psychiatry clinics. To inform the revisions, the authors reviewed the literature and national policies.

Methods: The authors conducted a literature review in PubMed using the following criteria: Supervision, Residents, Training, Direct, and Indirect and a supplemental review in Academic Psychiatry.

Psychiatry and terrorism.

Terrorism has dominated the domestic and international landscape since 9/11. Like other fields, psychiatry was not well prepared. With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attack approaching, it is timely to consider what can be done to prepare before the next event.

Psychoanalysis and ethics--relevant then, essential now.

The general concepts of morality and ethics are presented followed by an overview of the history of medical ethics from Hippocrates to the founding of the American Medical Association, whose Code of Ethics psychiatrists follow. The particular relevance of these topics to the founding of psychoanalysis is explored utilizing a 50-year review of the professional literature. The ethical underpinnings of Freud's theory and practice are highlighted revealing Freud to be anything but anti-ethics.

A royal road from homelessness--the clinical use of dreams.

The author discusses the use of a dynamic psychotherapy technique, specifically dream exploration, in his work with New York City's homeless. Given the short amount of time clinically available in working with this population, discussing the patient's dreams was found to quickly get to the most pressing here-and-now issues. The psychiatrist's interest in the patient's creation of the dream was also noted to enhance the therapeutic relationship and the patient's compliance thereby improving the chances of a successful therapeutic outcome.