NY Times:
Student, 19, in Trial of New Antidepressant Commits Suicide. I’m no psychologist. But I have to wonder if depression and moodiness are not simply stages of growth in teenage years ... stages that shouldn’t be interrupted. I had black moods in teenage, but if someone had medicated them away, I would have never gained my capacity for healthy introspection. These incidences of teen suicide combined with antidepressants are quite sensational at the moment, but I wonder where they really fall in the total statistical incidence of true antidepressant ‘side effects.’ After all, as I understand it, suicide is a borderline risk with all clinical depression, not just severe depression. Eliot?
NY Times Op-Ed Contributor:
“The Stars Have Voted.” Appropriate that it originates here in Santa Fe. Horoscopes for the candidates, though the horoscopes betray a close empirical observation of the candidates, to my mind.
NY Times:
Linking religion to economic development. Mix this with the below, are all skeptics poor?
Washington Post:
On the importance of being dubious. “Many believers are suckers for prophets of doom and are prone to witch-hunting to persecute apostates. Their passionate convictions mix weak facts with strong emotions. And through it all, each believer, no matter how fanatical, is certain of being an independent thinker.”
CNN:
Antidepressants too risky for kids? There have never been comprehensive studies done, neither short nor long term. Children are not ‘small adults’; one can’t simply adjust the dosage by weight.
Guardian.UK:
Tales of the unexpected. “On one side, the narrators: those who are indeed intensely narrative, self-storying, Homeric, in their sense of life and self, whether they look to the past or the future. On the other side, the non-narrators: those who live life in a fundamentally non-storytelling fashion, who may have little sense of, or interest in, their own history, nor any wish to give their life a certain narrative shape.”
Yeah.
Jish rocks. I’ll add a plug for following your heart.
Chronicle of Higher Ed:
The Debriefing Debate: One popular therapy is called into question. “The debate over stress debriefing is emblematic of a broader concern that psychology does a weak job of establishing the safety and efficacy of new therapies.”
Washington Post:
Modern Flirting. “‘Any woman can flash skin,’ says Southern author Ronda Rich, ‘but the most irresistible damsel is the one who seduces and flirts with a sharp, knowledgeable mind.’”
