What many people misunderstand is that typically incompetence to stand trial is a temporary condition. If an individual is unable to assist their counsel due to a mental condition, such as depression or anxiety (and posttraumatic stress is an anxiety disorder), then the individual is committed to a forensic jail-based hospital for treatment. They continue their confinement with treatment. They are then re-evaluated and tried for their crimes once they become competent. They do not free. This process prolongs their incarceration. However, an individual cannot receive a fair trial if they are unable to assist their attorney.

Expert: Padilla incompetent to stand trial | February 22, 2007 | MSNBC.com

Expert: Padilla incompetent to stand trial

Years of isolation have put al-Qaida suspect under stress, doctor says MIAMI - Alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla suffers from intense stress and anxiety after being imprisoned in isolation for years and cannot adequately help his lawyers prepare for a criminal trial, a mental expert testified Thursday... More...

This is an excellent article on men and depression. While many see depression as intense feelings of suicide, clinical depression can have more subtle symptoms (like loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, loss of interest in sex, increased or decreased appetite, difficulty with concentration and sustaining attention, etc.) Many psychologists note people with "smiling depression" because these people are so afraid of their intense feelings of despair that they hide them even from themselves. As described in the article, I've had men come in very reluctantly on referral from their physicians intent on finding a medical cause for their symptoms. "I'd rather have a neurological problem or a tumor than be depressed," they will say. But this is foolish because depression is very treatable. In fact, treatment success in mental health is statistically better than success rates in treating many major medical problems. Men are just as prone to depression as are women. Women, however, are more likely to seek treatment and stick with it over the long haul.

Men & Depression: Facing Darkness | February 22, 2007 | Newsweek

Men & Depression: Facing Darkness

By Julie Scelfo Newsweek Feb. 26, 2007 issue - For nearly a decade, while serving as an elected official and working as an attorney, Massachusetts state Sen. Bob Antonioni struggled with depression, although he didn't know it. Most days, he attended Senate meetings and appeared on behalf of clients at the courthouse. But privately, he was irritable and short-tempered, ruminating endlessly over his cases and becoming easily frustrated by small things, like deciding which TV show to watch with his girlfriend. After a morning at the state house, he'd be so exhausted by noon that he'd drive home and collapse on the couch, unable to move for the rest of the day. More...

Introduction to Dialectical Behavior Therapy  

Sponsored by the Monterey Bay Psychological Association

 

Friday, March 16, 2007 (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.)

Seymour Center at Long Marine Lab

La Felit Room

Santa Cruz, California

 

This 6 hour accredited DBT workshop will review the underlying theory and process of DBT, as well as apply these principles to the most common emotional disorders presented in private practice settings: depression and anxiety. DBT is effective with persons who present with high emotional sensitivity (expressive or blunted), slow return to emotional baseline following stressors, and inability to tolerate their feelings.

 

MONDAY & TUESDAY

April 23 & 24, 2007
9:00 a.m. - to 4:30 p.m.

Canad Inn Polo Park
1405 St. Matthews Avenue
Winnipeg, MB
R3G 0K5

Register Online

This workshop will focus on application of specific theoretical and practical approaches to use of DBT with patients in high emotional distress, regardless of diagnosis. Research has shown that the typical patient has more than one diagnosis, or several subthreshold diagnoses. So effective treatment packages must be robust in that they are designed to reduce emotional arousal generally, increase adaptive psychological coping strategies, and shift attentional strategies to more relevant cues that allow patients to accomplish their objectives without as much effort and agony. DBT is the only empirically evaluated approach that accomplishes this goal (although there may be many other approaches not yet empirically tested that also achieve the same objectives).

At its core, DBT offers alternatives to emotional and experiential avoidance, emotional escape strategies, lack of meaning in one’s life, and getting stuck in strategies that simply do not bring the person closer to their own wants and historical narrative. DBT is thus an entirely new theoretical strategy to treatment.

The revised DBT gives honor to the grains of truth found in psychoanalytic, humanistic, Jungian and behavior theories. DBT is thus a new eclecticism that is theory-driven and empirically based.

DBT can improve your patient outcomes, increase your confidence in the strategies and techniques that you employ with your patients, and offer a map of the psychotherapeutic process that is powerful and robust. The workshop will use a variety of teaching and training technologies (including lecture, video training of DBT-style therapy, video-based practice of dialectical interventions with patients, movie clips exploring elements of good therapy techniques, role playing and feedback).

Learning Objectives

1. To understand the differences between CBT and DBT.

2. To be able to generate dialectical analysis of patient conflict.

3. To understand DBT validation to deal both with patient resistance and the self- hatred responses.

4. To be able to state the purposes and main psychoeducational teaching elements in each of the five modules of DBT.

Register Online

Self-Help Books—Do They Help? | February 27, 2007 | On the Couch with Dr. Gail Saltz

Self-Help Books—Do They Help?

On the Today show this morning, I spoke with one of the teachers of The Secret, the wildly selling book and DVD that has reached number one on the New York Times Best Sellers List. This is a testament to how badly everyone would like to believe that there is a solution to their suffering — better yet, a solution that requires you only to think to receive it. The truth is that positive thinking (part of what The Secret promotes) is a valuable tool and has been known about and written about for well over a century. Positive thinkers are more likely to work toward their goals, are more open to seeing possibilities as opportunities and have less stress (which is good for both the mind and the body). These results have been seen in reproducible studies.

But some self-help books promote ideas that are not only not helpful — they are potentially damaging. The Secret is, according to the author and the contributing teachers, “the law of attraction” which they say means that your mind sends out vibrations that will attract like vibrations. In other words, if you think it, you will get it.

More... 

I did not have the opportunity to see Dr. Saltz on the Today show, so I can only comment on what she has written on her blog and the many angry responses to it. Positive Thinking, in scientific behavioral  terms, is called "self-talk." Our internal dialogue can have both proscriptive and prescriptive functions (in other words, our thoughts can both limit our possibilities and define what we see as potential actualities).

If you convince yourself that your efforts will be fruitless, that you are bound to fail, these internal thoughts will naturally increase your anxiety, make you "look" only for failure cues, and make you "miss" any potential success cues. Looking only for failure signs and ignoring success signs will make your interpretation of the world become a "self-fulfilling prophesy."

What self-talk does is focus our attention.  If our focus of attention is filtered in such a way that we see only the possibilities of ridicule and humiliation, our performance is likely  to suffer. This is not due to any magnetic, vibratory, or physical process. It is psychological. The same is true for positive thoughts. If our thoughts are unrealistically self-centered and egomaniacal, our distorted perceptions of what is possible will lead us to engage in behavior that is unlikely to be productive. So if I believe that I can become President of the United States, but have never taken a political science course, never served on any governmental committees, never participated in any political party meetings, and have no economic resources to wage a political campaign, I'm unlikely to succeed with even the most positive of thoughts and beliefs.