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MYnd Analytics is using artificial intelligence to help treat mental health issues like depression and PTSD. Dr. Robin Smith, chairman of the board at MYnd Analytics, explains how it works.
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Check out Mind Therapy Clinic on the recent episode of This Is SF on CBS5 aired on January 26th and February 3.
For Clinicians
We’d love you to join Mind Therapy Clinic’s staff at our clinical training the evening of February 15. Tea and light snacks will be offered.
When: Friday, February 15, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Where: Mind Therapy Clinic, 240 Tamal Vista Drive, Corte Madera CA 94925, Upstairs Classroom
FREE with no CEs. $25 for 2 CEs.
RSVP here by Friday, February 8.
For questions, please contact Jacqueline Perlmutter, Director of Professional Relations, 415-846-8409
The latest paper by Mind Therapy Clinic’s Dr. Mark Schiller reviews significant contributions to the evidence for the use of quantitative electroencephalography features as biomarkers of depression treatment and examines the potential of such technology to guide pharmacotherapy.
More recent machine learning approaches such as the Psychiatric Encephalography Evaluation Registry (PEER) technology and other efforts analyze large datasets to develop variables that may best predict response rather than test a priori hypotheses. Frequency band abnormalities such as alpha and theta band abnormalities have shown promise as have combinatorial measures such as cordance (a measure combining alpha and theta power) and the Antidepressant Treatment Response Index in predicting medication treatment response. Nevertheless, studies have been hampered by methodological problems and inconsistencies, and these approaches have ultimately failed to elicit any significant interest in actual clinical practice. Technologies such as PEER may go beyond predicting response to a particular antidepressant and help to guide pharmacotherapy.
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We are thrilled to announce, Katy Tarella, LCSW, joins Mind Therapy Clinic as assistant clinical director and brings her expertise in borderline personality disorder treatment from her previous position at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA. Katy is a licensed clinical social worker, trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (DBT-PTSD), MBT for families, and General Psychiatric Management (GPM).
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As family members, we would love it at our get-togethers if members could relax and enjoy each other. However, when a member experiences depression, anxiety, social anxiety, addiction struggles and personality disorders, we may have to adjust that dream picture of cozy camaraderie and stress-free relationships. A key tool of this readjustment is to cultivate our own inner peace, acceptance and equanimity. Here are some tools to help move into peace of mind and create the space for joy and gratitude.
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Clinicians: Join Andrew Sidoli, MSW, Executive Clinical Director, Recovery Ways Treatment Programs to learn more about effective trauma treatment for families with a member in treatment. Moderated by Katy Tarella, LCSW, Assistant Clinical Director at Mind Therapy Clinic, we’ll review the neurobiology of attachment, examine current theory about attachment trauma and discuss and practice the use of the attachment interview as a practical therapeutic tool.
It can be confusing and worrisome for kids when a parent is suffering, but there are things you can do to help kids cope.
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One direction of intense interest currently is the potential of certain powerful psychoactive agents such as psilocybin or MDMA to act as catalysts for powerful transformational healing in conjunction with intensive psychotherapy. MDMA and psilocybin can be powerful catalysts for psychotherapeutic healing because they help to temporarily break the subjects’ brains out of the conditioned patterns of thinking and behavior that have perpetuated their symptoms, thus enabling psychotherapy to have markedly enhanced efficacy through breaking down barriers such as deeply entrenched psychic defense-mechanisms. Famous UC Berkeley journalist Michael Pollan recently released a great book on this topic called How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.
At this point, there have been tremendously exciting positive results in clinical trials using MDMA as a catalyst to augment psychotherapy for patients with PTSD. MDMA helps break the sufferers’ brains out of the abnormal patterns of neural network activity (correlate of symptoms and psychic defenses) that were established through the powerful conditioning that occurred as a result of their traumatic experiences. There have also been incredibly fascinating results from studies using psilocybin-assisted therapy to treat end-of-life anxiety/depression, treatment-resistant depression, nicotine addiction and alcohol addiction. These therapies (unlike TMS, DBS, and ketamine) are not yet legal for community clinicians to perform, and they require further study of their efficacy and safety before the FDA will grant approval. Dr. Reeves has been following this line of research very closely for many years, and at least in the case of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, it seems to be getting close to the point of potential FDA approval, as Phase 3 Clinical Trials are just now beginning and the FDA has granted MDMA-assisted therapy its coveted “Breakthrough Therapy” designation.
There are currently ongoing psychedelic research studies in San Francisco and Marin, such as MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD (UCSF) and for end-of-life anxiety/depression (Dr. Phil Wolfson in Marin), as well as psilocybin-assisted group therapy for depression related to the trauma of the 1980s AIDS epidemic in gay men (UCSF). Dr. Reeves is a close acquaintance of many of the psychiatrist-scientists conducting these studies, so please feel free to call him if you think your patient might benefit from referral to any of the mentioned clinical trials.
In summary, the field of psychiatry is undergoing exhilarating changes that are inspired by the principles of neuroscience, and several dramatically efficacious and neuroscience-informed treatments are emerging that may radically change the way psychiatry is practiced in the second half of the 21st century. There has never been a more fascinating time to be a scientifically savvy (read: nerdy) psychiatrist, and each successive generation of new psychiatrists will be able to truthfully say the same thing.