The Kvetch: Assessment, Pathogenesis, and Treatment of Patients Who Are Clinically Impaired by Chronic Complaining.

ABSTRACT: Clinicians often encounter patients whose presentations are characterized by long lists of complaints about their biological, psychological, interpersonal, and social conditions. The problems on which the complaints are based are variably reality-based and variably modifiable. Some of these patients display chronic complaining as a core, distinguishing feature. Accordingly, the aims of this article are to consider excesses of chronic complaining as psychiatric phenomena, explore possible pathogenetic contributions, describe approaches for treating conditions marked by clinically pertinent chronic complaining, and suggest areas for future research. Based on clinical observations enhanced by selective narrative literature review, we delineate and differentiate four groups of patients: 1) situational complainers; 2) chronic complainers due to unidentified medical problems; 3) mood-induced chronic complainers; and 4) personality-driven pan-dimensional chronic complainers. The last-mentioned group consists of help-seeking versus help-rejecting subtypes, the latter including a subset we designate as malignant chronic complainers. Strategies for managing these patients begin with detailed assessment of all complaints, ascertaining reality-based contributions to the complaints, including those initiated by patients themselves. Management approaches use specific biopsychosocial techniques based on patient-centered particulars. Psychotherapeutic strategies center on compassionate, empathic witnessing. Specific tactics include attending to unresolved grief and trauma, behavioral activation, cognitive and narrative restructuring and reframing methods, mentalizing and imaginal approaches, and psychodynamic methods including attention to attachment issues and transference. Sources of countertransference reactions to these patients should be identified and can be addressed. The many questions raised by these patients' presentations merit further research.

Foreseeably Early Deaths in Patients With Psychiatric Disorders: Challenges in Caring for Patients Manifesting Likely Fatal Trajectories.

ABSTRACT: Patients with psychiatric disorders often have foreshortened lives, attributed both to "natural" medical and "unnatural" external causes of death such as suicide, homicide, and accident. Many deaths are foreseeable due to circumstances linked to patients' psychiatric disorders. These can include illness-associated disparities, adverse treatment effects, lack of self-care, and behaviors stemming directly from psychopathological processes. Whereas some of these processes contribute indirectly to patients' causes of death, others are more directly consequential, causing patients to "die from" their psychiatric disorders. Some patients manifest likely fatal trajectories that may lead to "end-stage" psychiatric disorders. Palliative approaches may optimize their quality of life and potentially alter these trajectories, but patients with psychiatric disorders are less likely to receive optimal end-of-life care. Although assuring a "good death" can be challenging, systematic efforts can assist in providing patients with psychiatric disorders deaths with dignity rather than indignity.

Third-Party Observation in Psychotherapy: Playing to the Audience.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this report is to describe how trainees and instructors skew their performance of psychotherapies when sessions are observed by third parties and to discuss approaches to mitigate potentially adverse consequences. METHODS: To supplement clinical observations, a selective narrative literature review was conducted by searching PubMed and PsycInfo. RESULTS: When third-party observers were involved, therapists were likely to skew how they conducted psychotherapy. Skewing occurred regardless of whether the third parties observed in vivo or remotely, observed synchronously or asynchronously, or were instructors or trainees. Such skewing may have resulted from conscious, preconscious, or unconscious decisions by therapists as well as by patients. Despite the benefits of observed psychotherapy for therapists and patients, deleterious consequences have sometimes emerged. CONCLUSIONS: Benefits of third-party observation of psychotherapy are substantial. Nevertheless, therapists must recognize how being observed may adversely affect themselves and their patients. Mitigation strategies are available to address potential harms.

Psychosocial Exoskeletons: Normal Development, Psychopathological and Sociopathological Phenomena, and Therapeutic Applications.

ABSTRACT: In medical therapeutics, exoskeleton refers to external protections, supports, and appliances. By analogy, psychosocial exoskeletons can be envisioned as assistive psychological and social structures that brace and extend individuals' coping abilities. This article considers the utility of defining "psychosocial exoskeletons" as a framework to encompass psychological and social devices that enhance coping, and "therapeutic psychosocial exoskeletons" as devices assisting psychiatric treatment. Clinical observations were augmented via selective narrative review using PubMed and PsychInfo.A range of psychological and social devices were identified that constitute psychosocial exoskeletons. In extremes, psychosocial exoskeletons may prescribe comprehensive lifestyles including dress, rites, taboos, and acceptable relationships. These devices may enhance normal or psychopathological development.Therapeutic psychosocial exoskeletons consist of intentionally prescribed psychotherapeutic and sociotherapeutic interventions assembled to address patient-centered problems. Elements may include counseling and psychotherapies, peer-based recovery programs, institutional programs, and social interventions involving financial assistance, supported employment, pets, and other practical resources.

Ambition and Its Psychopathologies.

ABSTRACT: Ambition is a uniquely human, complex personality trait. Although the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition mentions ambition only once, in a peripheral comment concerning narcissistic personality disorder, psychopathological states associated with ambition are commonly encountered in everyday life. Ambition has been linked to narcissism, power, and dominance, but it is distinct from each of these concepts. Although the development of ambition is most strongly influenced by social, cultural, and demographic factors, evidence suggests that genetic and biological factors also contribute.This article describes how ambition-related psychopathologies can manifest as 1) misalignment of ambitions and capabilities; 2) "blind ambition"; 3) distortions associated with bipolar and other mood disorders; 4) amalgams of ambition with Machiavellian traits, psychopathy, narcissism, and sadism (i.e., dark triad/tetrad traits); and 5) amotivation/apathy syndrome deficits associated with general medical and psychiatric conditions.The field requires more robust measures for assessing ambition, further delineation of ambition-related psychopathologies, and effective treatments for these conditions.

Purpose in Life: Addressing Transdiagnostic Psychopathologies Concerning Patients' Sense of Purpose.

ABSTRACT: Having a purpose in life is strongly associated with well-being and quality of life. Some individuals develop their sense of purpose early in life and can sustain lifelong ideals. In contrast, we identify four transdiagnostic syndromes where purpose in life is impaired: 1) deficiencies in generating purpose; 2) loss of purpose due to traumatic events such as catastrophic illnesses or bereavements; 3) conflicts due to crossed purposes; and 4) maladaptive purposes, such as life-limiting single-minded goals, dominating others, or exacting revenge. Several psychotherapies associated with positive and existential psychologies help patients construct, reconstruct, or retain a sense of purpose. However, given the strong links between a sense of purpose and beneficial health and mental health outcomes, the authors suggest that many patients in psychiatric treatment including psychotherapies will benefit from attention to these issues. This article reviews approaches for assessing and addressing purpose in life in psychiatric treatment, to enhance patients' healthy sense of purpose where this characteristic is impaired.

A Direct Observation Form for Evaluation of the Psychiatric Interview: Pilot Testing During the Psychiatry Clerkship.

OBJECTIVES: The authors evaluated the validity of a structured direct observation form (DOF) to assess medical student performance on psychiatric interviews for use in the psychiatry clerkship. METHODS: One hundred and forty-eight third-year medical students were evaluated by two DOFs completed by a supervising resident, fellow, attending, or another team member. One DOF was completed early (time 1) and the other late (time 2) during a 4-week psychiatry clerkship. RESULTS: The DOF showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.88-0.89). DOFs submitted at time 2 were positively associated with end-of-course clinical grades (p < 0.001); this association remained significant while controlling for time of academic year the course was completed, rater rank, complexity of the case, and difficulty of the interview (time 2 p < 0.001). Mean scores from the DOF were associated with the time of year students took the course with students assessed early in the academic year having lower average scores (p-values = 0.01 at time 1, 0.002 at time 2). Scores on time 1 DOFs were positively associated with rater rank (p = 0.005; residents gave higher scores than faculty). DOFs also correlated with an Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA) assessment of the interview (time 1 r = 0.76, p < 0.001; time 2 r = 0.79, p < 0.001), but not with shelf exam scores (time 1 r = 0.10, p = 0.24; time 2 r = 0.11, p = 0.21). CONCLUSIONS: A brief structured form evaluating medical student performance on psychiatric interviews provided valid information about performance by third-year medical students during the psychiatry clerkship.

Adages, Aphorisms, and Proverbs in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy: Tools for Assessment and Treatment.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to examine how adages, aphorisms, and proverbs arise in psychiatric management and psychotherapy and how they might be used to assist assessment and treatment. METHODS: A selective narrative literature review was conducted to supplement clinical observations and case vignettes. RESULTS: Adages appear to act as heuristic cognitive structures that serve as shortcuts for assessing situations, educating, persuading, aiding emotional self-regulation, and influencing courses of action. Some types of psychotherapy-such as dialectical behavior therapy, rational emotive behavior therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy-and self-help programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous routinely utilize adages. The extent to and contexts in which adages spontaneously arise during general psychiatric and psychotherapeutic interactions have not been systematically studied. Clinicians can ascertain patients' favorite adages and appraise how patients respond to other sayings through exploratory questioning and by evoking responses to stock series of adages. As therapeutic tools, adages may help patients more easily conceptualize clinicians' interpretations and insights and may serve as encouraging affirmations. CONCLUSIONS: Considering the potential utility of adages as therapeutic cognitive scaffolds, how patients and clinicians spontaneously use adages, how adages are used therapeutically, and the adages most suitable for particular patients in particular circumstances deserve further study. In psychiatric management and psychotherapy, clinicians' sensitivity to timing and patients' circumstances, culture, and receptivity may determine whether introducing a particular aphorism or proverb will have a positive impact or come across as a vapid and potentially harmful platitude.

Money Matters in Psychiatric Assessment, Case Formulation, Treatment Planning, and Ongoing Psychotherapy: Clinical Psychoeconomics.

ABSTRACT: Trainees often receive little guidance concerning money matters in patients' lives and treatment, that is, clinical psycho-economics. Accordingly, this article considers: a) practical approaches to inquiring about intrapsychic and interpersonal influences of money matters pertinent to psychiatric assessment; b) how money matters should impact case formulation; c) how money matters realistically impact treatment planning; and d) money matters in ongoing psychotherapy affecting transference, countertransference, and clinical supervision. To supplement their clinical experiences, the authors conducted a limited narrative review via PubMed, followed by snowballing for articles of interest. Evidence suggests that money matters influencing intrapsychic and interpersonal lives commonly cause emotional distress, generating a range of dysfunctional behaviors. These reactions manifest as explicit conflicts, implicit issues, and unequivocal money-related pathologies. Clinical vignettes illustrate specific issues. By explicitly addressing money matters in patient's intrapsychic and interpersonal lives, trainees can enrich their assessments, case formulations, treatment planning, and ongoing psychotherapy.

Psychiatrists' Cognitive and Affective Biases and the Practice of Psychopharmacology: Why Do Psychiatrists Differ From One Another in How They View and Prescribe Certain Medication Classes?

ABSTRACT: Cognitive and affective biases impact clinical decision-making in general medicine. This article explores how such biases might specifically affect psychiatrists' attitudes and prescribing patterns regarding two medication classes (stimulants and benzodiazepines) and addresses related issues. To supplement personal observations, selective PubMed narrative literature searches were conducted using relevant title/abstract terms, followed by snowballing for additional pertinent titles. Acknowledging that there are many more types of biases, we describe and use clinical vignettes to illustrate 17 cognitive and affective biases that might influence clinicians' psychopharmacological practices. Factors possibly underlying these biases include temperamental differences and both preprofessional and professional socialization. Mitigating strategies can reduce the potentially detrimental impacts that biases may impose on clinical care. How extensively these biases appear, how they differ among psychiatrists and across classes of medication, and how they might be most effectively addressed to minimize harms deserve further systematic study.

Thirty-Minute Psychiatric Management Visits in Academic Medical Centers: Framing and Exploring Distinct Clinical-Educational Social Processes.

ABSTRACT: To address high clinical demand and manage workflow, some university-based practice settings are tending to replace traditional hour-long outpatient appointments with 30-minute psychiatric management visits, which must comply with multiple regulatory requirements for documentation and billing. This care model can significantly shape the culture of psychiatric treatment and education. Based on the limited published literature on this topic and pooled experiences of faculty, residents, and administrators, this article offers observations and raises questions concerning 1) clinical, educational and administrative benefits, limitations, and challenges for conducting 30-minute psychiatric visits in training contexts; 2) how administrative impositions affecting resident and faculty time and attention impact clinical encounters; 3) how various teaching settings manage regulatory requirements differently; and 4) considerations for education needs and opportunities, research gaps, and policy implications. Quality of care and education could be improved by judicious overhaul of administrative requirements to minimize burdens offering little clinical or educational value.

The DSM-5 Clinical and Public Health Committee (CPHC): operations, mechanics, controversies and recommendations.

BACKGROUND: For DSM - 5, the American Psychiatric Association Board of Trustees established a robust vetting and review process that included two review committees that did not exist in the development of prior DSMs, the Scientific Review Committee (SRC) and the Clinical and Public Health Committee (CPHC). The CPHC was created as a body that could independently review the clinical and public health merits of various proposals that would fall outside of the strictly defined scientific process. METHODS: This article describes the principles and issues which led to the creation of the CPHC, the composition and vetting of the committee, and the processes developed by the committee - including the use of external reviewers. RESULTS: Outcomes of some of the more involved CPHC deliberations, specifically, decisions concerning elements of diagnoses for major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorder, catatonia, and substance use disorders, are described. The Committee's extensive reviews and its recommendations regarding Personality Disorders are also discussed. CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of our experiences, the CPHC membership unanimously believes that external review processes to evaluate and respond to Work Group proposals is essential for future DSM efforts. The Committee also recommends that separate SRC and CPHC committees be appointed to assess proposals for scientific merit and for clinical and public health utility and impact.

Addressing Suffering in Patients With Psychiatric Disorders.

BACKGROUND: Patients with psychiatric disorders (as well as general medical conditions) often describe their lives in terms of suffering. Although suffering is honored as a central focus of physicians' concerns, it is not even indexed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition. Generally connoting severe, prolonged distress, suffering can be distinguished from pain, depression, and anxiety. The aims of this article are to consider whether attending to suffering per se in psychiatric patients merits attention independent of other commonly assessed psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and conventional distress, and how targeting suffering per se might add value to psychiatric patient care. METHODS: Sources for this article were obtained via a selective literature search in PubMed using the terms "suffering" in the title and the terms "psychiatric disorder," "mental illness," "assessment," "measurement," "scale," "existential suffering," and "unbearable suffering." Articles of interest were followed up using a snowball technique to examine "similar articles" and "cited by" titles to find additional pertinent articles. RESULTS: Definitions of suffering in the medical literature stress its subjectivity, particularity, complexity, and connection to a wide variety of noxious sensations, as well as real and anticipated deficits, losses, and thwarted motivations. These can affect the entire spectrum of universal human needs, from basic biological issues through intrapsychic, interpersonal, and social issues, encompassing existential concerns of meaning, purpose, and transcendence. Based on these factors, a definition of suffering in patients with psychiatric disorders is proposed. Although efforts to measure suffering have been limited and numerous gaps in the literature are evident, several scales may offer suitable bases for the study of suffering in patients with psychiatric disorders. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Ascertaining sources of suffering may require new types of inquiry and additional time. Well-described, evidence-informed strategies and time-honored psychotherapy techniques are available for addressing the numerous concerns that contribute to suffering. Patients with psychiatric disorders whose distinct, multidimensional sources of suffering are identified, acknowledged, and addressed may experience better treatment quality, greater treatment satisfaction, and possibly better outcomes than those whose clinicians' attention is limited to conventional psychiatric signs and symptoms.

Can Trans-Syndromal Prototypes ("Types") Improve Depiction of Complex Psychiatric Cases?: An Alternative Way to Consider Concordant Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders and Their Contexts as Coherent Units for Research, Assessment, and Treatment Planning.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: In many psychiatric settings, patients with complex cases are the rule rather than the exception. These cases are characterized by multidiagnostic conditions, often complicated with distressed social contexts, for which few if any evidence-based practice guidelines exist. The aim of this hypothesis-generating article is to consider whether and how these cases might comprise trans-syndromal prototypes ("types"), coherent units that could serve as the basis for further study, assessment, and treatment planning. METHODS: For context, psychiatric and medical visit diagnoses and problem lists noted among principle visit diagnoses and "snapshot" portions of electronic medical records were tabulated for 293 psychiatric outpatients seen consecutively during a 1-week period at a university psychiatric clinic. By considering resulting comorbidity patterns in these records from the perspectives of clinicians caring for these patients, several commonly encountered diagnostic-problem sets emerged as candidate types. RESULTS: Of 293 patients, only 18% had a single diagnosis, 43% had two, 29% had three, and 7% had four or more noted. Occurring in assorted combinations, specific diagnostic areas noted included depressive disorders (68%, the large majority major depressive disorder recurrent), anxiety disorders (60%, the large majority generalized anxiety disorder, with or without panic disorder and/or social anxiety disorder), posttraumatic stress disorder (22%), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (17%), alcohol and substance abuse disorders (16%), personality disorders (11%), and bipolar disorders (18%). Several illustrative candidate types emerging from this population are described including major anxious depressive disorder, anxiety disorder secondary to ADHD, complex emotional instability disorder, multi-impulsive eating disorder, substance-dependent impoverished personality disorder, painful mood disorder, and complex personal and cultural trauma disorder. Other potential types are identified as well. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The types described here are but a small selection, because other settings including community mental health centers, private practices, public and private hospitals, and forensic facilities see a variety of other types as well. The study of types might provide important findings about pathogenesis, course, outcome, and treatment to augment information obtained from examination of individual diagnostic components.

Infective Messages: Definitions, Processes, and Implications for Trauma, Identities, Internal Conflicts, Psychotherapy, and Research.

BACKGROUND: Throughout life, individuals are bombarded by countless emotion-generating messages. Certain of these messages, for example, some insults, admonitions, rejections, challenges, or insightful declarations, can be viewed as "infective." Infective messages shock, puncture, adhere, disturb, and generate discernable host responses that assimilate, accommodate, or repel the intruding messages. Messages originating in one's own mind can stimulate psychological equivalents of autoimmune responses. Sometimes, these messages produce enduring psychological changes. Infective messages may traumatize, organize, or therapize. The aims of this article are to consider how infective messages a) relate to their messengers (vectors), structural characteristics, and recipient (host) factors; b) might contribute to trauma, personal identity formation, psychological conflicts, and emotional self-regulatory and cognitive heuristics; c) might inform the conduct of psychotherapy; and d) suggest future research. METHODS: Clinical observations were augmented with selective literature reviews. These sources contributed to perspectives regarding how certain messages might become infective; contribute to trauma, complex aspects of identity formation, and inner conflict; and inform the conduct of psychotherapy. RESULTS: Infective messages are commonly characterized by short, cogent communications emanating from credible sources that fall on vulnerable recipients' receptive, dispositional feeling states. These infective stimuli trigger reactive and defensive emotions and associated behaviors reflecting responses to significant threats or benefits relative to the individual's deepest needs, motivations, and values. Defensive overreactions may occur in response to messages to which individuals have been previously sensitized. Infective message contents appear to assimilate into constantly evolving, dynamic autobiographical brain maps consisting of highly specific neuronal networks that range from the brainstem through limbic structures to multiple cortical areas. Autobiographical maps built from message-injected contents may transform, akin to the incorporation of retroviruses or prions, to encode personal identities as aspects of the self. Contrasting maps may exist semi-independently of one another, continuously evolving, interacting, combining, dividing, conflicting, and contending with one another for attention. Achieving attentional awareness, such maps help structure how individuals conceptualize and communicate about their encoded traumas, diverse identities, and the conflicts among them. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: During psychotherapy, aftereffects of traumatizing infective messages might be detoxified by deconstructing, desensitizing, and processing messages' precise words and emotional envelopes in relation to contexts in which they were delivered, and the individual's inner dispositions at moments of impact. Carefully crafted, timely interpretations can be therapeutically infective, generating enduring positive impacts. Future studies using an assortment of approaches can test these perspectives.

Addiction psychiatry and addiction medicine - Strange bedfellows or separated at birth?

Substance use disorders (SUDs) are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States. SUDs commonly co-occur with other psychiatric and physical illness and often require management by an addiction specialist to comprehensively address patients' complex needs. The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) offers two pathways leading to addiction subspecialty board certification: addiction psychiatry (American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology) and addiction medicine (American Board of Preventive Medicine). We explore the history of the distinct but overlapping practices of addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry and describe the unique contributions of each field. Specifically, we review skill sets, specialty training, and career outcomes for physicians specializing in the assessment and management of SUDs. We conclude by highlighting collaboration between the two specialties and offer a shared vision for the future of addiction specialty care.

Sleepy Psychotherapists: How Clinicians' Biological Factors May Affect the Conduct of Psychotherapy.

OBJECTIVE: Numerous therapist variables and cognitive biases can affect the quality of the therapeutic alliance and the conduct and outcomes of psychotherapy. This article aims to examine factors that potentially affect clinician performance, including chronobiological variables of clinicians and patients. METHODS: The author reviewed literature pertaining to biological influences on human cognitive performance and considered how these factors may apply to the practice of psychotherapy. RESULTS: Biological factors potentially affecting the conduct and quality of psychotherapy were identified. These factors include decision fatigue, hunger, sleep deficit, shift work, and several chronobiological issues related to circadian rhythms and episodic ultradian rhythms. In addition, misaligned scheduling of psychotherapy sessions in relation to therapist and patient evening-morning chronotypes may impede the effectiveness of psychotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: The practice of psychotherapy is cognitively demanding, requiring that clinicians remain constantly alert and in command of their executive functions. Decreases in clinician alertness resulting from homeostatic depletion, chronobiologically misaligned schedules, and illness-associated factors may reduce the quality and benefit of psychotherapy sessions. Mitigation strategies are available. Investigations of these factors are needed.

Clinicians' Cognitive and Affective Biases and the Practice of Psychotherapy.

OBJECTIVE: Cognitive and affective biases are essentially connected to heuristic shortcuts in thinking. These biases ordinarily function outside of conscious awareness and potentially affect clinical assessment, reasoning, and decision making in general medicine. However, little consideration has been given to how they may affect clinicians in the conduct of psychotherapy. This article aims to illustrate how such biases may affect assessment, formulation, and conduct of psychotherapy; describe strategies to mitigate these influences; and draw attention to the need for systematic research in this area. METHODS: Cognitive and affective biases potentially influencing clinical assessment, reasoning, and decision making in medicine were identified in a selective literature review. The authors drew from their experiences as psychotherapists and psychotherapy supervisors to consider how key biases may influence psychotherapists' conduct of psychotherapy sessions. RESULTS: The authors reached consensus in selecting illustrative biases pertinent to psychotherapy. Included biases related to anchoring, ascertainment, availability, base-rate neglect, commission, confirmation, framing, fundamental attribution error, omission, overconfidence, premature closure, sunk costs, and visceral reactions. Vignettes based on the authors' combined experiences are provided to illustrate how these biases could influence the conduct of psychotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive and affective biases are likely to play important roles in psychotherapy. Clinicians may reduce the potentially deleterious effects of biases by using a variety of mitigating strategies, including education about biases, reflective review, supervision, and feedback. How extensively these biases appear among psychotherapists and across types of psychotherapy and how their adverse effects may be most effectively alleviated to minimize harm deserve systematic study.

Irritability Disorders in Adults: Diagnostic Categories Missing in Plain Sight?

Research into irritability has focused largely on its developmental and child-adolescent manifestations. Although irritability appears to be as elemental an experience as anxiety or depression, diagnoses highlighting irritability as the focal ingredient have yet to be delineated for adults. Instead, irritability-related diagnoses in adults have largely emphasized externalizing behaviors, depressed mood, and personality. Consequently, patients complaining of irritability are sometimes shoehorned into diagnostic categories that they do not experience as authentic representations of their lived experiences. This article proposes that the symptom of irritability might be productively reenvisioned as a focal point, analogous to anxiety and depression, around which irritability-related syndromes and disorders in adults might coalesce. If anxiety, depressive, insomnia, and pain disorders, why not irritability disorders? Both state and trait characteristics of irritability can lend themselves to DSM diagnostic frames. Based on clinical observations, specific irritability disorders in adults can be envisioned, modeled as Irritability Disorder of Adulthood, Irritability Disorder Secondary to Another Medical Condition, Substance-Induced Irritability Disorder, Adjustment Disorder With Irritable Mood, and the like. Further delineation of irritability phenomena, syndromes, and possible disorders in adults is warranted to advance investigation, guide assessment, and improve treatment.

Managing Patients With Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa: When Is Enough, Enough?

OBJECTIVE: Approximately 20% of patients with anorexia nervosa develop severe and enduring anorexia nervosa (SE-AN), manifest by decades-long illnesses. At certain points, demoralized and/or based on judicious appraisals of the seeming futility of further professional treatment to radically alter their course, some SE-AN patients decide that "enough is enough" and opt out of intensive treatment. This article considers courses and treatment options available at these stages for patients, families, and clinicians. METHODS: The author uses clinical illustrations, Socratic questioning, and available literature to explore questions of treatment strategies with patients struggling with SE-AN. RESULTS: SE-AN patients have frequently received care in varieties of medical, psychiatric, and specialized eating disorders inpatient, residential, partial hospital, and outpatient treatment settings. Patients may reject further high-intensity treatment for judicious or capricious reasons, but may still accept lower intensity treatments. Some may reject any and all offers of treatment. Clinicians' treatment recommendations, not always coinciding with patients' wishes, are influenced by numbers of clinical, social, and professional pressures, including those from families, treatment settings, regulatory bodies, and payors. CONCLUSIONS: When managing patients with decades-long disease and multiple comorbidities, clinicians must be realistic about the low odds of effecting cure and adjust treatment expectations accordingly. For patients with SE-AN, a variety of low-intensity treatment approaches, at times extending to palliative and hospice care, may be useful. Clinicians should always strive to provide humane comfort and support, as closely aligned to patients' judicious wishes as realistically possible.