Szalavitz's latest book is Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential — and Endangered. It is co-written with Dr. Bruce Perry, a leading expert in the neuroscience of child trauma and recovery.
The “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous has long been seen as holy writ by AA members. But for the first time ever, recovering alcoholics, scholars and the public will have access to the original manuscript, including editorial …
The stories boggle the mind: in August, a 28-year-old Washington woman claimed to be the victim of a mindless acid attack, and almost won the ultimate prize in attention-seeking — an appearance on Oprah — before admitting she …
An excellent front-page story by Amy Harmon in Sunday’s New York Times told a heart-rending tale of two cousins. Thomas McLaughlin, 24, was given a promising experimental drug to fight his life-threatening skin cancer in a clinical trial.
Imagine that you had cancer and a judge mandated that you receive a treatment first introduced in the 1930s — one that had been described, by the world’s leading medical evidence–review group, as having “no experimental …
America’s most visible portraits of recovery from addiction are not pretty. There’s the spoiled, out-of-control celebrity entering rehab to get a career boost (see Lohan, Lindsay), or to atone for bad behavior (see Gibson, Mel), …
As I wrote recently, many of our most useful medications come from bizarre sources, ranging from mold from Adriatic castles to Gila monster spit and horse urine. Soon, cockroach brains may be added to this profoundly unappetizing list.
The California Beer and Beverage Distributors association, which describes itself on its website as “a nonprofit trade association representing over 100 beer distributors and brewer/vendor members,” has donated $10,000 to a group …
For the first time, human eggs have been matured in a three-dimensional “artificial ovary,” a development that could one day make in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment easier and more effective.
Medical students tend to hold negative stereotypes about depression when they suffer from the disorder themselves. Why? The high-pressure, cutthroat environment of medical school may be to blame.
California may be considering the full legalization of marijuana, but in Texas, a student was recently suspended from school for having red eyes.
Some people go to infamous extremes to get high — smoking dried toad venom, for example, or in one Northern culture, drinking the urine of reindeer that are tripping on psychedelic mushrooms. And yet, stranger sources than …
Only three medications are approved by the government to treat alcoholism: Antabuse (disulfiram), Revia (naltrexone) and Campral (acamprosate). None is anything close to a cure, but a new review of the research on acamprosate …
The Dutch are known for their liberal attitudes toward sex and drugs: while not officially legal, marijuana use and sale in “coffee shops” is tolerated in The Netherlands, as is prostitution, most notoriously in the street …
