Top of Mind

Smarter Screen Usage for Families

By Tracy S. Cummings, MD, Associate Chief Medical Officer for Clinical Excellence and Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Lindner Center of HOPE Medical school was an intense experience filled with mass information consumption regarding physiological health, followed by residency and fellowship focused on mental health care amounting to nine years of training to be […]

Identifying School Struggles

Nicole Jederlinic, DO Lindner Center of HOPE Staff Psychiatrist and Medical Director for the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Acute Unit at Lindner Center of HOPE As an inpatient and outpatient child / adolescent psychiatrist, I see children and teens, and, consequently, their families facing a wide range of mental health conditions. In the wake of the […]

How Does Exercise Help Me, and How Do I Get Started When I Don’t Have The Motivation?

By: Angela Couch, RN, MSN, PMHNP-BC, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner The research is in, and it’s clear. Exercise can help with depression, anxiety and cognitive decline, not to mention the physical benefits which we are all probably familiar with already. Physical inactivity can also be a risk factor for depression and anxiety. What are the ways […]

PANS & Autoimmune Encephalitis: When Infection and Immune Dysfunction Present as Psychiatric Illness

When I started my career as a nurse practitioner in 2017, I couldn’t have guessed that I’d end up where I am today – a psychiatric provider treating children, adolescents, and adults with a largely misunderstood and relatively controversial diagnosis that causes severe neuropsychiatric symptoms due to a misdirected immune response. Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome […]

OCD’s 10 Biggest Tricks

OCD is a common disorder and affects 1 in 40 people, it is also the 3rd most common psychiatric condition. This disorder can be very tricky and tries to tell lies to keep people trapped in anxiety. Below are the 10 common tricks it tries to use to keep the anxiety lingering as well as […]

A Holistic Approach: Yoga for Trauma Recovery

Understanding Trauma The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is responsible for our “fight, flight or freeze” response and has been essential to our survival since the beginning of our existence. In the case of traumatic, threatening emotional, mental and physical experiences, this fear response can become altered. Connection between the amygdala and hypothalamus causes change to […]

Caught in the weeds: The impact of cannabis on mental health

By: Christine Collins, MD, Lindner Center of HOPE Addiction Psychiatrist       Legalization of cannabis is rapidly expanding across the world. To date, 17 states (and DC) in the US have legalized marijuana for all uses, and another 19 states have legalized it for medical purposes only. The media tends to portray cannabis and […]

Transitioning to Young (and not quite) “Adult”hood

Jennifer L. Farley, PsyD Lindner Center of HOPE, Associate Chief of Psychological Services Congratulations! Your child graduated from high school!  And now…   what? Many are busy selecting their fall semester college courses and buying necessities for their dorm room. Others have chosen to delay college and work instead, using time to consider their future. Some opted […]

Is our biological clock leading us to gain weight?

The role of the circadian system in obesity and disordered eating By Nicole Mori Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner The circadian system is the body’s endogenous timekeeper, a network of hierarchically-organized structures (“clocks” or “oscillators”) in nucleated cells, which regulates a variety of biological processes (including the cell cycle, metabolism, growth, development and sleep/activity cycles) by generating outputs […]

Promoting Positive Food Habits in Children

  By Elizabeth Mariutto, PsyD, CEDS, Clinical Director of Eating Disorder Services “How do I encourage mindful eating for my kids?” I often have patients come in with histories of well-intended parents who promoted diets or restrictive eating in the attempts to help their kids become “healthy.” When they come to me to rewire their […]

“This above all: to thine own self be true…” – Shakespeare

By Tracy Suzanne Cummings, MD  Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry  If you have ever been a passenger on an airplane, you have heard the directive to don your own oxygen mask first before attempting to help someone else with theirs. Perhaps as February’s decorative hearts and cupids fill our visual fields, we can consider […]

A Look at Binge Eating Disorder: What it is and How to Treat

Byline:  Anna I. Guerdjikova, PhD, LISW Binge eating disorder (BED) is the most common eating disorder in adults. The lifetime prevalence of BED has been estimated to be 2.0% for men and 3.5% for women, higher than that of the commonly recognized eating disorders anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Of note, BED is found in […]

Good Food for Great Mood

Nutritional Psychiatry and Wellness By Anna I. Guerdjikova, PhD, LISW, CCRC Director of Administrative Services, Harold C. Schott Foundation Eating Disorders Program The connection between health in general and the foods we consume has been known since the dawn of human kind, and Hippocrates is credited with the “Let food be thy medicine” saying. The […]

Pros and Cons of TMS Therapy – Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is an innovative treatment for depression. Depression is common and affects 1 in 10 adults. Only a fraction of individuals suffering from depression seek treatment. Of those who do, greater than 30% fail to achieve satisfactory improvement. Not all patients improve when treated with medications or psychotherapy. Up to 25% of […]

Grief During the Holidays

By Danielle J. Johnson, MD, FAPA Lindner Center of HOPE, Chief Medical Officer Many people have experienced loss of several types during the COVID-19 pandemic – employment, financial security, social connections, a sense of safety, and loved ones.  The way we grieve has changed because we cannot rely on our support systems to be physically […]

When To Seek Treatment For Anxiety

  By Angela Couch, RN, MSN, PMHNP-BC Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, Lindner Center of HOPE Anxiety is a common symptom. Anxiety is a part of everyone’s lives, we have all experienced it to one degree or another. Believe it not, anxiety serves some useful purposes. Anxiety can help give you the drive to make a change, […]

Can you blueberry your way out of depression? The evidence on dietary supplements

  By Nicole Mori, RN, MSN, APRN-BC Research Advanced Practice Nurse, Lindner Center of HOPE Depression is a common mental health complaint.  Although there are effective treatments available, many patients fail to experience satisfactory improvement.  There has been increased interest in nutritional supplements as an adjunct or alternative to medications in the treatment of depression.  […]

Am I shopping too much?

  By Jessica Kraft, APRN, PMHNP-BC, Psychiatric Mental-Health Nurse Practitioner, Lindner Center of HOPE Everyone needs to shop from time to time, but at what point does shopping become a problem? And is this a diagnosis? Compulsive buying disorder (CBD) is a mental health condition characterized by “excessive, impulsive, and uncontrollable purchase of products in […]