RIP Our Beloved Dog Boy

Today is one of the saddest days in my life for our beloved dog "Boy" died yesterday at the age of thirteen. Grieving an animal can be as painful as losing a close family member. I lost my mom eighteen years ago and my dad five years ago and what I'm going through today is very similar. I had also lost a dog when I was 15 and I remember how empty it had left me.

I had already written a blog entry about Boy (whose original name was Freud but became Boy with time). He had been fighting a terrible form of cancer known as myeloma for the last three years. He put all his energy into this fight and I can only have the utmost respect and admiration for the courage he showed during his fight. When, three years ago, we thought he was gonna die in a matter of days, we were all devastated. It seems that our prayers were answered as Boy got to live another three years and we cherished every single day that we got to spend with him since then. Though taking multiple medicines including chemotherapy, he continued to live happy and for the most part pain free.

Despite multiple eye surgeries and being blind in the end, he never ceased to play and to show us unconditional love. This is a lesson that all human beings should learn from him: to be compassionate, dedicated and to love unconditionally. His seven pounds of flesh and blood showed that no matter the size, living beings can do spectacular things. He made me firmly believe that dogs are man's best friends.

I want to pay tribute to his existence by posting some pictures of him and a video.

We will miss Boy terribly. All his naughty habits and special kindness. We will never forget his special way of playing with a ball as he would always go run for it but never bring it back. We thought it was the cutest thing. We will never forget his favorite toy Charlie:

We will never forget how he used to play with his basket or any rug. This was his special way of playing by himself:

I can only believe that Boy is now watching upon us from Dogs' Heaven where he definitely deserves to be:

Dear Boy,

We will always love you. I hope you understand that we had to put an end to your suffering yesterday. You never deserved to suffer the way you did in your last days. We couldn't let you keep on being in pain for us. We know you struggled until the end to stay with us, to stay for us. But now the pain is gone and you can enjoy your after life.

Das Unheimliche With A Vengeance

Every once in a while, my mind drifts away and ends up thinking about patients that I haven't seen for a long time, wondering how they are now doing and if I ended up being of any help to them. More often than not, these patients tend to call or show up at my practice in a matter of weeks. I must say that their timely appearance always triggers a feeling that Freud best described as "Unheimliche" or Uncanny in English.

Since seeing again a former patient usually means they are not doing well, I now tend to dread those times when I think about patients.

So, are my thoughts responsible for my former patients not doing well or can their pain somewhat trigger my thoughts? Unfortunately and more realistically, I have to assume it is just a coincidence!

Still, can you believe that a patient I last saw four years ago and thought about last week showed up this morning at my practice?

Cheating On Adam Richman With Fast Food Sushi

Many thanks to @Sebastien_Lopez for forwarding this great video to me. I must say my allegiance to the Great Adam Richman & Man Vs Food is now in jeopardy. The concept of mixing fast food with sushi seems, to me, like the greatest idea mankind has ever come up with (way ahead of Quantum Physics, Psychoanalysis & General Relativity). I can't way to get home and try this as it might bring balance to the force of the Sunday Burger Challenge.

ONE WORD: YUMMY!

Psychiatry 101: Misconceptions About Psychiatric Disorders

It seems the media and perhaps the collective unconscious carry many misconceptions about psychiatric disorders. As a psychiatrist, it often is very difficult to explain to people that what they believe is absolutely wrong as I've heard so many times that they'd rather believe what they see on TV than a highly trained professional. Notice that I chose to illustrate this post with a picture of Freud who wasn't, contrary to what most people believe, a psychiatrist: he was a neurologist!

So here are a few facts that everyone should know:

- Antidepressant medicines aren't addictive. 90% of them do not have a sedative effect. Anti-anxiety medicines and sleeping pills are, on the contrary, addictive. Antidepressant treatments are long treatments. In most cases, they have to be taken over at least a six-month period and sometimes up to five years or more. This is to prevent relapse and it is very important. More than half of the population will stop taking their treatment when they feel better. This is a mistake and it will lead to relapse.

- Multiple Personality Disorder (or Dissociative Identity Disorder) and Schizophrenia aren't the same thing. As a matter of fact, it seems everyone believes that patients suffering from schizophrenia have multiple personalities. This is wrong. Multiple Personality Disorder is classified amongst dissociative disorders which are considered a form of neurosis whereas schizophrenia is a psychosis. Dissociative Identity Disorder is mostly found in North America, it is a culture-dependent disorder (meaning it will only appear in some cultures as long as people believe it exists... Hollywood certainly played a role in the advent of this disorder in North America).

- Patients suffering from schizophrenia aren't dangerous. Serial killers aren't schizophrenic. They're usually either psychopaths or perverts.

- "My cousin used to take tons of pills. That is why she was sick". Honestly, do you believe that a physician would prescribe a treatment to make their patients ill? Do you believe that such a treatment would be sold in pharmacies? Do you believe that med schools would train students on how to make people ill? What you usually see is the tip of the iceberg: a relative who is not well and takes psychotropic medicine. Believe me, they would be doing far worse if they did not take any treatment. Sometimes treatments aren't 100% effective and some cases are more complicated than others. We, psychiatrists, as any other physician are not almighty and can't cure everyone. Would you say that a diabetic has high blood sugar because they take insulin?

That's it for today! More to come soon! Stay tuned!

Imagine A World Where Shrinks Are Rappers

In my constant quest to reach Absurdity Nirvana, I had this vision of a world where psychotherapists would be rappers. Wouldn't it be great?

Imagine if you were to go see a shrink and they were dressed like Snoop Doggy Dog with a huge pimp rapper bling dollar sign chain around their neck, wearing basketball apparel and a hat. Wouldn't it be cool if during a psychotherapy session instead of saying "I understand you feel anger toward your mom", they were to say "Yo G., your mom was a bi-atch"?

Another example: "It sounds like you have unresolved issues with your father" would translate into: "Yo, crank it, smoke that MFer".

Best of all, would be to spot your shrink on a week-end driving his hummer, blasting the whole  neighborhood with Snoop Doggy Dog's music and shouting "Yo Freud iz in da houz".

Food for absurd thoughts, right?

How To Effectively Convince Yourself And Your Readers That You Are Smart

Writing is not easy. Many people write but only a few get to be be known or appreciated by their peers for it. In this short post, I will give the lucky reader some advice on how to become a world famous writer.

Firt of all, you should keep in mind to use lots of different, unusual and long words (like phylogenetic or ontogenetic). By doing so, you will effectively convince your readers and yourself that you are amongst the smartest people on earth. Don't hesitate to use technical terms, preferably from a very specific, obscure and uninteresting field. Though the advent of search engines make it easier for people to look up the definition of words, if you put enough tedious terms in your writing, most people will give up trying to understand them and your thoughts as a whole. They will just assume that you are very smart. Keep in mind that they might not continue to read your literature but they will certainly tell all their friends that they did and loved it. Their friends will, in turn, read or at least try to read your prolific literary production and confirm the fact that they loved it. Through this chain reaction, you will evidently become world famous and so rich that you won't have enough time in your life to eat all the cheeseburgers that your freshly made fortune will afford you to buy.

One fun thing to do is to use the same sentences and just mix up the words. It will produce the same effects and your audience will not notice your clever trick. They will just assume, once again, that your super smart brain is so super smart (makes sense, right?) that you are able to write beautiful and intelligent prose on a constant basis. It is, as a matter of fact, rumored in Area 51 that many world famous psychoanalysts traveled forward in time just to read this blog entry before heading back to their own time. How else could their success and writings be explained?

I should probably stop giving you tips right here as I wouldn't want you to become more famous than me!

Don't hesitate to thank me when you finally make it big time. Please, keep in mind that all my tips are provided free of charge and that I will not tolerate people attempting to donate money to this blog.

Freud, Einstein, The Universe, Quantum Teleportation & The Future of IT

It turns out that I've been very been much interested in Quantum Mechanics lately. This isn't a new hobby of mine as I remember, when I was in High School, having a hard time deciding which studies I wanted to pursue. The fascinating world of Quantum Mechanics as well as my long interest in Astrophysics seemed as important to me as the exhilarating psychoanalytic theories of Freud.

If I had to name the most significant scientific figures of the 20th century, I would without any hesitation mention Albert Einstein & Sigmund Freud. They have both uncovered new fields of science and had the audacity and courage to question the established knowledge.

I can't help thinking that there are still great discoveries to be made and that our knowledge of the fabric of space and time is still very limited, probably in the same way that our understanding of consciousness is. My recent post about microtubules & consciousness shows that the world of Quantum Physics and the world of Biology are about to collide and maybe lead to a better understanding of who and what we are.

As for Quantum Mechanics & geekier concerns, I recently stumbled accross this news:

Scientists were able to successfully teleport information between 2 entangled photons across a ten-mile distance! This is an absolute great achievement and when you think of it, it might pave the way for unlimited bandwidth over unlimited distances! Imagine an Internet not limited by bandwidth concerns!

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/05/quantum-teleportation-achieved-over-ten-miles-of-free-space.ars

Das Unheimliche

Two weeks after my last blog post, I had this weird experience that definitely qualifies as "unheimlich".

I woke up around 7 am on a week day and for some strange reason, I started thinking about the novel Moby Dick. I thought I had never read it and that it would be a good idea to read it in the near future.

I got up a few minutes later and went to my computer in order to check my emails... It so happened that I had received a notification from Twitter stating that @herman_melville had just started following my Twitter updates during the night!

This lead me to experience what Freud called "Das Unheimliche" which could be translated in English by uncanny or un-home-ly! This feeling was particularly exacerbated in light of my previous blog post on the topic of neoconsciousness!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uncanny