Treatment works best when it involves and empowers parents.

All children and adolescents act out occasionally, but those with conduct disorder consistently behave in unusually aggressive ways — sometimes resulting in property damage or physical injury. Examples of such behavior include stealing from parents, threatening schoolmates to extract pocket change, breaking windows in cars, and setting fires. Although children with conduct disorder may have normal intelligence, they tend to disrupt or skip classes and fall behind in school.

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), the criteria for conduct disorder consist of 15 behaviors that ...

Chronic activation of this survival mechanism impairs health.

For two years in a row, the annual stress survey commissioned by the American Psychological Association has found that about 25% of Americans are experiencing high levels of stress (rating their stress level as 8 or more on a 10-point scale), while another 50% report moderate levels of stress (a score of 4 to 7). Perhaps not surprising, given continuing economic instability in this country and abroad, concerns about money, work, and the economy rank as the top sources of stress for Americans.

Stress is unpleasant, even when it is transient. A ...

Psychotic symptoms, rather than unrecognized bipolar disorder, may underlie poor response.

Only one-third of patients with major depression achieve remission after trying one antidepressant. When the first medication doesn't adequately relieve symptoms, next-step options include adding a new drug to the first or switching to another drug. With time and persistence, nearly seven in 10 adult patients with major depression eventually find a treatment that works.

Of course, that also means that the remaining one-third of patients with major depression cannot achieve remission even after trying multiple options. Experts are hunting for ways to understand the cause of persistent ...

It was hoped that a medication normally given to Alzheimer's disease patients might help people with delirium, but a study found that it made the delirium worse.

A study found that a program of mindfulness therapy was about as effective as a maintenance dosage of medication at preventing a relapse of depression.

Q. Is The King's Speech, the movie chronicling the relationship between England's King George VI and his speech therapist, an accurate portrayal of stuttering?

A. Not only do those who created The King's Speech seem to have done their homework, but David Seidler, who wrote the script, has firsthand knowledge of the problem. In interviews, he has described himself as a "profound stutterer." Born in England, he moved with his family to the United States at the start of World War II to escape the bombs. At that point, his stuttering began.

In stuttering (or stammering — which may be ...