Ah, love. That longed-for, sung-about, praised, desired, elusive, magical, state. The feeling that drives men to battle and women to drop out of college. The one thing that we all want above all else. We all want it. We crave it. Some people will die for it.

But what is it? And how do we even know if we are feeling it? Why do some people not even know if they are in love?

Come with me on a journey to learn about love. And find out why some people don’t know whether or not they’re “in love.”
First of all, can we define love? I started with some online dictionaries and was less than satisfied with what I found. Merriam-Webster, the old standard, provided the following:

You never thought it would happen - and somehow it did.

How to maintain your self respect while separated from the person you love the most.

Nobody gets married thinking that one day they will end up in tears yelling “it’s over.” Yet at least half the marriages in the United States break up at some point. Some forever, some for a while. The good news is that divorce is on the decline. The bad news is that marriage is on the decline, too, so the new stats might only be a false artifact of these new trends.

Today, most psychiatrists are corralled into a fake patient care philosophy that tries to convince us that the only treatment required is to keep our patients out of the hospital. Anything else we can do for them is optional and - most importantly - not reimbursable.

The standard of care has changed since I became a psychiatrist. As long as the insurance companies are protected from having to shell out big bucks for inpatient treatment, the well-being of the actual human beings we are treating is not really important.

Many people identify as having some sort of mental illness. Rock stars sing about mental illness. Writers write about it. Characters are described as being “ADD” or “OCD” as if these descriptors are adjectives. 

In some cases - even in many cases, I’ve heard people identify as actually being the mental illness: “I’m ADD.” “I’m OCD” “I’m bipolar.” People who actually suffer from these conditions are the first to tell you: Stop it! 
Nobody is served when people make fun of a mental illness or diagnose themselves. What counts as a mental illness? What makes someone really count as mentally ill, in need of treatment? Or able to respond to treatment? 

Rohan’s journey with mental illness has taken him from Medical School to prison. He is now managing his condition with both medication and therapy. This is a story of recovery and of perseverance. Rohan: I can’t forget to thank Dr. Vivian Chern Shnaidman for going above and beyond for me during this especially difficult time; you’re the proof that there are doctors who truly care about their patients, and for that I am so grateful.

Adam Bierman, Kurt Tazelaar, Raya Arbil and Dr. Vivian Shnaidman discuss political party conventions, police shootings, black lives matter and other current topics

Vivian is an expert in the application of psychiatry to legal matters, and has provided testimony in over 50 published court cases.

Vivian Chern Shnaidman, MD wrote Forensic Psychiatry: A Lawyer’s Guide, published by Elsevier, to help lawyers understand their psychiatric expert witnesses.

Recently one of Fox News’ television anchors asserted that her boss created a hostile work environment due to unwanted sexual advances. What exactly is a hostile work environment?

Hostile environment/sexual harassment occurs when the plaintiff employee’s work environment is made intolerable by sexual misconduct, or the work environment is permeated with unwelcome discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult, based upon sex, that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment. Unwelcome sexual conduct that interferes with job performance or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment creates a hostile work environment.

I recently had the pleasure of being on the Dr. Joy Show from Princeton Community Television. There I had the opportunity to discuss the field of  forensic psychiatry, and share about some of my experiences. If you are an attorney interested in finding out more about forensic psychiatry check out my comprehensive lawyers guide book on the subject.

Female sex offender evaluations, as with males evaluations, is predominately driven by the need to establish the likelihood of future recurrences of sexual offending behavior and to identify interventions that would reduce their risk of recidivism.

In order to make a determination of risk of sexual recidivism, one must consider the individual characteristics of the offender that increase or decrease the probability of recidivism. These are referred to as static and dynamic factors. Dynamic risk factors are amenable to change and the elements that are addressed in treatment and in the management of sexual offenders in order to reduce the risk of recidivism. Risk factors may indicate a higher risk of recidivism than other female sex offenders.

At times a forensic psychiatrist may be called on by the court or one of the parties to evaluation a defendant’s competency to stand trial. This evaluation involves a comprehensive assessment of the defendant’s mental status, the defendant’s understanding of the nature and objective of the legal proceedings, and the defendant’s capacity to assist in his or her defense. A competency to stand trial evaluation may also involve the administration of specialized psychological tests, depending on the particular clinical issue at hand (e.g., mental retardation, malingering).

When parents divorce and families break up, the standard for child custody is always the best interest of the child (or children). In order to determine the child’s best interests, a psychiatric evaluation is often used to assess the parents’ and/or the children’s mental statuses, any psychiatric illness or abnormality, the family dynamics, and any conditions or situations which would lead to a better understanding of what appropriate parenting time or custody arrangements would lead to the most psychologically beneficial living situation for the children. Additionally, any treatable psychiatric conditions can be assessed and appropriate treatment can be recommended to ensure the ongoing safety and a good future outcome for each child.

There comes times when a worker may be required to leave the workplace because of the experience of an extreme stressor on the job, disability, discipline, or concern about threat. That same worker may wish to return to the job, raising questions about whether the worker may effectively resume functioning. At this point there are  several kinds of evaluations conducted by forensic psychiatrists or psychologists to determine if a worker is fit to return to the job. The first, the fitness-for-duty evaluation (FFDE), is a specialized evaluation that occurs in safety-related or “high-risk” jobs such as fire fighting, police work, or security. The second, the return-to-work evaluation (RTE), occurs in more general situations in which the worker has been removed from the job because of disability.

Dr. Vivian Shnaidman, forensic psychiatric consultant and conference speaker, along with Adam Bierman and  Kurt Tazelaar, interviews Dinesh Sharma, well known Harvard  social scientist on the dynamics of the 2016 US election.

Forensic psychiatry versus the other side: Why the need for a forensic psychiatrist

Anyone who has ever been to court for any reason knows that people’s behavior in front of judges is not always polite, decorous, or appropriate. We often attribute the anxiety, yelling, or tears to the stress of the high-pressure situation, and many times, that’s all it is. But what about those cases that simply scream “crazy” from the very beginning?

These types of evaluations are among my favorite, although saying so out loud is possibly not quite politically correct. Still, I didn’t kill them, so let us consider what types of evaluations I might be asked to perform, and how these evaluations might be utilized in a court of law.