Articles Written By: paul

Tardive Dyskinesia

TD is characterized by repetitive, involuntary, purposeless movements. Features of the disorder may include grimacing, tongue protrusion, tongue movements within the mouth. The more classic TD symptoms are lip smacking,…
Tardive Dyskinesia

Tardive Dyskinesia

TD is characterized by repetitive, involuntary, purposeless movements. Features of the disorder may include grimacing, tongue protrusion, tongue movements within the mouth. The more classic TD symptoms are lip smacking,…
Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath 1932 – 1963 You the reader must think I have a fascination for artists who had depression or bipolar disease whose life ended in suicide. You are absolutely…
Is Elon Musk Bipolar

Is Elon Musk Bipolar

So is Elon Musk bipolar? Elon Musk’s persona has been described in the lay press recently.  He is described in many ways but one. Why not say what it is?…
Homelessness Revisted

Homelessness Revisted

Since my first article I have learned much by reading the news on many newspaper outlets. These last two weeks the SF Chronicle has run a special series on the…
Borderline Personality Disorder: Part 4

Borderline Personality Disorder: Part 4

Part 4 – Borderline Personality Disorder When I first read “Girl Interrupted” I was confused. She is in a taxi to a mental hospital. Her two week hospitalization became 18…

Personality Disorders: Type 2 and 3

Personality Disorders Type 2 and 3 Part 2 – Personality Disorders: Schizoid The Mayo Clinic has a post defining this personality disorder hence, p.d. This is an uncommon disorder and…
Psychedelics for Major Depression

Psychedelics for Major Depression

When it comes to Psychedelics for Major Depression an article caught my eye in today’s The Guardian (6/10/2019). “They broke my mental shackles: could magic mushrooms be the answer to…
Fear of Reoccurrence and Shame

Fear of Reoccurrence and Shame

I can relate to the fear of recurrence but not really the shame. My episodes of depression are much scarier to me than my hypomanias. I have had about seven…
Suicide and the Elderly

Suicide and the Elderly

In a previous article about suicide I quoted 2016 statistics. There are now statistics for 2017. These are reported annually by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). The overall…
Panic Attacks

Panic Attacks

Panic attacks are sudden episodes of intense fear that triggers a severe reaction much like a burst of adrenaline (epinephrine) as in a flight or fight reaction. The attacks are…

About Schizophrenia

          I have not written directly about the most serious of psychiatric diseases. Schizophrenia is the most disastrous of mental illnesses for those afflicted as well for family members. These…
William Styron – Major Depression Disease

William Styron – Major Depression Disease

William Styron - Major Depression Disease  by Paul Golden                        William Styron’s book Darkness Visible – A Memoir of Madness, (1990, Vintage) has become a Third Testament for the afflicted…
Anne Sexton: Bipolar Poet and Pulitzer Prize Winner

Anne Sexton: Bipolar Poet and Pulitzer Prize Winner

Anne Sexton: Bipolar Poet and Pulitzer Prize Winner                                          I just finished Diane Weed Middlebrooks’s biography of Anne Sexton; Houghton Miflin, 1991. Although the biographer does an in depth look at…

Lyndon Baines Johnson – A Bipolar President

Lyndon Baines Johnson – A Bipolar President                              Senate Years   The below article is  based on two books The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate written by…
Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was a veritable recluse in her home in Amherst the town of her birth. In 1870 a family friend, Thomas Higginson asked her if she ever desired to…
Loving Madness

Loving Madness

Bipolar disease affects many people. Loving Madness is a guide for loved ones of people suffering with bipolar disease. Perhaps the most important point for all people, family member or…
Puerto Vallarta—Hypomania

Puerto Vallarta—Hypomania

Puerto Vallarta—Hypomania and Second Major Depression At the end of my internship year at San Francisco General Hospital, in July of 1975, I flew off to Puerto Vallarta. The next…
Prodrome of Schizophrenia

Prodrome of Schizophrenia

It is commonly accepted that schizophrenia and bipolar disease are diagnosed in the third decade of life. But, what about early symptoms as far back as grade school that may…
Seasonal Affective Disorder

Seasonal Affective Disorder

Before getting into the subject of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) a review of the light spectrum is in order. The light we see is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) going through space.…
More About Postpartum Depression

More About Postpartum Depression

When parents think of the impending birth of their baby the usual emotions are excitement, joy and anxiety. The last thing on their mind is postpartum depression. The “Baby Blues”…

REMI Guide

This book, The REMI Guide (Response to Encounters with the Mentally Ill)  is one of many projects that have given me such satisfaction and are truly a labor of love.…
Abraham Lincoln and Major Depression

Abraham Lincoln and Major Depression

Abraham Lincoln and Major Depression During the Civil War: For over fifty years historians and psychiatrists have accepted the fact that Abraham Lincoln had major depression disorder. Also indicative of…
Stanislaus Passes Laura’s Law

Stanislaus Passes Laura’s Law

Why do only 18 of 58 Counties in California fund AOT, yet 46 of 50 States Do?                    8/8/2017 (My portion of rebuttal to Stanislaus County board of Supervisors) SAMHSA is…
Can Substance Abuse Cause Schizophrenia?

Can Substance Abuse Cause Schizophrenia?

Can Substance Abuse Cause Schizophrenia? This has been and remains a controversial subject. Certainly the concept of “dual diagnosis” is well accepted. I am going to review several articles to…
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome

Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome

Certainly since 1980 PTSD Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome has been considered a mental illness since it was added to the Diagnostic and Statical Manual volume III (DSM III). This was…
Homelessness and Mental Illness

Homelessness and Mental Illness

Homelessness and Mental Illness If you walk in San Francisco’s Union Square, or along Mission or Market Street or under the Highway 580 overpass you can see homelessness is epidemic.…
7000 Bodies Buried Under Campus

7000 Bodies Buried Under Campus

7,000 Bodies Buried Under Campus: Who Were in the Asylums of the 19th Century? In the mid-19th century “insane asylums also called lunatic asylums” housed for sure the worst of…
Does Marijuana Cause Mental Illness

Does Marijuana Cause Mental Illness

Does marijuana cause mental illness? Of course we all know that alcohol, marijuana, prescription and street drugs worsen major depression, bipolar depression and schizophrenia.  What about marijuana, in particular, CAUSING…
Teenage Suicide in America

Teenage Suicide in America

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), the leading advocacy group for suicide awareness and prevention, has published some disturbing statistics regarding teenage suicide in America as of 2015. While…
Postpartum Depression

Postpartum Depression

Postpartum Depression is a major depression occurring during or more likely within four weeks after a pregnancy. The incidence is approximately 10% of pregnancies. Postpartum depression may last up to…
Laura’s Law II

Laura’s Law II

First some background on the law and where it stood between conception in 2002 to 2010. Then an update to 2015. The law is intended to allow for an alternative…
Paul on Lets Talk Radio

Paul on Lets Talk Radio

Paul Golden MD is interviewed by Atlanta's Let's Talk radios host Alecia Hill. Listen to Paul's story and his many years of dealing with bipolar disease while a practicing physician.…
Mad Dog

Mad Dog

“Mad Dog” Winston Churchill called his episodes of depression  Mad Dog. So what happens when I get what I call the Big D. I awoke one day in 1976 in…
Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

The death of Cohen was one of several iconic singer/song writers in the latter half of 2016. I will be drawing on a wonderful and huge biography of Leonard written…
Holiday Depression

Holiday Depression

I attended an event hosted by the head nurse of the three dialysis units that I used for my patients during my practice. It was a “meet and greet” and…

My First Depression

My First Depression A foreboding of things to come occurred in the summer of 1973. I was 25 years old and in my third year of medical school. To say…
Laura’s Law

Laura’s Law

Laura’s Law (Also Called Assisted Outpatient Treatment or AOT) How do we prevent a seriously mentally ill (SMI) person from ending in the morass that is County mental facilities? The…
How Pets Help Bipolar Disease

How Pets Help Bipolar Disease

How Pets Help Bipolar Disease Pets and Mindfulness   I grew up in an apartment in Arlington, Virginia across the Potomac from D.C. Pets were not allowed and my father being…
Meeting Patch Adams

Meeting Patch Adams

When I was invited by the Physicians Organization Committee based in San Francisco to attend a lecture by Patch Adams at UCSF medical center,  I was ignorant as are many…
Nephrology

Nephrology

It occurred to me that I have been writing about the last four years about bipolar disorder. My memoir, Bipolar MD: My Life As a Physician with Bipolar Disorder, will…

What is Rapid Cycling?

What is Rapid Cycling? Most people with bipolar disorder will have between 0.7 and 0.9 episodes of depression or mania per year lasting three to six months. Between episodes euthymia…
Mindfulness

Mindfulness

Mindfulness The concept of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was developed by Dr. Jon Kabal-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in 1979. This method is used as a…
Bipolar Dictionary

Bipolar Dictionary

Bipolar Dictionary of Psychiatric Terms This is a bipolar dictionary of common psychiatric terms. Agoraphobia: one of the anxiety disorders characterized by feelings the environment to be unsafe, usually include…
Electric Shock Therapy

Electric Shock Therapy

Electric Shock Therapy or Electro-Convulsant Therapy - Commonly referred to as Electric Shock Therapy, ECT or electroconvulsant therapy, contrary to belief, is still very much part of therapy in the…
How Does Bipolar Feel?

How Does Bipolar Feel?

How Does Bipolar Feel? While having bipolar disease does not mean a person is always either feeling depressed (depressing) or feeling high (mania), people often ask, "How does bipolar feel?"…
Mental Health and Mass Shootings

Mental Health and Mass Shootings

Mental Health and Mass Shootings How is mental health related to the epidemic of mass shootings in recent years? Mass shooting, stabbing, clubbing, etc. is defined as victims of three…
How is Bipolar Diagnosed?

How is Bipolar Diagnosed?

How is bipolar diagnosed? Bipolar disease is a clinical diagnosis made on the basis of a series of diagnostic criteria, psychiatric evaluation, self-questionnaires, mood charts and individual retrospective evaluation at…

Famous People with Bipolar Disease

Famous People with Bipolar Disease People with bipolar disease and major depression can take some solace in the highly intelligent, creative artists, leaders, philosophers, writers and politicians who have been…
Bipolar Mania

Bipolar Mania

Bipolar Mania: Manic versus Enthusiastic For individuals who suffer with bipolar mania the onset of the first manic or hypomanic episode is very difficult to recognize. Sometimes even after multiple…
An Insider’s View of Bipolar Disease

An Insider’s View of Bipolar Disease

  • September 3, 2015
  • Books
An Insider's View of Bipolar Disease Do you wonder if you - or someone you love - could be suffering from bipolar disease? Do you want some straightforward information on…
What is Bipolar?

What is Bipolar?

What is Bipolar? Bipolar disease is a mood disorder and was previously referred to as manic-depressive disease. The mood disorders are major depression and bipolar disease. What is Bipolar Depression?…

Audio interview

Interview with the author of An Insider’s View of Bipolar Disease July 27, 2015 Created: Gail Woodard Gail Woodard interviews our newest author Dr. Paul Golden about his new book An…
What is Depression?

What is Depression?

What is Depression? Depression versus the Blues—In a nutshell: What is the difference between major depression and the blues? Everyone feels blue or sad many times. These feelings are usually…