Jayson Blair

My first psychiatrist in New York warned me not to become "a professional patient." In the midst of news reports about me I had been approached by all sorts of people, including pharmaceutical companies whose medications I had not yet taken, to speak on their behalf with partially made-up narratives of a recovery that had not yet happened. Andy Behrman is the most high-profile bipolar "professional patient" out in the world of bipolar. I met Andy in late September 2007 after my friend Moira, at board member of Depression Bipolar Alliance-National Capital , introduced me to him and we arranged for him to come speak to all the DBSA groups in Washington and Baltimore. The event was sponsored by DBSA-NCA and the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance-Northern Virginia . I was being filmed that day by Samantha Grant, a documentary producer, and her crew from GUSH Productions, so the entire event was recorded. I can't bring myself to ask Sam for a copy of the recording, ...

After some recent successes with adolescents and young adults in college (and some older adults) who have the inattentive type of ADHD (called attention deficit disorder or ADD), I listened with great interest yesterday to a talk given by Dr. Yvonne Pennington at the CHADD "Ages and Stages of Learning and AD/HD" conference in Baltimore. Dr. Pennington is an author, an expert on positive parenting and ADHD/ADD and the mother of Ty Pennington, the host of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." I am always fascinated by experts who learn the bulk of their expertise from their own lives. Dr. Pennington focused on techniques that can be used, with or without medication, to help those with ADD/ADHD, and examined workplace issues, gender, genetics, medication, diagnosis, identification and evaluation, learning and treatment options, including ADHD/ADD coaching. Lots of helpful information to bring back to my clients and into treatment planning.