Grand Rounds

An Integrated Neuropsychiatric Approach to Functional Neurological Disorder

This presentation was last reviewed on January 21, 2025, and broadcast live online on April 19, 2023, from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET.

Placebo Effects: From Laboratory Mechanistic Research to Clinical Research

Despite growing evidence that placebo effects significantly impact outcomes in both pain and mental health treatment, clinicians often underutilize these mechanisms in everyday practice. This gap persists due to limited education on the neurobiology of placebo responses and how to ethically integrate expectancy, patient-clinician interaction, and learning history into care. This presentation addresses this clinical blind spot by translating laboratory-based discoveries into actionable clinical strategies. Attendees will gain practical tools to recognize and leverage placebo mechanisms to enhance therapeutic response, particularly in chronic pain and mental health contexts, leading to more informed, personalized, and effective patient care.

Violence 101: Essential Elements of Violence Risk Management

This presentation was last reviewed on January 21, 2025, and broadcast live online on March 22, 2023, from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET.

Beyond Psychedelics: Set and Setting in General Psychiatric Practice

This presentation will help clinicians optimize both patient mindset ("set") and treatment environment ("setting") to improve psychiatric outcomes through recognition of the impact of expectancy effects and therapeutic alliance. Application of “set” and “setting” principles to psychopharmacology will help clinicians improve adherence, leverage placebo effects and reduce nocebo effects. Ultimately, this presentation aims to shift the focus away from "what" treatments are delivered to "how" they are implemented. By attending, participants will gain actionable strategies to enhance therapeutic outcomes, improve medication adherence, and create supportive settings that foster patient stability and growth.

Grand Rounds: Cuddle Me, But Don't Smother Me: Healing Attachment Ambivalence in the Therapeutic Relationship

This presentation explores the challenges of working with patients who struggle with relationship ambivalence through a clinical case discussion. Patients caught between the needs for connection and independence often carry early developmental disruptions, such as impairments in whole-object relations and object constancy—milestones critical for healthy individuation. An object relations framework helps identify these gaps and address them through the therapeutic relationship. A here-and-now approach invites the therapist to attune to enactments, ruptures, and regressions—often rooted in fears of abandonment or intrusion—and to explore them collaboratively. By containing and processing projected affects, the therapist fosters the patient’s capacity for reflection, self-soothing, and sustaining stable object relations. Finally, the presentation will highlight how termination often stirs fears of abandonment and offers a crucial opportunity for patients to experience endings as healthy goodbyes rather than as rejection

Meyerhoff Lecture: The Hero's Journey In Psychiatry

We will explore the profound impact that psychiatrists and therapists have on patient outcomes, known as the psychiatrist and therapist effects. Delving into the importance of reflective function, we will discuss how a psychiatrist’s ability to perceive and interpret mental states influences treatment effectiveness. Additionally, we will examine the dynamics of transference and countertransference, uncovering how awareness of these processes deepens therapeutic connection and clinical insight. Finally, we will share key steps in the psychiatrist’s own personal and professional journey toward growth, emphasizing self-awareness, reflective practice, and continual development.