Clinical Factor 2010

thus looking for new, or innovative, or newly validated treatments. That is part of my clinician bias and that impacts my selection – almost all articles are on treatment issues. Those who know me and know that I am basically a clinical psychopharmacologist may be surprised that the selection below contains only a minority of articles on ‘new’ medications and articles presenting the results of psychopharmacology trials. Psychopharmacology has brought us a great many advances in the past, but, in my humble opinion, not much lately. As I do not believe that an umptieth comparison of two medications with minuscule differences in efficacy or side effects represents much clinical news, advance or something that may significantly improve one’s clinical practice, such comparisons are not included. Last but not least, this selection is not a competition, there are no winners. The articles are listed in references [2–16] alphabetically, not by any order of importance, preference or significance. Here is the selection: The first discussed article by Bosanac et al. [2] is actually an editorial review that discusses early intervention in psychotic disorders. The authors warn us that the early psychosis movement, however well-intentioned, has overreached itself, setting dogma before service. The authors point out that the evidence indicating benefits from early intervention are sustained and meaningful in the In his editorial ‘The clinical factor’ [1] , Giovanni Fava announced that we will try to select papers published in psychiatric journals during the previous year that I would subjectively perceive as having a high ‘Clinical Factor’ – the degree and extent to which a journal article provides information to the clinician that may improve his/her practice. Thus, I am presenting my subjective selection of 15 articles which I believe may provide some information to help the reader improve his/her clinical practice. Many may find them useful, some will find them less useful or useless. I am certainly biased, as is anybody else. I also cannot review all psychiatric journals – I focused only on most of the major ones. If there is no article selected from a certain major psychiatric journal, it does not necessarily mean that I have not reviewed it or skimmed through that journal. It may mean that I did not find, in my opinion, anything clinically very interesting. I reviewed the following journals: American Journal of Psychiatry, Archives of General Psychiatry, British Journal of Psychiatry, Depression and Anxiety, European Psychiatry, Journal of Affective Disorders, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology, Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, Psychological Medicine, and Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics . I view myself first and foremost as a clinician (though academically oriented) and I am, as most clinicians are, looking for a way to help patients, and Received: January 15, 2011 Accepted after revision: January 24, 2011 Published online: April 14, 2011