It may seem baffling, even bizarre, that ordinary shyness could assume the dimension of a mental disease. But if a youngster is reserved, the odds are high that a psychiatrist will diagnose social anxiety disorder and recommend treatment.

What's wrong with being shy, and just when and how did bashfulness and other ordinary human behaviors in children and adults become psychiatric disorders treatable with powerful, potentially dangerous drugs, asks a Northwestern University scholar in a new book that already is creating waves in the mental health community.

You might call it melancholy on steroids -- a muscular mixture of fast-driving, heavy drinking, hard-charging cussedness. For perhaps 3 million American men yearly, that's the plotline for depression.

By  Craig Harper - "In the course of my work, I meet many (many) amazing people who are miserable, frustrated and seemingly lost, living in a reality that they hate, not because they don't have the capacity to change or achieve great things in their life, but simply because they won't use or develop their potential as they could and should."

By Elizabeth Wurtzel -- In a 'Girls Gone Wild' world, whatever happened to the promise of feminism?

By Elissa Ely, MD -- A few months into treatment, he noticed.. the desire to put words to paper had just disappeared. So had deep emotion of almost any kind.

Great people are great in the sense that they are willing to explore their own specialty and values, and have the courage and insistence to apply their values to society, creating something meaningful.

EurekAlert press release - NIH/National Institute of Mental Health -- Most people inherit a version of a gene that optimizes their brain's thinking circuitry, yet also appears to increase risk for schizophrenia.

By Benedict Carey, The New York Times -- Several recent studies stand as a warning against taking the platitudes of achievement too seriously. The new research focuses on a familiar type, perfectionists, who panic or blow a fuse when things don’t turn out just so.

The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 5.7 million adult Americans -- 2.6% of the population -- suffer from bipolar disorder. Researchers also say that bipolar disorder can shave more than nine years off of someone's life. And yet, according to the Depression and Bipolar Alliance, it takes an average of 10 years for an appropriate diagnosis. In "Manic," a memoir of her life with bipolar disease, Terri Cheney explains why it can take so long.