Reading books improves our cognitive function, but only if we pick them up. Opening a book opens a brain.

Every clinical decision we make involves uncertainty. We can come prepared with a cognitive strategy to keep moving forward in a positive and productive direction for our patients and our own professional satisfaction.

Psychiatry must be conceptual in order to define problems and conceive of how we can help people with them. That being said, the tools that our brains provide for us to do this are quite flawed.

At a time when psychiatric practice is becoming increasingly complex, the role of individual cognitive mistakes in causing medical errors remains underexamined. Understanding how we make them can go a long way toward elevating patient care and reducing treatment failure.

The next time you hear the term "treatment resistance" related to psychiatric treatment, ask the speaker what they mean by it.

We can find solutions to seemingly hopeless and chronic health care problems, but it requires vision, commitment, and cooperation, often initiated by only a few individuals.

Cognitive bias has been measured in 80%-100% of practicing physicians; such faulty cognition is associated with suboptimal clinical reasoning. This article discusses our common cognitive biases, offering methods to protect against them.

We can positively influence clinical outcomes by reconceptualizing our suboptimal results as single treatment failures (TF) and temporary impasses, rather than misapplying the term “treatment resistance."

Clinicians have an ethical imperative to present ourselves in a healthy state when we offer to help patients. With the variety of wellness steps available for us to utilize, we can reduce the effect that stress, burnout, and more serious health problems have on treatment outcomes.

Mental illness is not a distant problem afflicting a few others we seldom encounter; it is endemic to human beings. When we think of mental illness and disorders we must think of self as much as non-self, and more fully address our own mental health by honestly accepting that, at times, we ourselves may need professional help with symptoms or dysfunction.