When Prozac first appeared, it was a wonder drug--effective, well-tolerated, and safe in overdose. And, said Eli Lilly, only 1.9% of patients in the clinical trials suffered sexual dysfunction as a side effect. Clinicians weren't so sure about that figure.

Anybody who watched the recent World Series between the Red Sox and the Cardinals got a pretty good education in Viagrology, Levitrology, and Cialisology. Between footage of men shopping at Victoria's Secret and couples soaking in outdoor tubs, it was a challenge to fit in a few double plays and home runs.

Marlene Dietrich once observed that "in America sex is an obsession, in other parts of the world it is a fact." While that may be true, sex is never terribly easy to discuss, no matter what your longitude and latitude.

Index to The Carlat Report Volume 2, 2004.

Dr. Morgentaler, as a urologist with particular expertise in male sexual dysfunction, what kind of advice might you have for psychiatrists in terms of helping us to differentiate psychogenic from organic sexual problems?

If you've seen the new movie “Kinsey,” you already know that the famed sex researcher first made his name writing about the decidedly un-sexy topic of gall wasps. He was fascinated by these creatures because of the marked variability among individuals--a theme that later emerges in his work on human sexuality.

Rarely have we been exposed to a more bewildering array of data and opinions as over the past year on the subject of antidepressants in children. Ever more definitive meta-analyses and databases are published on a weekly basis. Researcher-clinicians of impeccable credentials look at the same data and deliver opposite opinions.

Let's face it. With our most troubled, desperate patients, each visit is an exercise in doing something that may very well be impossible: predicting whether they are going to attempt suicide.

Psychiatrists, once relatively immune from malpractice lawsuit, are being sued at an increasing rate. Only about 2% of psychiatrists were sued in 1975; this figure increased to 8% in 1995. And most of these suits are for negligence related to suicides.

Dr. Shea, in your classic book, The Practical Art of Suicide Assessment (John Wiley & Sons, 2002), you describe the CASE approach to evaluating suicidal ideation. What is the CASE approach?