Join us below at noon Eastern on Thursday (July 26) for a live 30-minute online chat with psychology graduate student Maria Konnikova of Columbia University in New York, who will discuss the social and literary roots of anxiety. Her "Literally Psyched" blog with the Scientific American network investigates tests of psychology as conceived in literature. Her July 23 post "Warning: This Story Might Make You Anxious," was one of the most popular  on ScientificAmerican.com this week. In the post, she discusses Daniel Smith's new book, Monkey Mind, and what it reveals about the causes of anxiety. 

Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent psychiatric disease category. Clinical anxiety also increases one's risk for major depression and substance abuse. 

Konnikova currently is working on her book, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes (Viking Adult, 2013).

We invite you to post chat questions in advance in the comments below. We have already turned on the capacity to log-in to the chat box below if visitors would like to chat amongst themselves until Konnikova joins in at noon on Thursday, July 26.

1 Comments

1. 1. jgrosay 03:41 PM 7/26/12

   Huh! Anxiety is a well known mental disorder, described in an independent section of all DSM editions, if we are dealing with a disease, at it seems the case, the whole thing would be out of the scope and the reach of a psychologist, psychology comes from the greek "logos", something like a treaty, a descriptive science, but as long as disease is concerned, the issue becomes Iatros, therapy, medical, thus a subject for MDs specializing or not in the field, the most appropriate would be, yes ¡psychiatrists!; even giving the image that a non MD can deal independently with anything that just looks like making a diagnosis and giving a treatment is dangerous for the ill people, illness should be the scope for physicians and nobody else, in the extreme, specialized nursery could be accepted acting in the therapy of mental disorders under a doctor supervision, but nothing that can go beyond, please. Issuing theories about disorders is opened to everybody, from biochemists to anthropologists or social workers, or even philosophers, but this should not go beyond a coffee talk or speculative science, psychology may have a place in the bench, but never at bedside.

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