I had planned to submit articles to Technorati on occasion, but they are seeking short, newsy pieces that are not a good fit for me. This led me to look for other places to write. I found that Psychology Today has an active group of mental health bloggers on its site. I joined up and created a new blog called "Sacramento Street Psychiatry." (The name is explained in my first post there.) This weekend I re-posted "Anti-depressants are just a crutch" to this new blog, and seem to have attracted many readers. In the future I'll sometime post there first, sometimes here first. I may not post everything I write here to "Sacramento Street Psychiatry," however I will cross-post everything I put there here too.
My post on Technorati
Technorati.com, the popular blog portal, recently invited bloggers to contribute to their newly revamped site. I signed up and submitted an article there, on ADHD medication. I'm happy to say it appeared on their site this morning, as the leading post in their "lifestyle" section. (I'm sure it will rotate out of the leading position soon.) We contributors agreed to submit content appearing first on Technorati. I'll re-post the piece here once I learn how long they'd like me to wait. For now, head over to their site and take a look, and feel free to comment there, here, or both.
Wordpress transition
I moved the website and blog to new web space this past week, and converted the blog from Blogger to Wordpress. This makes it easier for me to write, edit, and manage the blog, although there were some trade-offs in making this transition. The biggest is that pre-existing links were broken. So if you have a blog or website of your own, and have linked to anything in Reidbord's Reflections, those links are now broken. I apologize for this, and hope you may find it worth your while to re-link. Wordpress offers a wide variety of "themes" to change the look of blogs without altering their contents. I will be experimenting with different themes, simple ones I expect, until I find the most suitable one. As with all else here, I welcome your feedback and suggestions. Thanks for reading.
State of the blog
I'll be taking a break through the end of the year, and thought this would be a good time to size up this blog creature I created. In nearly two months I've posted about 20 essays. Over that time I've also read a number of other psychiatry and general medical blogs, having started this one with little prior exposure to blogs at all. I see that "Reidbord's Reflections" is atypical and, to be honest, rather unbloglike. Unlike mine, most are anonymous, allowing more freewheeling commentary. The popular ones are more casual, personally disclosing, and include human-interest tidbits, photos, graphics, and sometimes embedded videos from elsewhere on the net. They don't stick to the topic, but are more warm and human.
As a psychiatrist who conducts psychodynamic (neo-Freudian, sort of) psychotherapy, I tend not to disclose facts about my private life to patients. Likewise, I am reticent to offer a lot of personal details here. At some point I'm sure I'll post something about this; I'm well aware there is no absolute prohibition regarding self-disclosure, and sometimes it can really help. Nonetheless, most blogging is more exhibitionistic than I care to be. My intent is to write about psychiatry, not about myself.
Google Analytics tells me I have a modest readership of about 150 unique visitors so far, widely scattered across the US, with a few in Canada, Europe, and the rest of the world. (Don't worry, the data do not identify you, just your general location.) Technorati ranks "Reidbord's Reflections" about number five million in the blogosphere. (Now there's a humbling statistic.) I've been told that readers rarely comment because I am not controversial or inflammatory enough. The post that did attract the most notice was perhaps the most contentious, about my almost becoming a speaker for Wyeth.
On the bright side, I enjoy writing. I have more topic ideas, and I plan to continue doing this. The page hit rate is slowly increasing over time. I also have ideas for improving the blog, and would be very grateful for yours as well. Here are mine: 1. Include some photos to add interest and color to the page 2. Invite colleagues to write guest pieces 3. Include more day-to-day type reflections 4. Change the font size or colors to make the page more readable
If you have any ideas or suggestions for this blog, the best way to reach me is by commenting on this or any other post. Please write "do not publish" so I know not to put your comment on the site. I will read it personally, and I thank you in advance for helping to improve this effort.
Thanks to all my readers for your attention. Happy Holidays, and see you in 2009!
Thanks, Dr. Carlat
Daniel Carlat MD of the popular Carlat Psychiatry Blog, linked to my post about nearly becoming an unwitting speaker for Wyeth. He recounted his own experience speaking for Wyeth in a great New York Times Magazine article last year. Thank you, Dr. Carlat, for welcoming me into the psychiatric corner of the blogosphere.