by Claire Ellerbrock, DNP, PMHNP | Aug 12, 2025 | Diagnosis/Assessment tips for treating mental disorders
What’s one of the most misdiagnosed conditions in mental health? Despite being relatively rare, schizoaffective disorder diagnosis shows up surprisingly often on psychiatric charts—and it’s often incorrect. According to the DSM-5-TR, the lifetime prevalence of...
by Claire Ellerbrock, DNP, PMHNP | Aug 7, 2025 | Diagnosis/Assessment tips for treating mental disorders
You’re in clinic with a 29-year-old twice-divorced man experiencing depressive symptoms. He’s never had a psychiatric diagnosis before, denies substance abuse, and reports no family history of depression or other psychiatric illnesses. This is his first major...
by Claire Ellerbrock, DNP, PMHNP | Aug 5, 2025 | Diagnosis/Assessment tips for treating mental disorders
Raise your hand if you knew that bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder have significant similarities 🙋🏾♀️ Even after eight years of working as a psych NP, I recently realized how tough it can be to distinguish bipolar vs borderline personality...
by Claire Ellerbrock, DNP, PMHNP | Jul 31, 2025 | Career Advice
When Psychiatry Gets Complicated Back to basics in psychiatry is often the most helpful mindset when clinical cases become complicated. Patients aren’t always straightforward, and even seasoned PMHNPs can be thrown off track by unexpected presentations. You...
by Claire Ellerbrock, DNP, PMHNP | Jul 29, 2025 | Clinical support resources, Prescribing tips for treating mental disorders
Let’s dive into the world of SSRIs – the superheroes of psychotropic agents! They all work to boost those feel-good neurotransmitters like serotonin, but each SSRI has its unique personality. Prozac, Lexapro, Zoloft, Paxil, and Celexa: they’re like a squad with...