Washington Center For Psychiatry

Chapter 1 – Meet Your Brain Fuels
By Alen J. Salerian, MD
GABA (GABA-GAMMA-AMNIOBUTYRIC ACID)
GABA is an elegant force of your calm and inner peace.  For example, a brain with sickly GABA has recurrent seizures and is almost always irritable, edgy, and combative.  In less traumatic cases, sickly GABA may make you fearful, easily reactive, and may [...]

By Alen J. Salerian, MD
The high point of my graduation from medical school was a dinner celebration on Princess Island off the coast of Istanbul as cheers and toasts were finally fading. I was surrounded by happy faces and watery eyes in all directions when my cousin Joe, a skinny, tall man known to us [...]

By Alen J. Salerian, MD
“No way I’ll take that pill,” muttered the young man in his 30s, who had admitted himself voluntarily to the Psychiatric Institute’s adult treatment center because of cocaine abuse. “Why not,” I inquired, watching his protruding cheekbones and wondering whether his frail frame and skinny features were complications of his cocaine [...]

Making the Three Tenors Sing
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday , June 20, 2000
By Alen J. Salerian, MD
During my first session with Sarah, a married, 40-year-old lawyer, she
complained about frustrating failures she had experienced in
treatment of her depression.
“After all this therapy and all these medications, I still don’t feel
like getting out of bed in the [...]