(310) 470-1534
Katherine Watkins, MD
Female Psychiatrist
(310) 470-1534
Katherine Watkins, MD
Female Psychiatrist
Posted on: April 20, 2020
If you are like me, you have been spending time trying not to think about Covid-19, and then secretly searching for the latest statistic on how bad things are — and then trying to distract myself when the crisis gets to me and I think I just can’t stand it anymore. This pandemic is wreaking havoc on people’s emotional health and mental well-being. Feelings of sadness, grief, anger, anxiety are all normal responses to a situation that increasingly looks like it will last far longer than we anticipated when it started. A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly half of all Americans feel that the coronavirus has adversely affected their mental health. Yet what can be a normal response to a tragic situation — sadness, grief and anger — can quickly turn to depression, particularly in people with previous mental health issues. So what can you do about this? (more…)
Posted in: Current Events
Posted on: February 15, 2018
Katherine E. Watkins is a Santa Monica psychiatrist and senior natural scientist at the RAND Corporation. The overall goal of her research is to improve the quality of care for individuals with behavioral health disorders, by developing, implementing, and evaluating innovative treatments and treatment models of health care delivery.
What is a core emotion? Core emotions are biologically determined emotional responses whose expression and recognition is fundamentally the same for all individuals, regardless of ethnicity or culture. They are largely composed of physical sensations that we come to recognize and name as a particular emotion. Core emotions are hard wired and are not subject to conscious control. Triggered by the environment, each core emotion is pre-wired to set off a host of physiological reactions that prime us to respond to the environmental stimuli. For example, fear is experienced by the fight or flight physical response. Researchers disagree about (more…)
Posted in: Fundamentals
Posted on: January 23, 2018
Katherine E. Watkins is a Santa Monica psychiatrist and senior natural scientist at the RAND Corporation. The overall goal of her research is to improve the quality of care for individuals with behavioral health disorders, by developing, implementing, and evaluating innovative treatments and treatment models of health care delivery.
Many people when confronted with someone who is sad feel pressure to fix the person’s sadness and make it go away: to say or do just the right thing. I know that I did: I thought I was supposed to cheer up the person suffering, as though they had a problem to be solved. Eventually, I figured out that I could not “fix” someone”s sadness. Yet, the desire to make the sadness go away didn’t leave me. I also didn’t like feeling sad myself, and would try to avoid it through distractions. (more…)
Posted in: Fundamentals
Posted on: December 20, 2017
By Katherine E. Watkins, M.D., M.S.H.S.
Katherine E. Watkins is a Santa Monica psychiatrist and senior natural scientist at the RAND Corporation. The overall goal of her research is to improve the quality of care for individuals with behavioral health disorders, by developing, implementing, and evaluating innovative treatments and treatment models of health care delivery.
Everyone has a need for love, connection and intimacy. As Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic and political activist, once said, “Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.” Yet many people have trouble with intimacy, and long to experience deeper ways of relating to others. Increasing one’s capacity for intimacy yields many benefits. (more…)
Posted in: Fundamentals
Posted on: November 21, 2017
By Katherine E. Watkins, M.D., M.S.H.S.
Katherine E. Watkins is a Santa Monica psychiatrist and senior natural scientist at the RAND Corporation. The overall goal of her research is to improve the quality of care for individuals with behavioral health disorders, by developing, implementing, and evaluating innovative treatments and treatment models of health care delivery.
Let’s start with the good news. In recent years there has been a decline in alcohol-related traffic fatalities across the United States. How much of a decline? How about an impressive 40 percent over the last 20 years. There are many factors contributing to this success story, including:
Despite the trend, the hard data still causes alarm. (more…)
Posted in: Public Policy
Posted on: October 28, 2017
Collaborative Care for Opioid and Alcohol Use Disorders in Primary Care
By Katherine E. Watkins, M.D., M.S.H.S.
Katherine E. Watkins is a Santa Monica psychiatrist and senior natural scientist at the RAND Corporation. The overall goal of her research is to improve the quality of care for individuals with behavioral health disorders, by developing, implementing, and evaluating innovative treatments and treatment models of health care delivery.
In August, 2017 I, along with a number of my colleagues, published a research paper titled “Collaborative Care for Opioid and Alcohol Use Disorders in Primary Care”in the Journal of the American Medical Association-Internal Medicine. (more…)
Posted in: Public Policy
Posted on: November 21, 2016
Recently, a group of my colleagues and I completed an article for the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment: “Association Between Quality Measures and Mortality in Individuals With Co-Occurring Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders.” We were concerned that individuals with co-occurring mental and substance use disorders have increased rates of mortality relative to the general population. In addition, the relationship between measures of treatment quality and mortality for these individuals is unknown. Our study led us to the following, as described in our article’s introduction: (more…)
Posted in: Co-Occurring Disorders
Posted on: October 25, 2016
Veterans have a high frequency of serious mental and substance use disorders. The return of US service members with symptoms indicative of serious mental disorders has focused attention on the difficulties of providing high-quality treatment to this population. Although returning service members are only 4.1 percent of the total veteran population, their complex psychological needs have made delivering high-quality treatment for mental and substance use disorders a national priority. (more…)
Posted in: Co-Occurring Disorders, Public Policy
Posted on: October 10, 2016
News & Insights from Santa Monica Psychiatrist Katherine Watkins, M.D.
The data are stark. Mental and substance use disorders are leading causes of preventable deaths. This fact is especially significant for institutions within the health case system. These institutions do not have much influence over some causes of premature mortality, such as accidents and homicides, but they can control the quality of care they deliver, which may indeed have a significant effect on decreasing premature mortality.
Highlights
Posted in: Co-Occurring Disorders
Posted on: June 20, 2016
News & Insights From Santa Monica Psychiatrist Katherine Watkins, M.D.
In 2006, I co-wrote a research paper, “An Update on Adolescent Drug Use: What Schools Counselors Need to Know,”with research underwritten by the BEST Foundation for a Drug-Free Tomorrow. While recently reviewing the paper, I realized that its information was still quite relevant.
In writing the paper, I and my co-authors had a simple premise: School counselors need to have accurate and age-appropriate prevention education information in order to counsel teens on drug use. The article presented developmentally specific prevention materials for the most important emerging substances of abuse: Ecstasy, methamphetamine, cough and cold medications, prescription opiates and stimulants, and the “date rape” drugs. Because developing appropriate materials required understanding how adolescents develop, we adopted an expert-panel approach, supplemented with a literature review and teen focus groups.
If you would like to read the original article in its entirety, please download the PDF here.
Posted in: Public Policy
Posted on: June 5, 2016
News & Insights From Santa Monica Psychiatrist Katherine Watkins, M.D.
Both antidepressants and psychotherapy can be effective for major depression or dysthymia, a chronic, low-level form of depression. One of the most fascinating findings is that both medication and psychotherapy produce similar changes in the brain of patients who respond to treatment. We don’t understand why, but it suggests that ultimately psychotherapy — which involves new learning — is working to change the underlying structure and function of the brain. (more…)
Posted in: Mental Health Issues
Posted on: May 25, 2016
News & Insights From Santa Monica Psychiatrist Katherine Watkins, M.D.
Although mood stabilizers, such as lithium, Depakote or Tegretol, are the mainstays of treatment for bipolar disorder, therapy can be critically important, particularly for individuals newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder or those with significant life stress. Although bipolar disorder usually begins in teenagers/young adult hood, the average age of diagnosis is in the late 20s, which usually means that people have been suffering from it for many years before first getting treatment. Therapy can help people come to terms with the illness, which has often (more…)
Posted in: Mental Health Issues
Posted on: May 17, 2016
News & Insights From Santa Monica Psychiatrist Katherine Watkins, M.D.
Chronic stress is intimately linked to mental health and the development of mental illness, although until recently the reason for the connection was not known. High levels of stress as well as chronic stress are correlated with the development of both anxiety and mood disorders, as well as with relapse in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and substance use disorders. Chronic stress is also associated with developing physical health problems, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Some stress can be beneficial, preparing you to face a difficult or threatening situation by raising your heart rate or tensing your muscles. The problem is when stress is chronic and the body doesn’t return to its pre-stress physical state. (more…)
Posted in: Mental Health Issues
Posted on: April 20, 2016
News & Insights From Santa Monica Psychiatrist Katherine Watkins, M.D.
Whatever your political views about The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), it clearly stands as one of the most ambitious expansion and regulatory overhauls of the U.S. health care system in our country’s history.
In terms of significance, it ranks right with the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid. (more…)
Posted in: Public Policy
Posted on: March 23, 2016
News & Insights From Santa Monica Psychiatrist Katherine Watkins, M.D.
Along with my work as a board-certified practicing psychiatrist, I am a senior natural scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. In that capacity, I often write research papers on a variety of topics, including public policy. In 2014, I published this Opinion piece in the the Orange County Register. At that time, I pointed out that the significant problem of people driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) often involves psychiatric problems. Despite this fact, the state of California has developed programs that focus on education, not psychiatric treatment.
The following is the article in full. (more…)
Posted in: Public Policy
Psychiatrist: West Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Culver City