Overview

Aggression and irritability are often dismissed as secondary symptoms of broader psychiatric diagnoses, leaving clinicians with limited treatment options for Disruptive Behavior Disorders in children and adolescents. In this free webinar, Dr. James Greenblatt presents a groundbreaking biologic model for understanding and treating these challenging behaviors through a functional medicine lens. Explore the connections between nutritional deficiencies, metabolic imbalances, and behavioral pathology—while uncovering low-dose lithium’s powerful, evidence-based role in mood stabilization. Gain practical, science-backed strategies to improve patient outcomes with a personalized approach to mental healthcare.

Current psychiatric models offer today’s practitioner little guidance insofar as understanding and treating Disruptive Behavior Disorders – characterized by abnormally high levels of aggression and irritability – in child and adolescent patients. While acknowledged as symptoms of established diagnoses such as depression and bipolar disorder, aggression and irritability are frequently neglected as psychiatric phenomena in their own right.

In this webinar, Dr. Greenblatt will introduce a well-studied biologic model of Disruptive Behavior Disorders from a functional medicine standpoint, and discuss mechanisms through which specific nutritional, metabolic, and biochemical factors can elicit behavioral pathology. He will review scientific research supporting associations between discrete biologic imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, and aggression / irritability, with a key focus on the established mood-stabilizing properties of lithium and powerful evidence of low-dose lithium’s clinical utility. Finally, he will present evidence-based recommendations for a functional medicine approach to the treatment of aggression and irritability.

Instructor

James Greenblatt, MD

Founder, Chief Medical Officer

Dr. James M. Greenblatt is a pioneer in functional and integrative psychiatry and a board-certified child and adult psychiatrist who has been treating patients since 1988. He serves as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. An internationally recognized speaker on  nutritional interventions in mental health and prolific author, Dr. Greenblatt has written nine books, including his newest book, Finally Hopeful; the bestsellers Finally Focused: The Breakthrough Natural Treatment Plan for ADHD, Answers to Anorexia (updated edition, 2021), Functional & Integrative Medicine for Antidepressant Withdrawal, and Nutritional Lithium: The Untold Tale of a Mineral That Transforms Lives and Heals the Brain—the definitive guide to lithium’s role in psychiatry. He is also the founder of Psychiatry Redefined, an educational platform dedicated to transforming psychiatric care through integrative and evidence-based approaches.