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

James Greenblatt, MD, is 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, Dr. Greenblatt has authored seven books, including the best-sellers Finally Focused and Answers to Anorexia, as well as his latest, Functional & Integrative Medicine for Antidepressant Withdrawal. In 2019, Dr. Greenblatt founded Psychiatry Redefined, the leading educational platform designed to transform psychiatric care through integrative, personalized and evidence-based approaches to treatment. Psychiatry Redefined bridges critical knowledge gaps for mental health professionals, providing a new hope for mental health care.