Unpacking Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder with Dr. Lori Kumar

About Unpacking Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder with Dr. Lori Kumar

Psychiatry is complicated. The science matters, but so does what happens when that science meets a real person, a real family, and a treatment plan they actually have to live with. I’m Dr. Lori Kumar, a doctoral-prepared, board-certified Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner with nearly a decade of specialized behavioral health experience. My clinical work centers on serious mental illness and complex psychopharmacology. I have worked across community outpatient, acute inpatient, forensic, geriatric, substance-use, and interventional psychiatry. Those settings have shaped the way I practice and the questions I continue to ask about psychiatric treatment. That curiosity eventually pushed me beyond the clinic. I created Unpacking Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder with Dr. Lori Kumar because I wanted a place to explore the parts of psychiatric treatment that do not always fit neatly into a textbook. I host the podcast, write a clinical newsletter on LinkedIn, create short educational videos, and interview clinicians and experts whose work I want to learn from. My YouTube channel brings that work together in one place. I’m interested in taking complicated science and asking: What does this actually mean when we are sitting across from a client trying to make a treatment decision? I have also had the opportunity to present at Psych Congress Elevate, precept future clinicians, and receive patient-nominated recognition for compassionate, patient-centered care. Teaching has become an increasingly important part of the work I want to continue doing. I am especially interested in thoughtful collaborations with clinicians, healthcare organizations, pharmaceutical and Medical Affairs teams, educators, advocates, and others working to improve how we understand and treat serious mental illness. Psychopharmacology. Impact. Empathy. Podcast, Newsletter, YouTube & More: https://linktr.ee/Dr.LoriKumarDNP

Publisher

Lori Kumar, DNP, PMHNP-BC, APRN

Category

health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Jul 2026

Latest episode

22 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

12 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   22 Oct 2026

   Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia: What Are We Still Treating?

   Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. Psychosis can be stable for years and daily life can still feel strangely out of reach. We’re talking about the negative symptoms of schizophrenia: the quiet losses in motivation, pleasure, social connection, and emotional expression that don’t always show up in a brief medication visit but can shape every ordinary day. I walk through why these symptoms are easy to miss, why they’re often misunderstood, and why “withdrawn” doesn’t automatica...

2. 

   5 Oct 2026

   When Side Effects Don't Fit the Checklist

   Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. Side effects don’t usually walk into my office wearing a name tag. They show up as “itchy,” “foggy,” “I’m missing something,” or “everything is on the tip of my tongue,” and if we rush to match those words to a checklist, we can miss the real signal and make the wrong medication decision. I break down how I translate patient language into clinically useful information while still respecting the experience exactly as it’s described. Yo...

3. 

   24 Sept 2026

   What Psych Congress 2026 Changed About My Next Appointment

   Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. One week of conference notes can feel inspiring until you’re back in clinic and a client says, “I’m still depressed.” What changes then? I walk through the question I keep bringing home from PsyCongress: before I add or switch a medication, what exactly am I trying to fix? We get concrete about medication management and “treatment-resistant depression,” because that label can push us to escalate too quickly. I talk through why partial respo...

4. 

   11 Sept 2026

   Better Than a Score: Who Gets to Define Better? | Bipolar Depression Series, Part 3 of 3

   Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. A mood questionnaire says the depression is improving. I see more eye contact, more focus, maybe a little more life in the room. And then the client looks at me and says, “I don’t feel any better.” That moment is where bipolar depression treatment gets real, because symptom scores and lived experience can move on different timelines. We talk about how I use self-report measures in medication management without letting them define reco...

5. 

   4 Sept 2026

   Not In A Vacuum: When Bipolar Depression Gets Worse, Where Do We Look?

   Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. Bipolar depression can get worse for reasons that have nothing to do with “the med failing,” and that is exactly why medication decisions can feel so uncertain in real practice. I take you through part two of my bipolar depression series by telling a few cases that changed how I think about treatment response, especially when the picture gets messy and the obvious next step is not actually obvious. First, I share a young adult case where de...

6. 

   28 Aug 2026

   More Than This Episode: When Does “Better” Become Too Much in Bipolar Depression?

   Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. “I feel amazing” is usually what we hope to hear after months of depression. With bipolar depression, it can also be the moment we need to slow down and get much more precise about what “better” actually means. We start Part 1 of our Bipolar Depression in Practice series with a deceptively hard clinical question: how do we tell the difference between recovery toward euthymia and a slide into hypomania or mania? I walk through a case that ch...

7. 

   19 Aug 2026

   LAIs in Bipolar I Disorder: Why Are We Waiting? | LAI Series, Part 3 of 3

   Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. We wait for a relapse, a missed stretch of pills, or a hospitalization, and only then the words “long-acting injectable” finally show up. I’m stepping back to ask a cleaner question for bipolar I disorder care: what needs to be true before an LAI earns a place in the conversation, not as a last resort, but as a thoughtfully explained option in maintenance treatment. I walk through the difference between mentioning LAIs, considering them, an...

8. 

   12 Aug 2026

   The LAI Conversation: Are Patients Rejecting the Treatment—or the Way We Present It? | LAI Series, Part 2 of 3

   Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. A patient says, “I hate needles,” and the room tightens. Do we hear a hard no, a fear we can work with, or a past experience that needs words before it needs a plan? We get real about long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) and what the conversation actually sounds like in everyday psychiatric care when I’m excited about an option and my client is unsure. We dig into motivational interviewing skills that matter in the moment: reflectiv...

9. 

   5 Aug 2026

   When We Know the Medication Is There: What LAIs Have Taught Me in Practice | LAI Series, Part 1 of 3

   Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. A long-acting injectable antipsychotic can do more than solve “Did you take your meds?” It can change the entire way we interpret progress, setbacks, and what “medication failure” actually means. I’m starting a three-part series on LAIs in real practice because I’ve watched injectables open doors for clients who were stuck in cycles of relapse, hospitalization, and constant daily decision fatigue. We talk about the part that rarely ge...

10. 

    29 Jul 2026

    Beyond The New Drug Headlines

    Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. A new psychiatric medication gets approved, social media starts buzzing, and suddenly the question lands in the exam room: “Should I take this?” We want to slow that moment down. A headline about a new mechanism of action is interesting, but it does not answer the real clinical question: where does this treatment fit for the person sitting right in front of us, with their diagnosis, goals, risks, and real life constraints. We walk through a...

11. 

    14 Jul 2026

    Psychosis Is A Symptom, Not A Diagnosis

    Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. Psychosis can be terrifying, urgent, and unmistakable and it can still be misdiagnosed if we treat a symptom like a final answer. We walk through a clinical truth with huge consequences for assessment and documentation: psychosis is a symptom, not a diagnosis. When “schizophrenia” shows up in the chart too early, it can steer future clinicians, shape family expectations, and even change how a patient understands themselves long before the ev...

12. 

    4 Jul 2026

    Welcome to the Podcast: A Heart-to-Heart Conversation on Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

    Want to continue the discussion? Send me a message. Hi I am your host Dr. Lori Kumar. I am a doctoral-prepared, board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder get talked about constantly, yet many patients and families walk away feeling more confused and more alone. We made this show to slow the conversation down and rebuild it with clarity, nuance, and respect. I share why person-centered psychiatric care requires more than diagnostic c...

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

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