Psychiatric Illness and Facebook: A Case Report

There is relatively little content available addressing the use of social media, such as Facebook in psychiatric populations.
There has been significant growth of various social media websites in the last 10 years, such as Facebook, and yet little
is written about their overall impact on this population. There are articles in the scientific literature about the use of
social media in adolescents and young adults and also about its use among physicians and medical students. This article reviews
the literature addressing social media and describes a therapeutic interaction with a patient with significant psychiatric
comorbities and his use of social media. Furthermore, this is a unique example in current literature of an overall positive
interaction and social improvement of this patient in large degree due to his use of Facebook. Physicians themselves must
be very cautious in their interaction with patients online and especially via social media, while acknowledging that social
media can serve as a spring board for more reclusive patients into greater societal integration.