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thaaster

Andrew, you seem to bitter about this subject - did you or someone close to you have a negative experience with psychotropic drugs?

And, mindbender may be on the same page, but would you please elaborate on this idea of forced pharmaceutical treatment of mental disorders?

More than that, I know that this thread focuses mainly on unipolar depression, but you've essentially posited that no medicines actually help any symptoms.

How do you respond to the bipolar patients who change remarkably on mood stabilizers, especially in conjunction with therapy?

Or the schizophrenics who start to reenter society as contributing members because the care they receive from psychiatrists and therapists?

A very close friend of mine is bipolar, and was suicidal for a number of months, with a few close calls.

After he was diagnosed, he began a lithium based treatment and saw a new therapist. He will be the first to tell you that meds are the end all and be all for happiness, but that, "meds give me a new center of emotions that's higher than my usual depressed self."

If you want to approach something empirically, then why the strong prejudice?

In my mind, that's just as bad as the pill pushers.

 

Andrew87

No, however, I have read a wide variety of literature and case studies on the topic, of which the overwhelming majority is largely negative. This includes speaking and discussing the issues with professionals in the field.

Psychology, Psychiatry, and Neurology are all interests of mine (abnormal psychology in particular), I frequently study them on my own time (as well as many of the related fields: psychpharmacology, neuropsych, etc.). I actually considered becoming a psychologist, but ultimately decided against it.

Which aspect in particular did you want me to focus on? It's a very broad topic..

I never once said this. In fact, my standpoint is almost entirely the opposite.

Yes, the efficacy of SSRI's seems relatively questionable in many cases, but speaking of psychotropics collectively: Um, I suppose you could say they help in some areas, if you don't count the numerous and diverse side effects that come with them and can potentially end up being worse than the so-called "illness" ever was, yeah, then maybe you could say they help.

This goes to show that you have read absolutely nothing on the psychology of so-called mental illness. Not the alleged biology, but the psychology. It also seems like you believe that because certain drugs happened to work in some instances that they must work universally. Ask any professional in the field - it is impossible to gauge how anyone will respond to whatever given drug, many people end up worse.

An excellent overview of this is Toxic Psychiatry by Dr. Peter Breggin (a psychiatrist), in particular the chapters on schizophrenic, manic-depressive, and depressive overwhelm.

I'm sorry to hear that. However, there are many possible factors which could have contributed to this - I'm not sure why you automatically assume that it is a possibly non-existant biochemical imbalance, as demonstrated in your next statement:

Well duh. It's a psychiatric drug (and a fairly powerful one, at that) - obviously it's going to manipulate your mind into feeling an artificial emotion, that's what it's made and prescribed for.

There are a couple of important factors which you are not taking into consideration, however, but will take me far too long to explain - do the reading.

Simple answer: Drugs do nothing but MASK the problem, and in many cases there is a compromise necessary for the benefits they offer. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find that in your friends' case much of his problems are rooted in a particular repressed event or social experience. You'd be amazed how the mind works.

If you think I haven't been objective on the matter, you're entirely mistaken. As I stated, I have read extensively on the topic and formed an educated opinion. I may appear bitter because it does get frustrating trying to debate with people who swear up and down that it was the drugs that saved their friend's/relative's/associate's/whomever's life as opposed to social factors or repressed memories of trauma(which are believed to contribute to a significant proportion of what is commonly labeled various types of "mental illness") or other genetic factors (and I am NOT referring to biology, but inherited psychological traits); they tend to be ignorant of the topic and draw their own conclusions based on limited information; this standpoint is the unobjective one. Buying into whatever BS some quack sells you instead of doing the research and giving the issue a thorough examination? Hmm...

Seriously, do some reading on the subject. Psychiatrists are considered the lowest of the low in the medical community (many other types of MDs don't even consider them "real" doctors), largely due to the fact that their practice is based almost entirely on subjective opinions as opposed to objective science.

I think you'd be surprised how many people (including many psychiatrists) oppose the biological theory of mental illness.

Simply put, this is a very complex issue, it isn't the sort of thing you can debate like you would politics. An intelligent discussion requires both parties to be well educated in many different aspects of several reasonably difficult specialties, anything less will not suffice.

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Purpose420

This thread is about "marijuana" and whether or not it works, and the answer is yes I've seen it work, if it was not marijuana I personally feel that the world would not be able to function.

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martian_marvin

I've been on antidepressants for a long time. They can make you feel much worse after a while. Sure, they work when you first begin taking them, but eventually they stopped working. When I stopped them, I felt no different from when I was taking them.

After I stopped taking them I realized the pain I was in (physically) and many of the other problems I had, including the depression. At this time I went to a neurologist, had many tests done, and found out that I currently have multiple sclerosis.

Marijuana does not stop my disease from progressing, but it sure does eliminate most of my symptoms.

Antidepressants may be the answer in the beginning, but it is still helpful to go to therapy. If you don't know why you are depressed, the picture may be larger than you think.

Andrew87

Thanks for pointing out the obvious, I mean, after all - it's only in the thread title.

My last post about the psych. drugs was to answer several questions posed by thaaster, s/he wasn't talking about marijuana, and so neither was I in my response.

Yeah? And on what exactly do you base this simplistic assessment? I'm not denying that there is likely somewhat of a correlation, but overall, I stick with my original standpoint: NO drug is the end-all solution to mental health issues. The vast majority of mental illness have a clearly defined cause (or causes) at their base, and trying to ignore it with drugs tends to do nothing but amplify the long-term situation - regardless of what that drug may be.



If you'd said a small percentage of people might not be able to function without it - I'd probably agree with you. Tell me why exactly you think the world wouldn't be able to function without marijuana, because I'd say you are reaching quite a bit with that one.

 

mindbender

andrew.... where do you get your numbers?

Purpose420

Um, real live friends both on the net and in my life that have severe emotional disorders, you know the kind that want to be your best friend one minute, and wanna kill you the next. The ones that have been diagnosed, but don't have insurance to buy the meds they need that swear up and down weed is the only thing that truly helps, the meds just suppress the feelings.

Andrew87

What? I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Re-read my response. I never denied that it helps some people, it absolutely can help in some cases - as can psych. meds. The problem is when people start treating them as if they are some sort of universal cure.

Weed does the exact same thing, pal. Sometimes it is more effective than psych. meds, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it doesn't do a damn thing, and sometimes it makes people worse. That's the thing about medicine, it can be incredibly unpredictable - which is why I always object to the "my friend took x, y, or z drug and now he's great!" arguments. Every case is astonishingly different. Ask a mental health professional if they've ever seen two identical cases of major depression recurrent or paranoid schizophrenia or bipolar 1 - the answer will be a resounding "no/never/not once."

And that is exactly why I believe therapists/psych doctors should be focusing more on symptoms rather than pigeon-holing people into diagnoses of non-existant "diseases." I really wish you guys would read up on the subject, because most of you know very little about the topic (exception of mindbender, and even s/he has admitted s/he is not entirely well-read on biopsychiatry). It's making the discussion quite difficult, because the majority of you are treating psychology/psychiatry (inexact sciences with a great deal of gray areas) as if they are as precise as physics. Please, at least have the decency to research a topic before you attempt to aggressively debate it.

Purpose420

That's where strain matters, and thats also why medical marijuana should be distributed by trained phd's that know what each strain does.

Andrew87

Purpose, I really don't understand the point you're trying to make, and you are completely ignoring mine. I've stated that I believe marijuana should be available as an alternative to psych. meds, but due to the great uncertainty and lack of objective scientific information on "mental illness," -medicating these ''diseases'' is risky and questionable.

And by the way, "phd's" can't prescribe medicine. The title you are looking for is M.D..