Posted by Gringo on March 29, 1999, at 7:39:10
In reply to Re: Meds, therapy & ever-present depression , posted by Torrey on March 15, 1999, at 18:36:08
> I'm glad to have a forum like this, where our frustrations with current treatment options (medication and/or therapy) can be discussed. The previous thread about psychedelics mentioned Stan Grof's books, and apart from the question of LSD, I think Dr. Grof has made some very good points about the limitations of conventional therapy. I studied psychology in college and grad school for seven years, Shelley, and have also tried very hard to "figure things out." It just doesn't help much. Nor did all the "insight" into my dysfunctional childhood.
>
> At the same time, I'm increasingly skeptical of the "bio-psychiatry" view that these disorders are "chemical imbalances" that need to be "corrected" with medication. Its somewhat disturbing to read the lengthy threads of patients trying out one med after another, and all kinds of "heroic" combinations, searching for the right one to "correct the imbalance." The evidence to support this "chemical imbalance" theory is no better than that for insight oriented therapy. And yet there are millions of us who are basically being told that we need to take these drugs for the rest of our lives.
>
> I'm grateful for the newer meds. Its fair to say that they've saved my life, more than once. But I still think we need to Question Authority, and keep searching for better answers.
>
> Torrey
>
> > I am sort-of responding to David's thread above, and to all of you who shared your experiences.
> > Anyway, I share the opinions of most of you re: therapy....Hey there,
this is a brilliant post, that's exactly what I wanted to say here before, but language limitation (do I hear some laugh back there...?) and lower 'acceptance' of non-english speaking people which I have experienced before also in other newsgroups did not allow me to write it right. Thank you, Torrey, for pointing out these problems instead of me. The conclusion is clear - Question your Authorities and I say - do not put your trust in someone who's got dollar signs deep in their eyes. What you only fear that *might* be potentially possible in the financial background of this whole industry is for sure happening and is only the top of an iceberg... I'd like to say just a few more things - the problem sometimes is that opinions which are a bit radical or out of the frame of 'what majority considers right' are not considered as potentially right/potentially wrong but instead they are rejected as 'totally mad'. But, and I am not the first one to say that, the role of the science is to consider new ideas as potentially right and to do research on them, not to reject them in advance as 'scientifically unproved' only because today's science cannot prove them or because there's too much bias about them (political interests) or there's too much lobbistic interests and dollars flying in the air.. It's only about opening the door. It's about perceiving new facts without strong emotions, mostly negative ones. Every time there was a change, there were problems, is it same again? I KNOW, as someone said here, that depression is one of the worst things to happen to a human being, but today's mainstream psychology hasn't got a frame to treat it right. To some extent, it has but after that it's very limited. Another problem - most of you think that there's only one physical world that you live in and that the consciousness is just a side effect of the brain functioning. Then there's theory of chemical unbalance and then there are chemicals to 'balance' it back again which nobody really knows why they do work on someone and why they do not work on someone else. Today's science could never step out of its shadow and try to look somewhere else than ONLY inside the skull. But people having certain experiences can only laugh at this 'narrowmindness' and shallow approach. But remember, it's just a matter of accepting new opinions. There's a very nice example in one of the Grof's book - when a TV set breaks, a repairman comes to fix it. He rumbles inside the TV and finally fixes it, it was a matter of mechanical part of TV. It is functional again. But if owner of that TV complained about the quality of TV broadcast, he calls the reapirman again. Then this repairman rumbles inside the TV trying to find out why this programme is so bad... Sounds weird? That's exactly what is being done today. Bio-oriented psychology looks for the reason in the brain, where it's not, if you like it or not. I dare to say that most of the psychotherapist practise today is Freudian based. But, as someone else here menitoned, Freudian theory knows why there's a trouble but somehow, after conducting its approaches, when the trouble should be over, it is still there, though maybe in a weaker form. This kind of therpay is ineffective on you, therefore there is the only possibility - medications. And that is still shocking for me to see how you encourage each other to try this and that and to combine it then with a third one and if it still doesn't work then you maybe will need to remain on them until the end of your life. There are new approaches but due to too many interests and thanks to too much misunderstanding you'll have to keep hoping with a pill on your lips until there's not an atmosphere of true scientifical research and acceptance of new ideas. There are new ideas and approaches but as there are billions of dollars 'in the air' and you don't ask for more, status quo seems the only way. Open your mind and listen, get the information and ask for more, otherwise you'll end up like 'pigs in a cage on antibiotics' only being required to consume more and more and more. Is there something that's pulling the strings? You can mention lsd here and most of the responses will be, with all the respect, dumb reactions of people who 'heard something' or even 'experienced it' but are under strrong influence of, and that's necessary to say, misuse and abuse of such substances in sixties. But the image that these substances have now because of what happened 30 years ago doesn't necessarily mean there isn't a serious psychiatric use for them. Say 'drugs' here and people will start shaking and calling God to help, say 'Prozac' here and people will start calling with desire 'YES! YES! YES!' Are they paid by pharmaceuticalls?. And how many of those have really read about this issue, how many here have read 'LSD Psychotherpay' 'LSD - the problem solving substance' 'Psilocybin solution' or 'Using LSD on terminally ill patients'? There are studies, articles available, but only few will react openly. This is not to promote lsd or any other drug, it's about an example of the reaction which lacks openness and wisdom. Even psychology evolves and there are new approaches, try to inform yourselves about transpersonal psychology, or better try to pay a visit to transpersonal psychologist, he might be having legal means to let you fully experience the deep reasons of depression. This is again not to promote transpersonal psychology as the only right cure for everything.
Something to think about:
By Ronald F. Borne, Ph.D., Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy,
University of Mississippi. In his article called 'Serotonin: The Neurotransmitter for the '90s' you could read this:
....Analyst project a greater than $10 billion market for serotonin-related drugs in the 1990s...Regards,
Gringo
poster:Gringo
thread:3482
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990301/msgs/4143.html