Posted by zeugma on May 8, 2004, at 11:08:26
In reply to hemophilia and band-aids, posted by zeugma on May 8, 2004, at 10:42:24
Benzodiazepines are actually called 'band-aids' more than AD's, and I think this characterization is just as wrong. But I need to make a distinction I haven't made yet: just because something isn't a band-aid doesn't mean that it can't be USED as one. No doubt some use benzos and AD's to numb themselves to life, to feel better because of life circumstances, etc., and we can consider this a kind of 'emergency treatment' that is justified after the psychological equivalent of a car accident, but which is not addressing a core pathophysiology. I believe the SSRI's and benzos, and maybe the MAOI's can be used in this way, but the TCA's appear to be less useful for this purpose, and THAT more than anything is why they are used less (or rather, it is why AD's in general, and SSRI's/Effexor in particular, are used so much more. When I was on Pamelor in the late 80's none of my friends had ever heard of it and it carried a huge stigma, while prozac references and Zoloft commercials and Effexor radio ads are inescapable. <And, as an aside, that is part of why the amphibians are rapidly dwindling, because fluoxetine from bodily waste is interfering with their reproductive cycles.>
Peter Kramer is the epitome of a pedestrian mind, and his book "Listening to Prozac" is the epitome of a pedestrian book (I would rather see someone reading a trashy novel than anything he has written, for reasons of general humanity and moral insight) but he had a point when he said "There can never be a Ms. Pamelor or a Ms. Ascendin, but here is Ms. Prozac." Ms. prozac is someone using a band-aid. or maybe I should say, Peter Kramer is a psychologist whose insight extends skin deep, and and sees someone using what he sees as a band-aid, and thinks this is a major advance in the treatment of the mentally ill.
poster:zeugma
thread:342881
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040505/msgs/344763.html