Posted by jclint on January 31, 2006, at 19:12:43
In reply to Re: Future of psychiatric medicine? » jclint, posted by john berk on January 31, 2006, at 15:38:13
Yea indeed.
I think its perhaps some of the thinking these days is flawed. It seems that if a condition is not helped by talking therapy, the medicinal route is pursued more vigourously. While I firmly believe that the recognition of biological causes of mental illness is a positive step, I think that sometimes people are banded in the 'biological causes' group simply because CBT/councelling/whatever, has not helped them at all, when in fact their problems may by psychological afterall. Perhaps psychedelic therapy could benefit those whose problems are psychological, but are resistant to conventional therapy.
When you think about it, it is accepted that our psychiatric drugs are not perfect, and that we need to continue to create new, unique, more efficient, and more powerful drugs. But it seems that there is very little development in the 'talking therapies', as it seems we think we have got it right. But maybe a breakthrough in psychedelic therapy would do for psychological mental illness what the invention of antipsychotics and mood stabilizers did for biological mental illness...
You are totally right about the subconcious being a taboo concept. CBT etc are good, but are treatments, rather than cures, generally. And drugs are even moreso, just treatments. It seems, from the old research, that if psychedelics can help, they could be a cure rather than a treatment, in the respect that one or several administrations could provide permenent or long term remission. I have read accounts of people under psychadelic therapy equating one session to 5 or 10 years of therapy. Without sounding too new-agey (I'm a very scientific person really!), the non western cultures are far more in touch with their subconsious, be it Buddhism or shamanism or whatever. And the western world has a far greater problem with mental illness. Perhaps the key to the vast majority of these illnesses (not including the obviously biological ones) is having the ability to explore your own subconcious, and maybe this will become more accepted, especially if the amount of mental illness keeps increasing.
I'm sorry if my posts here sound self-involved :) I'm getting carried away. Hope I don't sound anti-med - I'm actually very pro-med. Just interesting to see if something will take its place in the future.
John :)
poster:jclint
thread:604844
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060129/msgs/604945.html