Posted by yxibow on August 5, 2008, at 1:56:19
In reply to Some people don't want to believe., posted by SLS on August 4, 2008, at 5:24:19
> Some people here don't want to believe that medication can adequately treat mental illness and argue vehemently their position. Yet, professional neuroscientists state otherwise and produce conclusive results of investigations supporting the utility of psychotropics. Why is this?
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> Anger?
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> It seems to me that having such an attitude is counterproductive to successful treatment. It can cause people to fail to commit themselves to trials of different medications. One consequence might be that such an unbelieving person tends to abort drug trials prematurely, and never get the answer they are looking for - remission. Holding on to melancholic and negative thoughts can only work against treatment and prevent the changes in the brain from taking place to produce a therapeutic response. There is power in positive thinking.I have to concur in this topic -- but with a caveat, remission may not be what one thinks it will be -- there may be no such thing as complete remission of any disorder that is biologically and biochemically governed and is always changing.
Remission is making mental illness akin to the years spent away from cancer. A disorder under control would be something I would say is a better way of describing it.
The best of chemical "cocktails" for an anxiety-depression spectrum disorder is not a chemotherapy regime. If you stop taking your medication, there is a good chance it will come back if you have a particularly hard to treat disorder.
Some people are lucky and have mild disorders such as dysthymia for a short period of time and take medication and then upon stopping it after having completed some therapy in the meanwhile don't need their medication.
Unfortunately for a lot of us, medication is a continual need -- but not the only need in a condition.There are social needs, there are therapy and psychological needs, and there is the need, yes, to believe, but not just to believe in the power of medication --- its there in the background to help you, but what is missing in our mental health system a lot is goal, task, CBT oriented therapy to accompany a medication regime.
Most psychiatrists are trained in some form of talk therapy but not a lot invest much time in this. There are psychopharmacologists who also hold double degrees in psychotherapy as well.
And then there's the concept of mixing two doctors, a psychiatrist and a psychologist -- but I think it would be a mistake if there wasn't some communication between the two at some point. That's your privacy though and how you view it, its your right.
-- Jay
poster:yxibow
thread:844053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080727/msgs/844254.html