Posted by Tomatheus on October 3, 2015, at 14:40:26
In reply to Shooters and Psychiatry, posted by bleauberry on October 3, 2015, at 7:11:44
Bleauberry,
I will address the question that you asked as to what can be done to get psychiatric patients much better care. First, I want to say that there clearly are some patients who will respond well to the psychiatric and psychological interventions that are available today. For these patients, it's important that they're made aware of their treatment options and that the treatment options themselves are accessible.
Despite the fact that many are helped by psychiatric and psychological treatments for mental illness, I also think that there are some who fall into one or more of the following categories: 1) they're not helped at all by psychiatric and psychological interventions, 2) they're helped by the currently available interventions, but to a degree that most would consider to be inadequate, and 3) their conditions are worsened by the currently available interventions. In my opinion, what needs to be done to help those that fall into any one of the three categories that I identified above is to actually improve the treatments for mental illness themselves, not to improve the quality of "care" or the access to "care."
When I first presented myself for treatment of what at the time was some sort of clinical depression more than 13 years ago, I had a good deal of confidence in my treatment providers. My therapist and psychiatrist both seemed to listen and to care about my needs, and it seemed that they would do everything that they could to help me. Unfortunately, after years of treatment, my condition mostly just worsened. Was the problem with the quality of my treatment providers or with my access to treatment? I don't think so. In my estimation, the problem had more to do with the fact that the treatments interventions that I initially accepted failed to treat my illness or even, for the most part, to reduce the severity of my symptoms. I had access to treatment, and as far as I could tell, my "care" seemed to be managed in a quality manner, but in the end, none of those things seemed to matter much for me because the treatments that I utilized were not very effective.
So, while I think that making patients aware of their treatment options and making sure that the treatment options are accessible would help the percentage of patients who will respond well to the psychiatric and psychological interventions that are currently available, I think that for patients who won't respond so favorably to the current treatments, better treatments are needed. And I think that to make better treatments, it's essential that scientists improve their understanding of the illnesses that mental health professionals are trying to treat. As far as I can tell, research that aims to better understand mental illness is ongoing, and I think that this is something that should continue to happen. Will this lead to overnight results for those who aren't being helped by psychiatric and psychological interventions? No. But I think that by better understanding mental illness, better and more individualized treatments will eventually be developed that should improve the lives of those of us who live with mental illnesses.
In the meantime, I think that those of us who have mental illnesses need to recognize that the treatments that are available to us have their limits. I also think it's important that we continue to look for treatment options when we feel that our current treatments aren't serving us well and that we embrace the treatments that do seem to help, even if they only help so much.
Tomatheus
"I need you to show me
The way from crazy
I wanna be so much
More than this"- Jimmy Eat World
poster:Tomatheus
thread:1083163
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20150929/msgs/1083182.html