Posted by Jeff Smith on March 20, 2007, at 10:08:19
In reply to Re: Your Opinion: Am I Right Or Just Crazy/Irratio » JeffSmith, posted by Honore on March 20, 2007, at 6:02:39
> Jeff, you say that your problems have a chemical basis. The first line of treatment for you might very well be be medication. Therapy itself could be more effective if the turmoil you've in was somewhat alleviated.
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> I know this isn't what you want to hear and that you've more or less given up on medications. However, there are ones that you haven't tried. Moreover, given that we live in a profit-based world, and medicare does pay for medications, your chances of getting the best medications is, unfortunately, better than your chances of getting the very best in long term therapy. I don't mean to be harsh-- it isn't fair or very admirable-- but it's just a fact of life--
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> Anyway, to be a honest, after a lifetime of therapy, and even one therapist who has helped me a lot, I personally think the medications have made (and continue to make) an unequalled effect in helping me. So after many years of distrust, I'm pretty pro=medication-- with the proviso, that it's not necessarily easy to get that right combination that will help.
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> Besides SSRIs and wellbutrin, there are tricyclics (older generation Anti-depressants, some of which are newer and have fewer side effects), cymbalta, remeron, and MAOIs.--and others These can be supplemented with mood stabilizers or Anti-psychotics-- not because one is psychotic, but because they help to enhance anti-depressant effects and also to help free people from certain hard-to-overcome destructive thought and emotional patterns.
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> My sugggestion is somehwat like Onewomancine's-- I had looked recently for a place for a friend without insurance to get a good evaluation for medications. Payne Whitney, which is a leading psychiatric hospital in New York, has an outpatient clinic which has highly qualified psychiatrists in training, being supervised by really good clinicians. A consultation is expensive== $125-- but visits after that are on a sliding scale, based on income.
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> I know that you want a person to talk to-- I understand and empathize with that. And you don't want to be foisted off on another med. But I think, realistically, if you do want your life to get better, the first road to take is that of the best meds you can get.
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> After that, you may be able to strategize and act in a a more concerted way to find a therapist who can respond more appropriately-- and also you might be able to use better the therapists you do find.
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> I can find out more details about Payne Whitney, if you're interested. Or Columbia Psych might be also as good.
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> Honore
Howdy Honore,First of all we'd all damn well better hope that Tom Cruise isnt reading about all the psychiatric med pushing going on here or he is gonna go ape sh*t on our a$$e$!! (Thats a jab at him that youll get if you know of his insane/ignorant/Scientology brain washed based hatred of the "evil" psychiatrists and their mind control drugs).
As for my opinion on meds: I really hope I never came across as thinking they were useless for everyone cause I in no way believe that. They just havent worked for me.
Yes, if its possible that I find a good shrink that can properly evaluate me based on actually listening to me and questioning me (and whatever other potential testing they may do) and can come to a definite and specific diagnosis/theory and was confident that drugs X, Y or Z would help me (and could guarantee that they wouldnt cause me to gain any weight) then I cant see that I would have any objection to taking those drugs.
And thanks for the tip on Payne Whitney and for offering to find details : ) I can google it though (unless you meant more details as in only things that you could privately find out?).
poster:Jeff Smith
thread:742135
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070309/msgs/742444.html