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A lot of people who commit suicide are typically on antidepressants and seeing therapists. Yet they never report this in the media. Antidepressants even carry a

A lot of people who commit suicide are typically on antidepressants and seeing therapists. Yet they never report this in the media. Antidepressants even carry a black box warning they can increase suicidal thinking. Wouldn't surprise me if half the valley was on meds of some kind. Psychiatry is mostly based on an unproven hypothesis of chemical imbalance in the brain. Of which there's no actual scientific evidence to back up this claim. In fact, studies have concluded antidepressants can cause imbalances where nonexisted before, and can cause severe life threatening withdrawals if you stop taking them suddenly. Psychiatry is a pretty flawed practice in my opinion as well. I'm sure it helps some people, but it also does a lot of harm as well.

cgriswald 11y ago
> A lot of people who commit suicide are typically on antidepressants and seeing therapists. A lot of people die in emergency departments under the care of doctors. There's a reason for that that has nothing to do with the ability of the doctors. > Antidepressants even carry a black box warning they can increase suicidal thinking. Which is in part due to the unscientific (but legally sound) way that such side effects are attached to these drugs. I'm less concerned with the fact that they are labelled thusly and more concerned with the fact that in some cases there have been statistical increases in suicides. Yes, that is a problem, but you're both separating that out of the larger picture of pharmaceuticals and dumping it in with psychiatry in general. > Psychiatry is mostly based on an unproven hypothesis of chemical imbalance in the brain. Of which there's no actual scientific evidence to back up this claim. This is an incredibly bold claim with no actual scientific evidence to back it up. There is, in fact, a lot of science backing up psychiatry and psychology (entire journals). Their experiments use widely accepted techniques that are also used in other sciences, like biology and medicine. > In fact, studies have concluded antidepressants can cause imbalances where nonexisted before, No study has made this blanket conclusion. Perhaps some studies have reached this conclusion about a specific class of anti-depressant or a single anti-depressant. But you can't use that as evidence that psychiatry is flawed. First, anyone in medicine who can prescribe medication can prescribe antidepressants even if they aren't trained in psychiatry. Second, many medications can cause problems in our systems; it's why we have the prescription system in the first place. Antidepressants are not unique in this regard and therefore do not reflect on psychiatry in the specific. > and can cause severe life threatening withdrawals if you stop taking them suddenly. Just like many other pharmaceuticals, some antidepressants can cause withdrawal symptoms when the patient is not weaned off the medication properly. Noncompliance is a problem in ALL medicine. In the realm of mental illness there is also the problems of stigma and lack of proper insurance coverage both of which can create additional problems with compliance. > Psychiatry is a pretty flawed practice in my opinion as well. I'm sure it helps some people, but it also does a lot of harm as well. I won't see anyone without a Ph.D. A Ph.D. means they've done some science. But (just as with MDs),it's no guarantee that they're critical thinkers and scientists when they get out into the world and practice. But mine can cite papers, recommend reading, form reasoned opinions, and his Ph.D. thesis is impressive (I asked to see it). I suspect you're largely judging the field from the current state of affairs: massive stigma, poor insurance coverage, and mediocre practitioners who are quick to write prescriptions but slow to make sure the long term healing is done. Find a psychiatrist, psychology, MFT, or whoever through your average insurance plan and you're more likely than not getting a counselor more than an actual therapeutic healer. But these are largely economic and social problems, not a question of the effectiveness of the healing.
gcr 11y ago
Which studies? I'd be interested in reading your references.
- messick 11y ago
  Those are pretty much Scientology's talking points, so here's a reference for you: http://www.scientology.org/faq/scientology-in-society/why-is-scientology-opposed-to-psychiatric-abuses.html http://www.scientology.org/faq/scientology-in-society/why-is...
  - gcr 11y ago
    Oy. Are any of these references accepted by well-respected scientists in the community?
    - DanBC 11y ago
      No, obviously not. But "don't just stop taking your meds" is on the patient information leaflet for every ssri / snri / nasa / etc style anti-depressant because suddenly stopping is significantly risky. (For some of them, eg venlafaxine, it's pretty unpleasant too.)
tedks 11y ago
Antidepressants commonly cause suicide by treating the physical retardation symptoms of depression before treating mood symptoms. If someone is so depressed they can't get out of bed, then starts taking an antidepressant, they might continue to be just as depressed, but now have the energy to get out of bed. This is especially common with teens. SSRIs definitely do work for some people, but the mechanism isn't well understood and is well-researched. There is plenty of actual scientific evidence to back up the serotonin imbalance hypothesis, but of course no amount of evidence can ever prove a theory true. There are other findings that indicate other theories -- my personal favorite is that the antidepressant effect of SSRIs is from incidental neurogenesis, and NSI-189 looks promising as the first of hopefully many antidepressant drugs coming from this theoretical basis entirely. While a lot of people who commit suicide are being treated for a mental illness, the majority of people who complete suicide (i.e., actually kill themselves) are not in any sort of treatment. Suicide is actually a very impulsive behavior in most cases. For this reason, if you make the means of suicide less available (putting fences up on bridges, gun control, etc.), you actually decrease the incidence of suicide even though there are plenty of ways people can kill themselves. A few nits to your post: * Psychiatry isn't based on a chemical imbalance hypothesis. SSRIs, and some other drugs, are. Psychiatry as a whole is far too wide to be based on any particular theory, except maybe probabilistic determinism (the assumption that events have causes that can be used to predict the future). * Psychiatrists are medical doctors with a specialty in mental health. "Psychiatry" is not a very well-defined area, and usually indicates the speaker is a Scientology crank. The actual field you discuss in your post is psycho-pharmacology. You don't comment at all on diagnostic procedures, which is a major non-pharmocological component of a psychiatrist's job, nor on non-pharmocological therapies, some of which have been very well-studied and indicate to the best of our scientific ability to be reliably positive mental health interventions. As a final note, it wouldn't surprise me if all of the Valley, and indeed most of the world, was on "meds" of some kind. Most people drink. A lot of people smoke. Marijuana is legal in California and is going to be legal soon in the general case. Video games exist that are thin wrappers around psychological reward pathways, and are functionally equivalent to drugs, even if they don't involve ingesting or inhaling anything. There are very few "pure" humans. The question isn't whether or not someone is "on meds," but whether they're getting what they need as a person to self-actualize. PS: I recognize I have made a number of factual claims in this post. I have not included any links to scientific papers because it took long enough to type out and I didn't want to spend twice as long digging through sources. I'll provide the papers I thought of while writing this, but only under one condition: anyone asking for them shows convincing (to me) evidence that they have looked for these sources on their own. I help those who help themselves.

cgriswald 11y ago

> A lot of people who commit suicide are typically on antidepressants and seeing therapists. A lot of people die in emergency departments under the care of doctors. There's a reason for that that has nothing to do with the ability of the doctors. > Antidepressants even carry a black box warning they can increase suicidal thinking. Which is in part due to the unscientific (but legally sound) way that such side effects are attached to these drugs. I'm less concerned with the fact that they are labelled thusly and more concerned with the fact that in some cases there have been statistical increases in suicides. Yes, that is a problem, but you're both separating that out of the larger picture of pharmaceuticals and dumping it in with psychiatry in general. > Psychiatry is mostly based on an unproven hypothesis of chemical imbalance in the brain. Of which there's no actual scientific evidence to back up this claim. This is an incredibly bold claim with no actual scientific evidence to back it up. There is, in fact, a lot of science backing up psychiatry and psychology (entire journals). Their experiments use widely accepted techniques that are also used in other sciences, like biology and medicine. > In fact, studies have concluded antidepressants can cause imbalances where nonexisted before, No study has made this blanket conclusion. Perhaps some studies have reached this conclusion about a specific class of anti-depressant or a single anti-depressant. But you can't use that as evidence that psychiatry is flawed. First, anyone in medicine who can prescribe medication can prescribe antidepressants even if they aren't trained in psychiatry. Second, many medications can cause problems in our systems; it's why we have the prescription system in the first place. Antidepressants are not unique in this regard and therefore do not reflect on psychiatry in the specific. > and can cause severe life threatening withdrawals if you stop taking them suddenly. Just like many other pharmaceuticals, some antidepressants can cause withdrawal symptoms when the patient is not weaned off the medication properly. Noncompliance is a problem in ALL medicine. In the realm of mental illness there is also the problems of stigma and lack of proper insurance coverage both of which can create additional problems with compliance. > Psychiatry is a pretty flawed practice in my opinion as well. I'm sure it helps some people, but it also does a lot of harm as well. I won't see anyone without a Ph.D. A Ph.D. means they've done some science. But (just as with MDs),it's no guarantee that they're critical thinkers and scientists when they get out into the world and practice. But mine can cite papers, recommend reading, form reasoned opinions, and his Ph.D. thesis is impressive (I asked to see it). I suspect you're largely judging the field from the current state of affairs: massive stigma, poor insurance coverage, and mediocre practitioners who are quick to write prescriptions but slow to make sure the long term healing is done. Find a psychiatrist, psychology, MFT, or whoever through your average insurance plan and you're more likely than not getting a counselor more than an actual therapeutic healer. But these are largely economic and social problems, not a question of the effectiveness of the healing.

gcr 11y ago

Which studies? I'd be interested in reading your references.

messick 11y ago
Those are pretty much Scientology's talking points, so here's a reference for you: http://www.scientology.org/faq/scientology-in-society/why-is-scientology-opposed-to-psychiatric-abuses.html http://www.scientology.org/faq/scientology-in-society/why-is...
- gcr 11y ago
  Oy. Are any of these references accepted by well-respected scientists in the community?
  - DanBC 11y ago
    No, obviously not. But "don't just stop taking your meds" is on the patient information leaflet for every ssri / snri / nasa / etc style anti-depressant because suddenly stopping is significantly risky. (For some of them, eg venlafaxine, it's pretty unpleasant too.)

tedks 11y ago

Antidepressants commonly cause suicide by treating the physical retardation symptoms of depression before treating mood symptoms. If someone is so depressed they can't get out of bed, then starts taking an antidepressant, they might continue to be just as depressed, but now have the energy to get out of bed. This is especially common with teens. SSRIs definitely do work for some people, but the mechanism isn't well understood and is well-researched. There is plenty of actual scientific evidence to back up the serotonin imbalance hypothesis, but of course no amount of evidence can ever prove a theory true. There are other findings that indicate other theories -- my personal favorite is that the antidepressant effect of SSRIs is from incidental neurogenesis, and NSI-189 looks promising as the first of hopefully many antidepressant drugs coming from this theoretical basis entirely. While a lot of people who commit suicide are being treated for a mental illness, the majority of people who complete suicide (i.e., actually kill themselves) are not in any sort of treatment. Suicide is actually a very impulsive behavior in most cases. For this reason, if you make the means of suicide less available (putting fences up on bridges, gun control, etc.), you actually decrease the incidence of suicide even though there are plenty of ways people can kill themselves. A few nits to your post: * Psychiatry isn't based on a chemical imbalance hypothesis. SSRIs, and some other drugs, are. Psychiatry as a whole is far too wide to be based on any particular theory, except maybe probabilistic determinism (the assumption that events have causes that can be used to predict the future). * Psychiatrists are medical doctors with a specialty in mental health. "Psychiatry" is not a very well-defined area, and usually indicates the speaker is a Scientology crank. The actual field you discuss in your post is psycho-pharmacology. You don't comment at all on diagnostic procedures, which is a major non-pharmocological component of a psychiatrist's job, nor on non-pharmocological therapies, some of which have been very well-studied and indicate to the best of our scientific ability to be reliably positive mental health interventions. As a final note, it wouldn't surprise me if all of the Valley, and indeed most of the world, was on "meds" of some kind. Most people drink. A lot of people smoke. Marijuana is legal in California and is going to be legal soon in the general case. Video games exist that are thin wrappers around psychological reward pathways, and are functionally equivalent to drugs, even if they don't involve ingesting or inhaling anything. There are very few "pure" humans. The question isn't whether or not someone is "on meds," but whether they're getting what they need as a person to self-actualize. PS: I recognize I have made a number of factual claims in this post. I have not included any links to scientific papers because it took long enough to type out and I didn't want to spend twice as long digging through sources. I'll provide the papers I thought of while writing this, but only under one condition: anyone asking for them shows convincing (to me) evidence that they have looked for these sources on their own. I help those who help themselves.