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Funnily enough, psychiatry seems to function a lot like our field, based on trends, because ultimately the brain is a black box. You can't see how it works, you

Funnily enough, psychiatry seems to function a lot like our field, based on trends, because ultimately the brain is a black box. You can't see how it works, you can only feed it input and observe the output, and if it's consistent enough you can record it as an observation. Apart from the truly severe conditions that prevent individuals from even participating in society, IMHO what psychiatry seems to fail to account for is context. For example, it is said that many people suffer from depression, but instead of looking into the core causes, they would rather just pump patients with meds and hope it gets better with time. Often times though, all that happens is that the patient builds tolerance to medication, so larger and larger doses are needed. It makes me think: what if those people cannot escape their condition to begin with? Can't even know if you don't at least try.

candiodari 7y ago
The first and biggest mistake people make with psychiatry is that it will somehow fix anything, or do anything not relating to the patient. You're absolutely right. There are environmental reasons for phobias, PTSS, Autism, Traumas, ... So if you're being abused, there's absolutely nothing that psychiatry can do for you, because they can do nothing about the abuse (other than taking you in and throwing you back into the abuse after 2 months). Same with ancillary fields: social workers will NEVER do anything about that teacher that's abusing your kid, they will only "treat" the child (maybe with force, maybe with internment, maybe against the will of both child and parent, but only the child). Likewise, many issues are caused by poverty, or other effectively environmental factors that just won't change with psychiatric treatment. There is absolutely nothing that can be done. You're also forgetting, with those medications, what the patients will build tolerance for and how that happens. Opiates, Xanax, "Benzos" and SSRIs all have different mechanisms, but it boils down to the following: you will NOT like the long term effects. You can responsibly take these medications for periods from hours to a few weeks (to end what they call a manic episode or a huge panic). More will have permanent consequences. Eventually you will become permanently depressed, to the point that "zombie" will be a word used to refer to you. The way your body adapts is by raising the threshold of dopamine it takes to reward you, to a point that no non-medication-induced (and eventually any non-overdose amount) will make you happy. You won't get out of bed, you won't learn, go for a walk, wash yourself, ... hell Miss/Mister World could walk into your bedroom, offer anything goes sex, and you still wouldn't be able to find the motivation to do anything. Once that threshold is raised to a point that only medication can provide rewards, you're not coming back anymore.
- Shaddox 7y ago
  Interesting addendum. Thank you. Are there any statistics or studies regarding the becoming of these zombies? I thought that the body, if long enough under such medication, becomes incapable of producing its own dopamine, not that the threshold becomes higher.
- dsego 7y ago
  Well, I've also read about chronic depression causing brain damage and in later stages it gets harder to distinguish depression from dementia.

candiodari 7y ago

The first and biggest mistake people make with psychiatry is that it will somehow fix anything, or do anything not relating to the patient. You're absolutely right. There are environmental reasons for phobias, PTSS, Autism, Traumas, ... So if you're being abused, there's absolutely nothing that psychiatry can do for you, because they can do nothing about the abuse (other than taking you in and throwing you back into the abuse after 2 months). Same with ancillary fields: social workers will NEVER do anything about that teacher that's abusing your kid, they will only "treat" the child (maybe with force, maybe with internment, maybe against the will of both child and parent, but only the child). Likewise, many issues are caused by poverty, or other effectively environmental factors that just won't change with psychiatric treatment. There is absolutely nothing that can be done. You're also forgetting, with those medications, what the patients will build tolerance for and how that happens. Opiates, Xanax, "Benzos" and SSRIs all have different mechanisms, but it boils down to the following: you will NOT like the long term effects. You can responsibly take these medications for periods from hours to a few weeks (to end what they call a manic episode or a huge panic). More will have permanent consequences. Eventually you will become permanently depressed, to the point that "zombie" will be a word used to refer to you. The way your body adapts is by raising the threshold of dopamine it takes to reward you, to a point that no non-medication-induced (and eventually any non-overdose amount) will make you happy. You won't get out of bed, you won't learn, go for a walk, wash yourself, ... hell Miss/Mister World could walk into your bedroom, offer anything goes sex, and you still wouldn't be able to find the motivation to do anything. Once that threshold is raised to a point that only medication can provide rewards, you're not coming back anymore.

Shaddox 7y ago
Interesting addendum. Thank you. Are there any statistics or studies regarding the becoming of these zombies? I thought that the body, if long enough under such medication, becomes incapable of producing its own dopamine, not that the threshold becomes higher.
dsego 7y ago
Well, I've also read about chronic depression causing brain damage and in later stages it gets harder to distinguish depression from dementia.