6 ms·

citation on that? my understanding is that therapy is our best option but that's it's unreliable and about as good as our drugs.

perl4ever 7y ago
Look up the side effects of common medications for severe mental illness and ask yourself why anyone would take them if therapy was a more effective alternative. If you have no idea, let's just say they can kill you in various terrible ways, or damage your body and brain irreversibly, including causing tumors, and/or put you in a living hell, not to mention cause diabetes, and yet, popular medications have been around for 25 years or longer. It's not because there is a conspiracy of doctors or drug companies, and it's not because there are good alternatives, and it's not because positive thinking fixes everything.
- selectodude 7y ago
  Well said. It's frustrating to be on a train of drugs that become less effective over time, necessitating the roulette wheel of trying new ones again. And when they work, you don't feel better, you just feel less worse. Furthermore, they work by deadening the edges of your personality, so while you don't feel worse, you're unable to feel as happy as you are when you're not on them. They're the worst, but they're why I'm still here commenting, so I take the good with the bad.
- brokensegue 7y ago
  ah yeah, I wasn't talking about severe cases. For severe cases medication is better than therapy.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Severe cases are the only ones where treatment matters. Anything works for problems that aren't severe. Preferring therapy to acupuncture is just a personal preference. The way you identify a serious case is where the forming and/or maintenance of normal relationships is seriously impaired. Therapy is a way of providing needed human contact. It's just not addressing the underlying problem.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Anything works for problems that aren't severe That's measurably not true. The consequences of not working (so long as it's not counterproductive) on an non-severe (so long as not also progressive) case may be less than a severe case, but that doesn't mean that everything works in those cases.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        Usually the phrase is "severe and persistent". Things that aren't severe and persistent are tolerable and get better and worse, so whatever you do or experience, it can appear to help.
        dragonwriter 7y ago
        There's a difference between “help” and “appear to help”, and measuring to distinguish the two is a central function of clinical science.
    - brokensegue 7y ago
      > Therapy is a way of providing needed human contact. It's just not addressing the underlying problem. citation needed.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        Which part of that needs a citation?
        brokensegue 7y ago
        All of it?
        perl4ever 7y ago
        There are two sentences that appear to be separable. So I don't know what you mean by "all of it". You think therapy does not provide human contact?

perl4ever 7y ago

Look up the side effects of common medications for severe mental illness and ask yourself why anyone would take them if therapy was a more effective alternative. If you have no idea, let's just say they can kill you in various terrible ways, or damage your body and brain irreversibly, including causing tumors, and/or put you in a living hell, not to mention cause diabetes, and yet, popular medications have been around for 25 years or longer. It's not because there is a conspiracy of doctors or drug companies, and it's not because there are good alternatives, and it's not because positive thinking fixes everything.

selectodude 7y ago
Well said. It's frustrating to be on a train of drugs that become less effective over time, necessitating the roulette wheel of trying new ones again. And when they work, you don't feel better, you just feel less worse. Furthermore, they work by deadening the edges of your personality, so while you don't feel worse, you're unable to feel as happy as you are when you're not on them. They're the worst, but they're why I'm still here commenting, so I take the good with the bad.
brokensegue 7y ago
ah yeah, I wasn't talking about severe cases. For severe cases medication is better than therapy.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Severe cases are the only ones where treatment matters. Anything works for problems that aren't severe. Preferring therapy to acupuncture is just a personal preference. The way you identify a serious case is where the forming and/or maintenance of normal relationships is seriously impaired. Therapy is a way of providing needed human contact. It's just not addressing the underlying problem.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Anything works for problems that aren't severe That's measurably not true. The consequences of not working (so long as it's not counterproductive) on an non-severe (so long as not also progressive) case may be less than a severe case, but that doesn't mean that everything works in those cases.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      Usually the phrase is "severe and persistent". Things that aren't severe and persistent are tolerable and get better and worse, so whatever you do or experience, it can appear to help.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        There's a difference between “help” and “appear to help”, and measuring to distinguish the two is a central function of clinical science.
  - brokensegue 7y ago
    > Therapy is a way of providing needed human contact. It's just not addressing the underlying problem. citation needed.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      Which part of that needs a citation?
      - brokensegue 7y ago
        All of it?
        perl4ever 7y ago
        There are two sentences that appear to be separable. So I don't know what you mean by "all of it". You think therapy does not provide human contact?