5 ms·

> Psychiatry does not know how to cure mental illness. At best it knows how to medicate it and alleviate symptoms while causing very serious or deadly side effe

> Psychiatry does not know how to cure mental illness. At best it knows how to medicate it and alleviate symptoms while causing very serious or deadly side effects. I realize this is just a sidenote, but I just want to address this point for anyone who's struggling with problems like depression or other serious mental issues. Getting help can be a lifesaver, and sometimes medication is part of it. Properly prescribed by a professional who knows what they're doing, medication to treat depression can in some cases literally change your life. It's not the only way to address mental issues, you absolutely should couple it with therapy. It's not for everyone. That's why a professional is involved. But stigmatizing people who take medication to help manage their problems is incredibly harmful.

Daho0n 6y ago
Absolutely correct, it can be a life-saver, but patients should also be aware that many people get permanently ruined by the medication prescribed by so-called professionals - especially antipsychotics and antidepressants - so to try it is to take a big gamble. Medicine should be the very last thing tried to help people with mental problems. Not the first as it is today and likely not the second either. It is, in many many cases, incredibly harmful or totally superfluous. I'd go so far as to say that IMO at least 9 out of 10 in the psychiatric system is over-medicated and/or misdiagnosed. Most people I have seen that get medication end up in one of three situations being either life-long medicinal dependency, polypharmacy or misdiagnosis. All could be prevented by a working psychiatric system without close ties to Big Pharma. Most people that get antidepressive medicine isn't heavily depressed and shouldn't get medicine at all: >Conclusions: The magnitude of benefit of antidepressant medication compared with placebo increases with severity of depression symptoms and may be minimal or nonexistent, on average, in patients with mild or moderate symptoms. For patients with very severe depression, the benefit of medications over placebo is substantial. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/185157?redirect=true https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/18515... >My guess is that future generations of psychologists will look back at our over-prescribing of psychotropic drugs with incredulity too, amazed at our blind enthusiasm for largely ineffective and damaging treatments, and at how such barbaric methods could become so widespread. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201603/chemical-lobotomy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201...
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  If you go in with a headache and get prescribed an antipsychotic, sure. If you have severe depression that just goes away with the right drug, isn't that solving the problem? The problem with overmedication is when the drugs don't work, or don't work properly. A competent professional would work with you to find the drugs that work for you, not say “here, take this, not interested in hearing your symptoms”. It's usually possible to know when you've got a bad doctor, and usually possible to seek a second opinion. Better to seek help than suffer alone.
  - formerly_proven 6y ago
    > If you go in with a headache and get prescribed an antipsychotic, sure. If you have severe depression that just goes away with the right drug, isn't that solving the problem? The problem is that often medication is prescribed very quickly and virtually no supervision happens. This is a very bad combination in general, but especially if the patient is suffering from a mental illness. These drugs literally list things like suicide among their side effects and it is extremely irresponsible to prescribe them to someone and then tell them to check back in 3-6 months or so. But this represents standard practice.
    - stagas 6y ago
      I agree with the supervision part but imagine you're a doctor, you have these meds at your disposal and someone comes to you suffering with what you assess to be a condition that you know a certain med is 90% effective. Wouldn't you give it to them and simply risk that they might be in the 10% that it doesn't work or maybe the 0.1% that it'd cause a bad effect? Should we eliminate medication because it isn't 100% effective for everyone and sometimes has adverse effects?
      - wizzwizz4 6y ago
        If medication A is 80% effective, 10% useless and 10% major side-effecty, and medication B is 5% effective (half of the A-useless people), 90% useless and 5% “causes headaches”, which do you try first?

Daho0n 6y ago

Absolutely correct, it can be a life-saver, but patients should also be aware that many people get permanently ruined by the medication prescribed by so-called professionals - especially antipsychotics and antidepressants - so to try it is to take a big gamble. Medicine should be the very last thing tried to help people with mental problems. Not the first as it is today and likely not the second either. It is, in many many cases, incredibly harmful or totally superfluous. I'd go so far as to say that IMO at least 9 out of 10 in the psychiatric system is over-medicated and/or misdiagnosed. Most people I have seen that get medication end up in one of three situations being either life-long medicinal dependency, polypharmacy or misdiagnosis. All could be prevented by a working psychiatric system without close ties to Big Pharma. Most people that get antidepressive medicine isn't heavily depressed and shouldn't get medicine at all: >Conclusions: The magnitude of benefit of antidepressant medication compared with placebo increases with severity of depression symptoms and may be minimal or nonexistent, on average, in patients with mild or moderate symptoms. For patients with very severe depression, the benefit of medications over placebo is substantial. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/185157?redirect=true https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/18515... >My guess is that future generations of psychologists will look back at our over-prescribing of psychotropic drugs with incredulity too, amazed at our blind enthusiasm for largely ineffective and damaging treatments, and at how such barbaric methods could become so widespread. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201603/chemical-lobotomy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201...

wizzwizz4 6y ago
If you go in with a headache and get prescribed an antipsychotic, sure. If you have severe depression that just goes away with the right drug, isn't that solving the problem? The problem with overmedication is when the drugs don't work, or don't work properly. A competent professional would work with you to find the drugs that work for you, not say “here, take this, not interested in hearing your symptoms”. It's usually possible to know when you've got a bad doctor, and usually possible to seek a second opinion. Better to seek help than suffer alone.
- formerly_proven 6y ago
  > If you go in with a headache and get prescribed an antipsychotic, sure. If you have severe depression that just goes away with the right drug, isn't that solving the problem? The problem is that often medication is prescribed very quickly and virtually no supervision happens. This is a very bad combination in general, but especially if the patient is suffering from a mental illness. These drugs literally list things like suicide among their side effects and it is extremely irresponsible to prescribe them to someone and then tell them to check back in 3-6 months or so. But this represents standard practice.
  - stagas 6y ago
    I agree with the supervision part but imagine you're a doctor, you have these meds at your disposal and someone comes to you suffering with what you assess to be a condition that you know a certain med is 90% effective. Wouldn't you give it to them and simply risk that they might be in the 10% that it doesn't work or maybe the 0.1% that it'd cause a bad effect? Should we eliminate medication because it isn't 100% effective for everyone and sometimes has adverse effects?
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      If medication A is 80% effective, 10% useless and 10% major side-effecty, and medication B is 5% effective (half of the A-useless people), 90% useless and 5% “causes headaches”, which do you try first?