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The psychiatric drug crisis

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Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#71

Post by kyro »

skunkworks wrote: post #70
kyro wrote: post #23

Good riddance. Psychiatry by and large is a sham field. Physicians who practice it love seeing themselves as artists who are experts in identifying the subtleties of human behavior. That's their way of saying there's very little underlying science guiding their practice. Many of the diagnoses given are pulled out of thin air and made to justify a patient's admission, or to appease a patient's desire to feel as if the…

No, psychiatry is not a very, very loose and abstract field as much as it's an attempt to wrangle and understand a very, very loose and abstract subject, which is the essential nature of our thoughts and how we actionize them into behavior. Criticism of its lack of rigor may be fair in many cases, but for you to call it a "sham field" is reactionary and completely inflammatory. Don't backpedal with "I don't want to d…

Fair comment. My initial comment was too reactionary.

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#72

Post by alexhomer1 »

kyro wrote: post #23

Good riddance. Psychiatry by and large is a sham field. Physicians who practice it love seeing themselves as artists who are experts in identifying the subtleties of human behavior. That's their way of saying there's very little underlying science guiding their practice. Many of the diagnoses given are pulled out of thin air and made to justify a patient's admission, or to appease a patient's desire to feel as if the…

"I do know friends and family who have benefited from psychiatric medications, although that could entirely be due to placebo effect."

It isn't just you. EVERYONE knows people that have benefited from medication. I've seen people go from horrible, twisted states of mind turn into happy, functional people within months by taking medication. The idea that this is just a placebo effect is completely counter-intuitive, for too many reasons to list.

Don't believe for a second the idea that studies or science have anything to do with the author's opinion. People have been saying the same things ever since these medications were first released, without any facts or reasoning to back up their claims.

It isn't a surprise that after 30 years they've been able to come up with a couple of studies to back up what they're saying. What is surprising is that they'd be willing to ignore the tens of thousands of doctors all over the country that have seen these medications work, and the millions of people that have benefited from them. Studies have shown that about 75% of patients treated with antidepressants make a recovery. This is a miracle of modern medicine.

The idea that treating depression is a "loose and abstract field" is absurd. Millions of patients suffer from a range of similar systems. They get treatment, those symptoms are gone. There is nothing abstract about it. Yes, patients react differently to different medications, which is true for thousands of non-psychiatric conditions as well. In these cases, doctors also use trial and error.

Public figures against antidepressants are no better than Christian scientists who encourage patients not to seek treatment for cancer. They're also much more influential: they've persuaded hundred of thousands of people suffering from depression not to seek treatment.

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#73

Post by dhubris »

Medication is only one tool, and often needs to be used in combination with other tools, but people are always looking for the quick fix. Dealing with some of this shit can take hard work over time. Here is a small look at my experiences dealing with depression, PTSD and medication:

http://dhubris.livejournal.com/14447.html

As I said, it works for me, but may not work for you. The study of the brain and how it works physically, electrically, chemically, consciously and emotionally, and all the complex interactions within that is in its infancy in a lot of ways. So yes, if you think there is a lot of stumbling around trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, you're right. Isn't that how most science starts?

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#74

Post by snowwrestler »

OldSchool wrote: post #46
kyro wrote: post #23

Good riddance. Psychiatry by and large is a sham field. Physicians who practice it love seeing themselves as artists who are experts in identifying the subtleties of human behavior. That's their way of saying there's very little underlying science guiding their practice. Many of the diagnoses given are pulled out of thin air and made to justify a patient's admission, or to appease a patient's desire to feel as if the…

As a young engineer-type with no exposure to the psych field, I had about the same opinion when I was in my early 20's. However, a few decades of real life later I've seen first-hand, successes and turnarounds for people who either found themselves in bad situations or were just plain genetically vulnerable. In fact, I'll go as far as saying that counseling or therapy are nothing compared to the difference that the r…

Exactly right. Missing from the article is a sense of just how far these drugs have allowed us to come as a society. Researching the history of mental illness treatments is almost as horrifying as reading about slavery. For serious illnesses it could be horrific.

Today, many powerful mental illnesses can be brought under control by medication. For example, the brother of a close friend suffers from schizophrenia. His drugs work so well that the biggest risk he faces is deciding that he feels so normal that he's cured, and can stop taking the drugs (which would result in a relapse).

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#75

Post by brownbat »

Eh, maybe understanding of the brain is ripe for some kind of "scientific revolution." If so, I really hope Ed Boyden and the Synthetic Neurobiology Group are a part of it:

http://www.ted.com/talks/ed_boyden.html

The video is a little more optimistic, maybe even risks TED-utopianism... but it still has some really cool ideas, and shows that we have at least figured out a couple of things about brains.

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#76

Post by [deleted] »

kyro wrote: post #23

Good riddance. Psychiatry by and large is a sham field. Physicians who practice it love seeing themselves as artists who are experts in identifying the subtleties of human behavior. That's their way of saying there's very little underlying science guiding their practice. Many of the diagnoses given are pulled out of thin air and made to justify a patient's admission, or to appease a patient's desire to feel as if the…

[deleted]

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#77

Post by snowwrestler »

md224 wrote: post #26

Fun Fact: Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, the class of drugs used to treat depression and anxiety disorders by increasing the availability of serotonin, have a mirror opposite: Tianeptine ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianeptine ), which acts as a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Enhancer. Incredibly, this drug has also been effective at treating depression . That's right: two classes of drugs with polar opposi…

Some kids who act hyperactive can be calmed by giving them a depressant. Other kids who act hyperactive get more hyperactive if given depressants. Giving them stimulants calms them down.

Or

Some people with heat stroke will improve if given water. Others will get worse.

All these paradoxical effects prove is that the human perception of symptoms does not have a direct connection to the root causes of those symptoms. It doesn't mean that stimulants or water (or SSRIs) therefore have questionable efficacies.

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#78

Post by neurotech1 »

kyro wrote: post #64
vacri wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sat in on a psychiatry conference one afternoon where the docs discussed the treatment of several patients. Never was a scientific article or concept uttered. It was all "well, let's try him on seroquel and olanzapine, let's also throw Paxil in there." One data point? You're talking about the 'how are we going to treat our current patients' conferences? I've been in a couple of those myself, and you're expecting so…

1. I've sat in on multiple psych conferences. If you compare them with conferences in other specialties, you'll soon realize that there is a severe lack of scientific discourse happening. As I said, there is a belief that the field is an art and that the practitioners within are artists who rely heavily on their experience and preferences. Literature is hardly discussed. The DSM is the bible. 2. Yes, the best and mos…

The Quantitative EEG(qEEG) can determine more than seizure type disorders. The EEG relative signal amplitude is compared to a database. This can sometimes provide a useful differential diagnosis, but not substitute for good clinical assessment and lab work.

Unlike psychiatrists, I do not believe the DSM criteria can substitute for actual clinical diagnostic skills.

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#79

Post by ZirconCode »

kyro wrote: post #23

Good riddance. Psychiatry by and large is a sham field. Physicians who practice it love seeing themselves as artists who are experts in identifying the subtleties of human behavior. That's their way of saying there's very little underlying science guiding their practice. Many of the diagnoses given are pulled out of thin air and made to justify a patient's admission, or to appease a patient's desire to feel as if the…

I strongly disagree.

It's an extremely young field, and like Artificial Intelligence, is rapidly growing and seeking to understand the brain (a very, very difficult thing to understand after all).

As evidence of that growth, NIMH just recently abandoned their vast use of an older method to diagnose patients. Until now that was the best thing they had. Fortunately, new technology opens new doors, and they are willing to walk through them. [1]

Psychiatry is a very young field, but it is very necessary.

Positive psychology is also a relatively new field which focuses on making patients happy, rather than diagnosing their problems, which seems to be major nitpick you have with psychiatry. Of course in some cases medicine is required simply due to physical malfunction.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-harold-koplewicz/dsm-mental...

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#80

Post by driverdan »

aweisberg wrote: post #11
TheLegace wrote: post #6

My ADHD medication Strattera costs $170 a month and since the generic version only saves me $20 causes serious nausea and vomiting I don't have any choice. And its one of the only medications you can't develop a tolerance for. Luckily I'm Canadian, working part time at a Canadian university where health insurance covers the costs.

For the last 18 years or so I have been taking some form of low cost Ritalin with a co-pay between 15-25 dollars. This ancient medication that is a generic costs 130 dollars a month and that is the negotiated rate! The money isn't going to research and it isn't going to manufacturing so where does it go?

You're joking right? Drug companies are businesses just like any other. They try to maximize revenue just like everyone else.
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