Isnt psychoanalysis more related to therapy and psychiatry more related to chemicals and medications tied to how the brain works?
Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
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Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are always side effects and there is a real fear by many that they will be dependent on those drugs and have to live with the real side effects.
It's weird that we treat psychoactive drugs differently than other drugs. We don't have a fear of a diabetic becoming dependent on insulin or someone with high blood pressure becoming addicted to beta blockers. There are side effects is a bad generalization of all drugs used to treat mental health issues. When I say I am taking beta blockers, most people comment on how I am a bit young to be taking them, but when I w…
That is weird.
Diabetes can sometimes be treated with methods other than insulin [0]. I think that these dietary treatments are always a better option than insulin.
The same way with high blood pressure. High blood pressure should always be managed by "diet and exercise" before meds are brought in.
All of these drugs (diabetes drugs, high blood pressure drugs, heart medication) that are regularly being used to treat lifestyle diseases should be seen as a last resort with the main goal being to help people get to a point where they don't need them.
Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
#73Psychoanalysis is criminally underrated in the US. It’s detractors broadly don’t understand it. It has the potential to seriously help tons of people, but it is understandably challenged, as it represents a painful reckoning with yourself. Who would want to find out that their personality causes many of their problems? Maybe it requires a bit of masochism to take advantage of.
Every single person I know on any sort of mental health medication also had therapy before and after being prescribed it. Therapy does help, especially when your illness requires you to learn how to cope with your condition (and the fact that things are just harder for you for no good reason). Two people very close to me are fucked without medication. My wife was anxious to the point of having regular panic attacks,…
I’m not anti medication. It’s practical, and there seems to be a genuine biological aspect to a lot of mental illness. But I think we rely on it too much in America, and personality accounts for more than we give it credit.
Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the kidneys are much more simple than the brain, diabetes is diagnosed with a blood sugar test. In contrast, mental health diseases are generally diagnosed by talking to the patient, because there is little understanding of the underlying biology. "I am not a medical professional, I have only taken some 300 and 400/grad level courses in psychology." Do you believe your professors would agree that the mechanis…
This is where the problem is and what I argued above as well. People handwave the efficacy and use of medication by arguing "we don't understand". That is exactly what you are doing. A lot of my knowledge comes from when I was able to work with surgeons at the local university hospital in order to do signal processing on data collected from electrodes that were installed into patients who suffer from Parkinson's, for…
The validity of psychiatric diagnoses is far more debatable than the validity of a (non-psychiatric) medical diagnosis such as type 1 diabetes mellitus. The later is - at least to a certain degree - a natural category - it is very open to question whether any of the former are. I can’t agree with drawing some parallel between diabetes and ADHD while ignoring this “elephant in the room”
Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
#75Fascinating story. Thanks for sharing. > Ray’s mother asked the Lodge to give him antidepressants. But to the Lodge psychiatrists the premise of this form of treatment – to be cured without insight into what had gone wrong – seemed superficial and cheap. Drugs “might bring about some symptomatic relief”, Ross, Ray’s psychiatrist, acknowledged, “but it isn’t going to be anything solid in which he can say, ‘Hey, I’m a…
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Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taking pain killers can exacerbate injuries by masking the pain caused by behaviours that cause additional trauma. I've seen a child's broken arm go from a scheduled intervention to an emergency surgery because the xray techs manipulated it poorly. The kid felt nothing thanks to the opioids she was given, and so didn't protest when they made a further mess of it.
What's the takeaway here? We all know physical pain serves a purpose.
Maybe you're depressed because your life and environment is actually shit and you don't know how to fix it. Maybe taking happy pills just eliminates the only signal telling you to take your hand off the hot stove.
Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that it is not the only thing that puts people off. The cost is a significant challenge. But I think it is one of the biggest factors. You even display some of it yourself in the way you refer to dream analysis and Freud. It’s not just you, psychoanalysts themselves have anxieties about delving into the uncertain, unproven speculative parts of their minds. The hatable thing about psychoanalysis is that it oft…
I'm more opposed to the enormous amounts of time and money, balanced against the paucity of evidence that it does anything positive for the patient. Yeah, the patient often feels like it's helping. But that's true of joining a cult as well.
There is a risk of psychoanalysis being culty, skepticism can combat that.
It is unfortunate that there hasn’t been more research, but I think you misrepresent the evidence, psychoanalysis’ efficacy is established: https://jonathanshedler.com/PDFs/Shedler%20(2010)%20Efficacy...
Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
#78This line hit me hard:
> In a draft of his memoir, Ray modified his definition of depression: “This is not an illness, it is not a sickness – it is a state of disconnection.”
I've seen it in myself and in some of my closest friends, where we just start to disconnect more and more from others, more and more from ourselves. Especially from how we're feeling. Wanting to avoid emotions and thoughts, suppress them, repress them. I'm not too familiar with the vast theory in psychology and psychoanalysis, maybe what I'm proposing is quite aligned with Freudian or other thinking.
Just seems to me that when we disconnect, especially from how we're feeling, we can slowly start to shrink into ourselves and if we don't stop it, we sometimes implode.
Conversely, that by connecting more with how we're feeling, we can start to expand a bit, not just with ourselves but with other people.
One of the challenges in that being as we expand, things happen that can make us want to contract (rejection, being ignored, idolized, etc) and then back on the shrinking path again.
Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's weird that we treat psychoactive drugs differently than other drugs. We don't have a fear of a diabetic becoming dependent on insulin or someone with high blood pressure becoming addicted to beta blockers. There are side effects is a bad generalization of all drugs used to treat mental health issues. When I say I am taking beta blockers, most people comment on how I am a bit young to be taking them, but when I w…
That is weird. Diabetes can sometimes be treated with methods other than insulin [0]. I think that these dietary treatments are always a better option than insulin. The same way with high blood pressure. High blood pressure should always be managed by "diet and exercise" before meds are brought in. All of these drugs (diabetes drugs, high blood pressure drugs, heart medication) that are regularly being used to treat…
... until you hit 55-60 and irreversible changes to your body's hormonal system mean diet and exercise alone cannot control your hypertension, or late onset diabetes.
I mean sure. Try. I had 10 years on Hypertension meds, 15 off, and I am back on despite significant weightless and increased physical activity. Idiopathic can happen.
Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
#80Psychoanalysis is criminally underrated in the US. It’s detractors broadly don’t understand it. It has the potential to seriously help tons of people, but it is understandably challenged, as it represents a painful reckoning with yourself. Who would want to find out that their personality causes many of their problems? Maybe it requires a bit of masochism to take advantage of.
Oedipus complex isn't real. Electra complex isn't real. Freud should be in the dustbin of history.