"Mental" Illness: The Future of Treatment

Sometimes it’s misconstrued. that a sub- thema is introduced, as the previous blog should indicate; that so much is involved in. trying to figure out why policy in China may foreshadow things to come here in the US, as well as globally, and its a scary thought, in deed

Look how they’ll flipped on population control eliminating the law of limiting couples to having only one child? Could the US , or any other developed Western country accept that way of thinking? Even now, reversals are taking place here , as to abortion, and other moral issues.

In California I think in a San Francisco court, a reversal has taken place on the issue of euthanasia for.terminally ill patients, eliminating the right to die by assisted suicide laws.

But down the line who knows? Maybe depressed people will not only be allowed to die, but will be .constrained to do so

This ‘trend’ is indicative of the effects that entropy has on shortening the gap which exists between primary and secondary differentiation. The 60’s classic ‘The vanishing adolescent’ shows a very early realization, of the later abridging time lap between childhood and maturity.

That China, who deals a higher ante from quality of life to the issue of Barr existence, shows what perimeters are between mortal values. (as opposed to immortal ones)

Being beyond the time for editing- Barr existence, in the last paragraph , should read- bare existence…

I read some of these posts and am completely at sea…What exactly are you talking about?

I’ve been seeing psychiatrists for years–I’ve been on psychiatric drugs for years–I’m not ‘sick’, I just ran out of serotonin years ago… Since I was born without a mental epidermis, I react to things other people can take, with only a hiccough or two, in their mental strides, in an apparent ‘abnormal’ way. Sure, it’s abnormal–but what’s abnormal? Isn’t that simply outside the ‘average?’

Most of us are ‘outside the average’ in some way(s)–my way is just my way.

I don’t see a psychiatrist for me. I see a psychiatrist for the people I have to deal with every day.

I take drugs that help me become less “different” from the people around me as well as to be able to express myself in ways that, hopefully, those people, including my psychiatrist, will try to understand and accept. At the same time, the drugs help me to understand my reactions and, again hopefully, to enable me to ‘govern’ my reactions so that other people understand why I’ve acted the way I have–or, at least, can try to accept me as I am.

“Oh, that’s just Liz…She weeps for every tree that’s cut down for no reason…That’s just the way she is…”

My psychiatrist gives me drugs so he can understand me, as well. How else would he be able to know me, if he weren’t able to give me what I need to be ‘normal?’

How else would he be able to ‘listen’ and, through talk therapy, even begin to try to help?

I’m talking about,Liz, the new thinking on part of analysts , that cognitive therapy is the best, without eliminating drugs, if needed. And wouldn’t it argue that the more drugged a person is, the less cognitive accessibility remains? A heavily drugged person will be less apt to talk, yet I believe like in alcohol, the level of cognitive function diminishes according to of drugs administered.

Any drug that effects the way the mind works is called “psychotropic.” This doesn’t, however, mean that every psychotropic drug effects mental cognition. I’m on two ‘psychotropic’ drugs–one equalizes my mood and the other regulates my equalized mood. This is needed because I’m physically unable to produce serotonin sufficient to regulate and equalize my feelings–to get those feelings to manifest themselves as ‘normal.’

Normality, however, is relative–it’s the middle of the bell curve. I understand this. I know that my brain doesn’t produce the needed amount of serotonin to keep my feelings somewhere within the middle of the bell curve, so I need drugs to help.

Research into the workings of the brain; the findings of neurologists who work with the brain and its functions; the development of drugs that can pinpoint the various areas of the brain and its functions is advancing almost daily. It’s hard work, since there are billions of synapses all of which are connected and interconnected. In my opinion, this makes AI a real impossibility.

Psychiatrists, as medical doctors, use drugs, possibly because drugs are short-cuts. If a patient shows signs of harming him/herself, the isn’t enough time for talk therapy. But drugs only treat symptoms.

Sometimes, treating the symptoms is all that can be done.

I agree and I am not talking about the assymptotes of the bell curve but the mid ranges where more access is available for understanding to occurs.

The extreme parts of severe lack or overabundance of chemicals may result in hyper or hypo activity and/or severe depression or mania.

Sorry for posting peacemeal but something I s wrong with my phone. I think the solution is to find the right mix of treating the symptoms

by drugs with behavioral/cognitive therapy. If you’ve been in and out of the garbage can, like me, for instance,
the mix may vary considerably.

Good to hear from you again. After seven years of this thread, have we come any closer to discovering the conditions of what it means to be normal?

Ierrellus,

I had an appointment with my psychiatrist yesterday. I asked him to not take me off my medications because I was able, during the last month, to meet a stumbling block and get through it.

It was a simple thing, but it made my insides ‘jingle.’ I can’t describe it any other way.

But I was able to stop and understand that my insides were trembling, then gather up my control and do what I could to deal with and then change the situation. My psychiatrist and I were very proud of me.

Those of us who have been burdened with not being “normal” because of genetics–i.e., the inability to create the chemicals needed to be normal–to fall within the high points of the “normal” bell curve, are–or should be–very happy with our meds. It would be very nice if the big Pharms didn’t gouge, but, then, I realize just how much neurology and the workings of the brain have advanced within even the last 20 years.

It’s amazing.

Now, if we can just convince people that we’re not crazy…

But that’s fighting deep, deep feelings in others…isn’t it?

It could be understood on another way. May be our being out of vac in the first place causes an over/under production of certain chemicals, for instance: if one is in constant fear, the production of norepinephrine , creates a constant feedback of it, setting the stage for a bio feedback of the vicious circle kind.I guess both scenarios are possible, sometimes the emotional umbalance, other times its the hormonal unbalance that starts it.

So then why, Meno, be against medication that can help?

I am not against meds generally, but needless medication of people who could benefit from other treatment options, which are foreclosed whereby : such as cognitive and analytical talk therapy, for lack of funds rather then insight.

Yes, funding for psychiatric help can be difficult for most and impossible for many, especially with public psychiatric hospitals closed and with Obamacare under attack.

I really feel, however, and I’ve gone through both, that talk therapy alone–or drug therapy without talk therapy–doesn’t work as well as a combination of both. :slight_smile:

Drug companies do not need to publish negative results of their studies regarding a particular drug. They can then refer to just the postive result studies. A couple of researchers useod the freedom of information act to get all the results. They found that wehn looking at all studies there was a very very small, almost completely negligible postive result on average using drugs.

However, there was a very significant, iow rather large set of bad side effect results for psychotropics.

IOW it actually makes more sense to refer to the positive effects as a tiny side effect and the drugs as effective in cause bloating, dizziness, suicidal ideation, dry mouth, paranoid thoughts, serious weight gain and so on.

These drugs are good at producing problematic emotional and physical effects, and quite near null at producing positive emotional effects.

And this would include effects that inhibit the effectiveness of talk therapies.

Do you have any links for those couple of researchers and their findings regarding drug studies? That was regarding psych drugs only rather than all meds right?

Quite frankly, I’d rather have dry mouth, which I have, than some of the thoughts and feelings I have without meds.