Did you ever stop to wonder or ask yourself 'what am I doing?' I did and in many ways I wish I had not. As a Psychiatrist, I still do not know what our profession is trying to do. It seems we have a series of solutions and now we are trying to find the problems that they can solve. My observations are either anecdotal or part of research that I have done as a Psychiatric Auditor and are based on my 38 years experience in the field of Psychiatry.
Psychiatrists are treating two major populations: Adults and Juveniles. These populations are further subdivided into severe and mild disturbances.
I am not a Juvenile Psychiatrist, but I speak from impressions and my readings in the field. There is nothing more heart breaking than the severely mentally ill juvenile. We have increased our arsenal of medications, but in results and understanding, compared to other medical professions, our success rate is poor. Prevention is a distant dream.
The mildly mentally ill juveniles are a cause of concern to me. Psychiatry has waltzed into learning disorders with the crusading gusto that only psychiatrists seem to have. We are witnessing the 'medicinization' of a former outlawed drug. The criteria for using Ritalin far too often go unmet. There is no doubt in my mind that children that would not be given Ritalin by experts in the field are receiving it. No one can say with honesty and certainty what the effect of Ritalin use in juveniles will have on their brains as they age. Yet the Ritalin pushers have an almost messianic fervor for their 'solution'.
In the adult population, generally speaking, the influence of the Drug Companies is terrifying. Very few research projects disprove the efficacy of a drug when the trial is sponsored by the drug's manufacturer. Harmful facts that may be discovered are not disclosed. When they are, their importance and significance are downplayed. For example, one of the major, popular, new anti psychotic drugs actively and substantially increases the risk factors for heart attacks or CVAs. In all the adult population the major medical goal is to reduce these risk factors. Only severely mentally ill psychiatric patients are the exception.
Article comments
1 - Matthew Holford
Dear Dr Benjamin,
I found this piece quite interesting. I'm currently engaged in a toe-to-toe exchange with the MHRA in the UK over its assessment procedure (it appears to amount to rubber-stamping the opinion of the company applying for a marketing authorization). I'm posting the correspondence on the Uncommon Knowledge depression forum (UKDF), in the hope that the MHRA's evasive replies will be more influential than anything that I could say.
Which brings me to the point, I suppose. There are those members of UKDF who have appear to have serious issues, but for the most part, people just want to have somebody to talk to about their "stuff". People don't appear to "want" or "need" drugs - they appear to need solutions, and just learning how other people have dealt with similar issues to their own is often valuable. The more serious cases are those who are at the point where they absolutely refuse to try anything new, and won't even discuss their issues in depth, even though they've taken the effort to visit a support forum.
Anyway, I'm not sure if that adds anything to your experience, but, as you suggest, at one point, above, life skills are what most people are lacking. No drug provides those.
Best regards
Matthew Holford
2 - The Irreverent Buddhist
Most people involved in the Mental Health System did not learn proper skills in life because they were sexually abused or physically abused as children.
The lies and manipulations, and living in lies, that results, as well as the lack of felt ownership of their bodies means these people do noyt feel - and are not - in cotrol of their lives.
There is no strict divide between "orgnanic illness" and psychological problems rooted in childhood. There is as great or greater a correlation between surviving an abusive childhood and getting a diagnosis of Schoizophrenia or Psychosis as an adult.
On average survivors or Childhood Sexual Abuse spend years in the system before getting appropriate diagnosis if at all. Most never do.
Psychiatry is forced into a mad world by the division of mind and body medicine into such false camps. We are seeing this with the increasing realisation that the strict barriers erected between mind and matter by Descartes do not exist and the thinking that has lead to in medicine and elsewhere is faulted.