athanasius80 said:... I think that depression can be most artistically inspiring. It can also destroy you. But I think Beethoven and Van Gogh would be infinitely less if they were just happy people making happy art.
SchwinnParamount said:If depression and other mental illnesses are not organic in nature, how is it that drugs have any effect? Are you thinking they are all placebo in nature?
My own experience is that both drugs and brain chemical changes brought on by exercise had a dramatic effect.
How would you explain the hereditary nature of some of these deseases? And maybe you can explain how a MRI can show differences between 'healthy' brains and those of people with pronounced mental illness?.
Donald Miller said:Thanks for responding. But I still wonder on what you are basing this judgement? I know that you must have something factual that this is based on? I really would like to know because I don't understand.
Wayne said:I am basing it on the lack of diagnostic pathology for any and all mental illness, and the extremely shakey and highly debateable "evidence" for it.
Wayne said:Second, the success rate of psych drugs is overstated, after subtracting the placebo effect and those for whom it simply doesnt work I believe its somewhat less than 50% for antidepressants. On the same point, it should not be a surprise that people often feel better and forget their problems when they take drugs. Thats why people take drugs, and have for millenia.
jeroldharter said:Oh, man. Having spent two consecutive weekends on call at the hospital I get exasperated with this stuff. An informal assessment of your view would be to ask non-psychiatric professional people if they agree with the "it's all in your head but not in your brain" theory that you espouse.
jeroldharter said:Ask policemen, EMT's, firemen, judges, district attorneys, homeless shelter workers, etc. if they agree with you. Just as I finished my residency, a bad thing happened. One of the female psychiatrists was married to a man with bipolar disorder. He went off of his medications, murdered her, and left her in a dumpster. I doubt she would agree with your placebo effect rationalization.
jeroldharter said:Without arguing your statistics, what is so bad about a 49% success rate? If I were a severely, chronically mentally ill person who could not work or maintain a functional relationship (and I insist I am not) I would take that rate. Also, what is "success?" Of course medications don't cure all of life's ills. If the suicide rate for untreated depression or schizophrenia is 15%, is that a random/sham number too? 1-2% of the general population kill themselves anyway?
What would you have said about neurosyphilis before penicillin? Would you have changed your mind afterward? Or maybe you still don't "believe in" tertiary syphilis. What are your thoughts about Alzheimer's Disease? Just a bunch of whack-minded old slackers?
Wayne said:You cannot to do that today with the brain or blood or neurochemistry of any mental illness patient, living or dead, using any modern imaging technologies, scans, or blood test. And why not? Its a bunch of bunk thats why, and a lucrative multi billion dollar drug industry that buys influence among psychiatrists and often controls...
Wayne said:This really isnt something I want to go into in depth on Apug, but since you asked I will reply
Please Doctor, you start with the ad hominem and follow right up with the strawman, making this far too easy. Whats next, the red herring? You have put words in my mouth that were never there, and I would never say anything so callous.
jeroldharter said:You are right that "there is not a test" to diagnose a mental illness. Perhaps there will be soon. In the meantime, do we assume that the brain is the only organ in the body with essentially no dysfunction until old age? Apart from multiple sclerosis and epilepsy there are few other brain illnesses that occur until old age. I suppose migraine headaches are a sham as well since there is "no test" to diagnose them. Why would a body's most complicated organ be so free of biological problems and so prone to existential problems? Perhaps yellow bile?
By the way, I am still waiting on my check from "the pharmaceutical industry."
Wayne said:"Perhaps there will be soon".
I have heard this for years. ...
etc etc
blansky said:Part of this debate is also the problem that way too many people, millions actually, go to doctors to fix themselves. ...
We are a fat lazy society that feed ourselves and our children garbage and when we have problems because of it we all want a quick fix.
MIchael
SchwinnParamount said:Depression is an ailment for which there does not appear to be a pharmaceutical cure. Bummer. The good news is that although doctors cannot cure depression with a pill, they can make me feel better for a while. How is that a bad thing? .
blansky said:Part of this debate is also the problem that way too many people, millions actually, go to doctors to fix themselves. They all want a quick fix and in most cases won't even go to the trouble to help fix themselves. Unfortunately once on the "doctor give me a pill for this" rollercoaster they rarely get off.
Psychiatric professionals have aften been called "rent a friend" and in fact do little more than give people an outlet to talk. On the other hand they also deal with people with very serious brain chemistry imbalance problems that need serious help, including medication.
MIchael
Wayne said:...There is very little talk therapy being done by psychiatrists these days. ...
jeroldharter said:Blansky's assertions that psychiatrists are basically drug pushers for hire is absurd.
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