Janine, whats your view on the "pseudo-psychiatry"
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G
Guest
·Oh, I know we all came from other planets and that psychiatry is just a ruse of the 'alien forces' to try to control our free will.
NOT. lol
I have no words re: Tom Cruise and/or Scientology. If it makes sense to anyone, I have nothing to say. It's beyond pathetic.
Psychiatry is psychiatry. The medications I took when I was very very troubled certainly helped me to cope. I have no regrets at all about taking them. Do I think they can "CURE" a set of mental symptoms from a breakdown? no. But they can really help when/if someone is crippled and literally unable to function.
As I've said, I couldn't have made it across the street and TO the therapy room if I hadn't had meds. But the work of untangling the web of problems was done in the session room, not in my biochemistry from a medication.
That said, of course psychiatry has virtually no idea how any of this works. And any decent psychiatrist is the first to admit that. The brain is a mystery overall. They learn SOME things, a few things they observe here and there, but the vast majority of "why" or "how" ANY mental functioning occurs is a mystery.
Someone compared it to astronomy - and that's my take on it, too. Very little was known about the planets and stars, but we had to start SOMEwhere. To say "well, we don't know enough" and then not experiment is never going to help anyone.
Some people do say that meds made them much worse. I believe that. But psychiatry, like life itself, is a gamble. We are desperate when we're ready to take any drug that is going to alter our damned brains, lol....so we're not really interested in waiting till psychiatry can PROVE this or that. We'd probably eat cow patties if we thought it might help.
And the concept of "is it science? psuedo-science? a socio-psychological enterprise only?" who cares? What is the answer to those questions going to prove?
Each of us is so different anyway that even if there was a medication that scientific psychiatry could PROVE would help in 9 out of 10 cases (that would be excellent odds even for internal medicine) there would STILL be the occasional patient who reacted badly to it and wanted to sue them for not knowing.
And...all that said, I do not think medication is the answer, long term. The mind is trickier than we like to think. It will respond well to some drug, but then in a year or so the symptoms will "morph" into some new version of themselves and you're right back in the trenches.
Peace,
Janine
NOT. lol
I have no words re: Tom Cruise and/or Scientology. If it makes sense to anyone, I have nothing to say. It's beyond pathetic.
Psychiatry is psychiatry. The medications I took when I was very very troubled certainly helped me to cope. I have no regrets at all about taking them. Do I think they can "CURE" a set of mental symptoms from a breakdown? no. But they can really help when/if someone is crippled and literally unable to function.
As I've said, I couldn't have made it across the street and TO the therapy room if I hadn't had meds. But the work of untangling the web of problems was done in the session room, not in my biochemistry from a medication.
That said, of course psychiatry has virtually no idea how any of this works. And any decent psychiatrist is the first to admit that. The brain is a mystery overall. They learn SOME things, a few things they observe here and there, but the vast majority of "why" or "how" ANY mental functioning occurs is a mystery.
Someone compared it to astronomy - and that's my take on it, too. Very little was known about the planets and stars, but we had to start SOMEwhere. To say "well, we don't know enough" and then not experiment is never going to help anyone.
Some people do say that meds made them much worse. I believe that. But psychiatry, like life itself, is a gamble. We are desperate when we're ready to take any drug that is going to alter our damned brains, lol....so we're not really interested in waiting till psychiatry can PROVE this or that. We'd probably eat cow patties if we thought it might help.
And the concept of "is it science? psuedo-science? a socio-psychological enterprise only?" who cares? What is the answer to those questions going to prove?
Each of us is so different anyway that even if there was a medication that scientific psychiatry could PROVE would help in 9 out of 10 cases (that would be excellent odds even for internal medicine) there would STILL be the occasional patient who reacted badly to it and wanted to sue them for not knowing.
And...all that said, I do not think medication is the answer, long term. The mind is trickier than we like to think. It will respond well to some drug, but then in a year or so the symptoms will "morph" into some new version of themselves and you're right back in the trenches.
Peace,
Janine
The answer to these questions will put a different more realistic view of psychiatry and medications into the heads of the people who need to realize that medications are not cures. When we talk of chemical imbalances alot of people auotmatically assume that a mental illness is an imbalance that is cured with medication. I think this idea is ridiculous because medication helps, but it seems as if it rarely completely cures. The continuation of this model of mental illness is extremely advantageous to those who profit off of medication but is deleterious to those who actually have to experinment on their brains under the supposition that doctors know exactly what to do because they are in positions of authority.
But of course blunt honesty is way too much to ask when billions upon billions of dollars of profit each year is part of the equation.
But of course blunt honesty is way too much to ask when billions upon billions of dollars of profit each year is part of the equation.
G
Guest
·This will also open up a huge can of worms, but here I go anyway, lol
Besides financial incentive, please do realize that MANY MANY psychiatists use the term "chemical imbalance" because their patients want to hear it. They figure the poor soul needs treatment and if he/she thinks there is something chemically wrong, they are more likely to stick with treatment. MANY many patients balk at the suggstion that their symptoms are originating in psychological areas.
CLEARLY, there is a mighty physical and neurological component to these symptoms - please do not think I am telling anyone that they are only imagining their symptoms...but MANY patients have caused the chemicals in their brains to produce too much/too little of some neurotransmitter because of prolonged and/or powerful psychological stress.
Many of us lived contorted. It's as if you spent every night trying to wrap your legs around your head and dislocate your shoulders and touch your toe to your ear. After many years of that, you WOULD have joint pain, but not because you had defective joints. Some of us painted ourselves into the proverbial corner - with no leeway to feel or think ANYthing other than our own covert party line - then as changes occured, as we grew, as we made major transitions in life...the jig was up and something had to give. What "gave" in many cases was our psychological coping and sense of stability.
The human brain produces and "behaves" according to thoughts and feelings and the myriad of mental machinations we use throughout a given moment. Everyone in a major stress moment alters his/her brain chemistry significantly.
My point is that there may be some people out there with chemical imbalances. Many psychiatrists think so. Others use the term because it's what the patient wants to hear. Others think symptoms are usually sourced by psychological disturbances and that the psychological tension/unrest has produced the neurochemical changes that make the symptoms persist. In those cases, there IS a chem imbalance, but not one that originated in biological malfunction. Still others think the entire production is psychological in origin.
Bottom line, take pills if you want to and don't if you're not comfortable with it.
Besides financial incentive, please do realize that MANY MANY psychiatists use the term "chemical imbalance" because their patients want to hear it. They figure the poor soul needs treatment and if he/she thinks there is something chemically wrong, they are more likely to stick with treatment. MANY many patients balk at the suggstion that their symptoms are originating in psychological areas.
CLEARLY, there is a mighty physical and neurological component to these symptoms - please do not think I am telling anyone that they are only imagining their symptoms...but MANY patients have caused the chemicals in their brains to produce too much/too little of some neurotransmitter because of prolonged and/or powerful psychological stress.
Many of us lived contorted. It's as if you spent every night trying to wrap your legs around your head and dislocate your shoulders and touch your toe to your ear. After many years of that, you WOULD have joint pain, but not because you had defective joints. Some of us painted ourselves into the proverbial corner - with no leeway to feel or think ANYthing other than our own covert party line - then as changes occured, as we grew, as we made major transitions in life...the jig was up and something had to give. What "gave" in many cases was our psychological coping and sense of stability.
The human brain produces and "behaves" according to thoughts and feelings and the myriad of mental machinations we use throughout a given moment. Everyone in a major stress moment alters his/her brain chemistry significantly.
My point is that there may be some people out there with chemical imbalances. Many psychiatrists think so. Others use the term because it's what the patient wants to hear. Others think symptoms are usually sourced by psychological disturbances and that the psychological tension/unrest has produced the neurochemical changes that make the symptoms persist. In those cases, there IS a chem imbalance, but not one that originated in biological malfunction. Still others think the entire production is psychological in origin.
Bottom line, take pills if you want to and don't if you're not comfortable with it.
Joined
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48 Posts
now, I could speak of the recent research on neuroscience and psychotherapy, about the early formation of the brain chemistry, and the function of serontin and how it is formed through the attachment and bond with the mother.....
about emotional regulation, and how, if there is not sufficient containment in infancy of unbearable emotions (eg aloneness, anger) then emotional regulation becomes a problem all the life and results in e.g what are seem by some as 'Borderline' traits.
Lack of serotonin = depression. I have a lack of serotonin in my brain because it wasn't sufficiently nurtured when I was a young baby. I take antidepressants now (since November). It helps rebalance the chemicals in my brain (I take Efexor, so its also the noraphenamine---would need to check a book to say about that :lol: )
so that I am also more able to contain anxiety for example---and, living in London, following recent events, I am almost certain that I would be a quivering wreck were it not for my meds...
BUT, saying all this, MY THERAPY IS ESSENTIAL.
I need the mirroring of my emotions, to be responded to and empathised with and have containment of my most difficult feelings--all of which I missed out on when I was a baby and child.
Perhaps meds are the scaffolding that help keep the building upright whilst the renovation work carries on inside with therapy and personal reflection???
btw, for some time I would never TOUCH meds, but I was taking Valerian and things were just getting a thousand times worse and I felt I was collapsing into smithereens, so, a trip to my GP it was......
Katie
about emotional regulation, and how, if there is not sufficient containment in infancy of unbearable emotions (eg aloneness, anger) then emotional regulation becomes a problem all the life and results in e.g what are seem by some as 'Borderline' traits.
Lack of serotonin = depression. I have a lack of serotonin in my brain because it wasn't sufficiently nurtured when I was a young baby. I take antidepressants now (since November). It helps rebalance the chemicals in my brain (I take Efexor, so its also the noraphenamine---would need to check a book to say about that :lol: )
so that I am also more able to contain anxiety for example---and, living in London, following recent events, I am almost certain that I would be a quivering wreck were it not for my meds...
BUT, saying all this, MY THERAPY IS ESSENTIAL.
I need the mirroring of my emotions, to be responded to and empathised with and have containment of my most difficult feelings--all of which I missed out on when I was a baby and child.
Perhaps meds are the scaffolding that help keep the building upright whilst the renovation work carries on inside with therapy and personal reflection???
btw, for some time I would never TOUCH meds, but I was taking Valerian and things were just getting a thousand times worse and I felt I was collapsing into smithereens, so, a trip to my GP it was......
Katie
soiledangel,
Can I ask you a question? I find it very hard to believe that you recall what occurred when you were in an incubator. Such an early memory is basically unheard of -- in fact there's a term for the phenomenon of most people not recalling anything before age 3 or so, "infantile amnesia."
Here's the question: How did you come to remember what happened to you that early?
Can I ask you a question? I find it very hard to believe that you recall what occurred when you were in an incubator. Such an early memory is basically unheard of -- in fact there's a term for the phenomenon of most people not recalling anything before age 3 or so, "infantile amnesia."
Here's the question: How did you come to remember what happened to you that early?
Joined
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1,479 Posts
I'm more than willing to read all of the above and make my own informed decision, but I have to ask you people this...I know there are questions about God, Tom and psychiatry, not knowing what to believe and all, but what about Dr. Phil ? :? Are y'all gonna trash him too?
"It's as if you spent every night trying to wrap your legs around your head and dislocate your shoulders and touch your toe to your ear." Janine, I did this. It hurt.
"...the jig was up and something had to give. What "gave" in many cases was our psychological coping and sense of stability." EXACTLY.
My BIG problem with psychiatry, chemical imbalances or not ,and the use of meds, is that I think doctors FAIL US when they do not go in to the whole litany of what taking these meds will entail. I am on a huge campaign with doctors and any friends that are considering taking meds. The campaign is this...YOU make an INFORMED decision.
I have spoken twice with my regular MD about prescribing "meds for the heads". I have told him if he does not tell each and every patient the in's and out's, up's and down's of these meds, he is not letting them make an informed decision and is, in fact, letting them down as a doctor. I want a doctor to say...Okay, you are having this kind of blah, blah problem. I can offer you prozac, paxil, lexapro, etc...BUT be warned, by taking this medicine you will be altering your brain chemisty. Although these meds are supposedly not addictive, your brain runs a good chance of thinking they are, and it can be difficult to come off of them. These other drugs, valium, zanax, klonopin are addictive and you had better prepare yourself for the day you might choose to come off of them. Withdrawal off of these has been shown to be very difficult to go thru. Knowing these things, do you want to begin the med or would you like for me to offer some other ideas for coping with your current problem...blah, blah, blah.
That being said, and if anyone is still reading..."Bottom line, take pills if you want to and don't if you're not comfortable with it." and "But of course blunt honesty is way too much to ask when billions upon billions of dollars of profit each year is part of the equation. " are both true opinions to me.
:!: I DID see the interview and have decided Tom has left the planet.
Most sincerely,
terri
"It's as if you spent every night trying to wrap your legs around your head and dislocate your shoulders and touch your toe to your ear." Janine, I did this. It hurt.
"...the jig was up and something had to give. What "gave" in many cases was our psychological coping and sense of stability." EXACTLY.
My BIG problem with psychiatry, chemical imbalances or not ,and the use of meds, is that I think doctors FAIL US when they do not go in to the whole litany of what taking these meds will entail. I am on a huge campaign with doctors and any friends that are considering taking meds. The campaign is this...YOU make an INFORMED decision.
I have spoken twice with my regular MD about prescribing "meds for the heads". I have told him if he does not tell each and every patient the in's and out's, up's and down's of these meds, he is not letting them make an informed decision and is, in fact, letting them down as a doctor. I want a doctor to say...Okay, you are having this kind of blah, blah problem. I can offer you prozac, paxil, lexapro, etc...BUT be warned, by taking this medicine you will be altering your brain chemisty. Although these meds are supposedly not addictive, your brain runs a good chance of thinking they are, and it can be difficult to come off of them. These other drugs, valium, zanax, klonopin are addictive and you had better prepare yourself for the day you might choose to come off of them. Withdrawal off of these has been shown to be very difficult to go thru. Knowing these things, do you want to begin the med or would you like for me to offer some other ideas for coping with your current problem...blah, blah, blah.
That being said, and if anyone is still reading..."Bottom line, take pills if you want to and don't if you're not comfortable with it." and "But of course blunt honesty is way too much to ask when billions upon billions of dollars of profit each year is part of the equation. " are both true opinions to me.
:!: I DID see the interview and have decided Tom has left the planet.
Most sincerely,
terri
Joined
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48 Posts
Its not CONSCIOUS memory, it is through deep therapeutic work including regression. Not Primal Therapy, but dealing with very very early issues.
Not everyone agrees with this view I know, and I am very sensitive about this, so, if you want to question it or invalidate me, please please do so elsewhere.
:!: I have recent painful experience on another site and I am very cautious and self protective now. I was hoping for validation here, anyway.....If you like, it can be seen as any other dissociated traumatic memory that unfreezes through therapy and comes into awareness.
The rest of the traumas in my life that followed all built on that first one.
Its a feeling-memory.....deeply felt in the fibres of my being.
K.
Joined
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1,479 Posts
Soiledangel,
Stick around a little longer. Validation and understanding are indeed offered here. Some people seem quick on the attack as of late.
:? :roll:
I know I'm too sensitive and I hate seeing other people seemingly getting jumped on and I am trying hard to work on being openly aggressive instead of passive/aggressive. see... :evil:
terri
Stick around a little longer. Validation and understanding are indeed offered here. Some people seem quick on the attack as of late.
:? :roll:
I know I'm too sensitive and I hate seeing other people seemingly getting jumped on and I am trying hard to work on being openly aggressive instead of passive/aggressive. see... :evil:
terri
G
Guest
·lol Terri, you are just so adorable
Soiledangel, please keep posting, I enjoy your posts 8)
Soiledangel,
Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate your taking my question as it was meant -- just a sincere inquiry. I have been doing some reading on this issue, particularly about structural, amygdala-related changes that take place if an infants hormones go berserk.
I am so sorry you suffered this way, and I regret if part of the question sounded disrespectful.
Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate your taking my question as it was meant -- just a sincere inquiry. I have been doing some reading on this issue, particularly about structural, amygdala-related changes that take place if an infants hormones go berserk.
I am so sorry you suffered this way, and I regret if part of the question sounded disrespectful.
Joined
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48 Posts
thanks S, and yes, I WILL keep posting.... :wink:
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