I will admit to being suspicious of the 'psychiatric' community

I say that because when it comes to 'health' , psychiatry seems to operate off of a fleeting standard

according to the APA

Mental Illness...
refers collectively to all diagnosable mental disorders — health conditions involving

Significant changes in thinking, emotion and/or behavior
Distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities

maybe this is why new 'mental illnesses' are constantly popping up AND being removed from the APA manuals and why the pharmaceutical industry is able to make such a killing off of mood enhancers to 'treat' mental illnesses


people believe they are sick and are treated as sick and it becomes self fulfilling



I do understand the NEED for psychiatry on a simply human level because people have a NEED for someone to hear them and take interest in them, and it is easier if that person is an objective 'outsider' rather than a friend or family member who is a part of ones daily life

I just feel that it is a field that is highly manipulated by culture and politics and the profit factor causes quite the temptation for patients to be kept 'ill' rather than be helped,,,

do you know of someone who was 'helped' with psychiatry? if so, why do you think it worked?

oooooooooo goody one of these

well have fun with it

just realize that there are two perspectives

the medical model and wellness model

therapists counsel from one view or the other

the DSM has changed over the years

as has our definition of what consitutes mental illness

it has expanded to include some new categories or redefined or
elimanated old ones

it is used to codify
do you know why? insurance

if a client walks in the door and says
man my dad died a few months ago
and I thought I was fine
but I just cannot seem to get my head back in the game
I cannot sleep good and I don't know man I am kinda jittery
all time..I am a wreck and I am not getting better

this client has to be given a code in order to bill his insurance

is this fueled by the psychotropic drug companies? that I cannot say
since I do not and will not be prescribing

Oh harmony, this is such a wide ranging subject.
In the UK up until I think the late 60s a woman could be incarcerated for having a child out of wedlock!
We had numerous institutions here with a wide range of cases, from really bad ones in padded cells to walk in patients. then it was decided that care in the community was the answer.
Problem is that many of these cases can't cope in the outside world. It would be better for them to be inside, for there own protection.
Of course you get the drug companies making money from it as they do with everything. I've known people who have been on (uppers) for depression but this is not a cure, just a way of keeping them calm.

Some people have problems dealing with life's ups and downs. They need to talk it over with somebody that can give them the tools to if not fix the problem at least make it a little less troublesome.

Other folks just are not "wired correctly". They may need medication or other help to function.

Psychiatry like any other medical treatment works for some folks but not for others. It's a field where there is much to learn. And of course there are some unscrupulous practitioners out there just like any other.

Had your car fixed lately? Or your house worked on? It's the same in the medical profession.

Yes, it is the same.
We had a tv series a while back called 'brain doctors '
Fascinating what they can do and how much of the brain can be taken out. I do wonder if they will ever understand the brain or no literally how to fix it.
With a physical injury or defect you can see it. mental injury or defect you can't see

Aside from the misuses of the mental health industry and the pharmaceutical industry, it saddens me that there is so much misunderstanding when it comes to Mental Health Issues and Mental Disabilities.

If someone has a heart condition or physical disability, we show empathy, understanding, and compassion. It appears to be more accepted in a lot of societies and some how easier for those with loved ones who are disabled to cope. There's not a whole lot of questions or suspicions around it....they are sick, disabled, and working towards getting better, or not.

However, if someone has a mental health issue or disability, people seem to not accept it as well. There ends up being a stigma attached to being "mentally ill". I've known people who suffer from clinical depression, a chemical imbalance in the brain. It does no good to tell them to "deal with it", or "stop feeling sorry for yourself and be happy". Those kind of messages cause more harm than good. At times, it takes medication to balance out the brain in order for them to work on the life changes necessary to live a fulfilling life.

Why is it okay to take a pill for your heart, but not for your brain? Why is it okay to be physically ill, but we freak out or are uncomfortable if someone is mentally ill?

I guess for me, when I ask these questions of myself, concerning someone who is sick...either mentally or physically...it usually boils down to fear of the unknown or something that takes me out of my comfort zone of my own delusional thinking of what is "normal".

This is a hard topic to talk about as there are so many variations of mental illness, from people who need a friendly ear to those who have very deep problems and may wish to harm themselves or others. The first thing is to decide what is normal. And the idea of normal has changed over time. So, what we consider normal today, may not be normal tomorrow. Plus, even cultural differences are a different type of normal. Just saying normal is in a state of flux.

Of course this is not so for those who have very deep problems that cross the lines of normal. Those are the people who may require the medications and other medical assistance.

Just my limited thoughts on a very big topic.

It is the unknown that frightens people. And a way of coping with it is either dismissal or ridicule!

Actually I have known people who have been helped by psychiatry - I think the problem is finding the "right" dr and the right medications. I know people who were suicidal, had horrible anxiety and were bipolar where a good dr and the right medication saved their life literally. I'm not making a blanket statement about psyschiatry, because as with any profession there are quacks out there, but I have witnessed it help several people. Some mental illnesses ie bipolar disorder have an organic cause where there is a chemical disorder which can be adjusted with medication. If you've ever seen someone with bipolar on their meds and then how they act off their meds you would see what i mean.

Yes, good point. I have seen this and it's not good.

yeah - someone who is manic and off their meds is pretty scary

Without making fun of it it's a bit like this :

Very scary!

msharmony,

In your original post, you are getting psychology mixed up with psychiatry.

In case you missed it, the letters APA stand for American Psychological Association.

Some mental disorders aren't caused by flawed mental processes - which psychologists treat - but rather are caused by something going wrong with a person's body chemistry. Psychiatrists treat the latter.

Good post, David.

very good point

Psychiatry?
Sure. I've known a few schizophrenics helped with "psychiatry."
lol.
"okay, sit right there, I'm going to inject 30cc of psychiatry into ya. Yep, all set, there you go."
"Wow doc! That helped! Thanks for the psychiatry."


I think it "worked" because psychiatrists are trained specialized doctors.


If you're actually talking about psychologists, therapists, and counselors; those are completely different threads.

Mikey4yousweety came the closest to talking about the most important factor with both psychology AND psychiatry. That is, that there's no way to check your pulse, look at your blood, or in any other way, prove conclusively that you are suffering from very real problems which are NOT under your control.

The generation of people immediately before me, my parents generation, thought that ALL psychological problems could be handled by telling the person to suck it up and put their nose to the grind wheel. Even though many maladies are now accepted as being real, there is still a lot of suspicion about each individual who claims to be suffering from them.

I think myself, that the interaction of insurance and the doctors which seems to result in a lot of false diagnosis and even scams, is more complex than just people trying to profit. Insurance companies actually LOSE money, the more people are legitimately diagnosed with needs. But they stand to lose even more, if the AMA decides that a malady is real, and the insurance companies FAIL to support it. There's more to it than that, but that's enough of a hint for now.

As for people being genuinely helped, and the reason why lots of people seem to NOT be helped, that's another tricky story, especially in the psychology section. Psychiatrists can try varying medicines to get different results, but when the problem is due to what might be called misaligned understandings of the world or of oneself, as many psychological problems are, progress isn't as predictable, because it's much more complex, and even MORE invisible.

I myself directly benefited from psychological help. Although I actually ended up figuring out my own problems after I lost the ability to visit my therapist (money and other reasons), it was the knowledge I gained of psychology from my therapist and from my college education, which allowed me to do so.

To people who have only seen others from a distance, and especially those who have seen the HUGE number of TERRIBLE films which used therapists as comedic relief, or worse, all the famous people who commit criminally self-indulgent acts and get away with it because they go for "counselling," psychological therapy can appear to be a huge expensive game.

Until we can look under a microscope, or at least monitor your brainwaves, and point directly to specific physical evidence, a lot of people will continue to think it's all bunk.

I'm not disagreeing with what you've said but you need to do your homework - there are scientific studies that prove that some mental illnesses are caused by biochemical disorders in the brain - the biochemical disorders interfere with the brain's functioning and cause things like depression, anxiety, hallucinations, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. There are studies that compare the MRI's of people with schizophrenia with those who don't have it & the brain scans are different.
Also the person's body chemistry is different - different levels of serotonin, DHL, and other amino acids & hormones - so it is measurable.

Have you ever seen someone who is bipolar or paranoid schizophrenic on their meds & then off? If you did you would form another opinion. People who suffer from serious mental illnesses can't control their actions and the right medication does make a difference. I don't mean to preach - but too many people think that someone with a serious mental illness can control their moods & actions and are using their diagnosis as an excuse. Talk to any competent mental health professional or better yet, talk to the parents of a depressed bipolar or schizophrenic child or adolescent whose symptoms have been successfully treated with medication. Or talk to someone who has attempted suicide and then finds the right medication to treat their depression & ask them. i'm not advocating medication alone, but for some people you need to treat the symptoms (ie. hallucinations before other issues can be adddessed.

I was married to a diagnosed bipolar person for twenty years. Yes, I have a LOT of up close and personal experience with other real mental illness as well, with real people having to try to find the right balance of drugs, and with real people NOT being able to get the kinds of tests of things like serotonin levels in the brain that you refer to. Because that would involve extremely important brain surgery, which isn't done for the sake of diagnosing depression.

And yes, I have experienced both first and second hand, that lots of people STILL refuse to believe that mentally ill people are anything but slackers, again, because all they have to show, are written diagnosis from doctors who deduced their condition from their behaviors and other observations.

Perhaps in a cutting edge medical facility which a patient could afford to pay the huge cost themselves for tests that most insurance will not cover, could find some greater physical proof. But for the majority of current sufferers, mental illness is still one of the invisible maladies.

Which is the answer I'm giving to msharmony's thread question. If there WERE readily available physical proof to show to her, I suspect she would lose her suspicions.

I'm bipolar.....who isn't ;) kidding. I hate the meds, they take away my spark and change my personality. In meds defense they kept me from doing something stupid, again. It's a pattern that cycles every few months for me,,,manic/depression. Learning my own behavior and seeing warning signs before I fall off the wagon is a must for me. I can't function well on the meds! I took matters into my own hands and take mood stabilizers only if my mania gets to be a bit much, fortunately I don't get violent. I just act as if I'm on amphetamines