Posted by dj on July 5, 2000, at 12:17:38
In reply to Re: Why the drugs don't work, posted by stjames on July 5, 2000, at 10:26:08
> I have a medical condition called depression, which has its roots in biochemistry and neurology.
> Since 1985 the meds used to treat this condition
> have worked wonderfully.
>
> jamesThough the prior poster was a bit long-winded and pedantic, too much run-on rhetoric for this reader, at least, from a quick scan of his rant the truth, I believe, lies between the two extremes in your portrayals - societal vs medical causes. The middle way...which Buddhism is one propoent of but from a health care systemic approach is addressed in Richard O'Connor's very good and reasonable book: "Undoing Depression".
You can check out some of his comments yourself at http://www.undoingdepression.com but here's a sample:
Richard O'Connor, Ph.D.
author of
Undoing Depression:
What Therapy Doesn't Teach You
And Medication Can't Give You
"Medication Marketplace
Depression is a growth industry now. Prozac and its cousins Paxil and Zoloft are now three of the top six largest selling prescription drugs. Considering that these pills are really only slightly more effective than their predecessors - that is, only a little more effective than placebo - their acceptance by both healthcare professionals and the public has been amazing. New reports suggest it's not just amazing, it's corruption.
Ever since Arrowsmith there's been a question about whether for-profit pharmaceutical manufacturers can sponsor truly objective scientific research. Dr. Martin Keller of Brown University has been a respected researcher into depression for decades. He has many, many publications and grants to his credit, some of which have been the foundation for much of our current knowledge about the course, causes, and treatment of this disease. Now the Boston Globe reports that Dr. Keller has been getting rich on payments from some of the drug companies whose products he's been researching. In 1998 alone, Dr. Keller pulled in $556,000 in consulting fees from these companies. That's not grants to fund research, or reimbursement for expenses, or even lavish little conferences in the Caribbean - that's direct cash money into his pocket.In addition, the Globe reports that Dr. Keller did not disclose the extent of his relationships to these companies to the medical journals that published his findings or to the professional associations that sponsored the conferences where he presented his findings.
There's no evidence yet that Dr. Keller cooked his data or slanted his conclusions because of these payments. But we know that kind of thing happens often enough in science just because researchers have an emotional investment in reaching a certain conclusion. Dr. Keller's whole body of work, much of it probably quite good, is now open to question because of these revelations.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers are constantly telling us that the high prices we pay for prescription medicines go to help them fund research into new drugs. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be willing to pay a lower price and a higher tax, and let the government fund research. Profits and healthcare are a dangerous combination."
Antidepressant MedicationWhen I suggest to a new patient that they consider antidepressant medication, I get a picture of all the misconceptions people have about what these medications do. First of all, they are not happy pills; they don't artificially induce a feeling of bliss or unrealistic well-being. No medication can do that, except for alcohol and some illegal drugs, and their effects don't last. Nor do antidepressants insulate you from life, make you not care about important things, or insensitive to pain or loss. Tranquilizers can do that, for a while, but antidepressants can't. Also, antidepressants aren't addictive, nor does their effect diminish so that you will have to increase your dosage later on. What antidepressants do is somehow prevent us from sliding down the chute into the blackest depths of depression when something bad happens. We still can feel hurt, pain, worry, but we feel these like normal people do, without depression.
These medications also can help us sleep better, give us more energy, and greater ability to concentrate. They seem to help us change our perspective or sense of proportion, so that we can appreciate better the good side of life and not be overwhelmed by the negative..."
"When I was 15, I came home to find that my mother had committed suicide. Until two years before, she had seemed happy, confident and outgoing. When I look back at the course of my own life, I realize now how much it has been shaped by my need to understand what happened to her. I told myself I was tough and smart, and that her illness need not affect me. But when I left home I had no direction except away; and in my 20s and then again in my 40s I suffered through powerful depressions myself.
"I believe now that depression can never be fully grasped by mental health professionals who have not experienced it. Though I can't claim to know everything about depression, I have a unique and powerful perspective: as a suicide survivor, as a sufferer myself, as a patient, and as a therapist. I know that people who are depressed work very hard at living, but much of their effort is fruitless, a waste of energy. It is as if they are in over their heads and don't know how to swim; the harder they work, the worse things get."
Richard O'Connor is a practicing psychotherapist and the executive director of the Northwest Center for Family Service and Mental Health, a private, nonprofit mental health clinic serving Litchfield County, Connecticut. He oversees the work of twenty mental health professionals in treating almost a thousand patients per year.A graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, O'Connor received his MSW and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, followed by postgraduate work at the Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Family Institute. He has worked in a wide variety of settings, from inner-city clinics to wealthy suburbs."
poster:dj
thread:39430
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000630/msgs/39441.html