Posted by SLS on July 5, 2000, at 18:05:30
In reply to Why the drugs don't work, posted by Alex Birkett on July 5, 2000, at 8:39:41
Dear Alex,
I appreciate that you have sincere convictions regarding the subjects you have written about. You have probably posted here in an effort to help everyone who you hoped would read your opinions. This an admirable and commendable motive.It doesn't appear that you have gone out of your way to be provocative, although I'm sure you realized when you posted this that there would be some resultant contention to such confidently declared affirmations of universal truths.
Your issues appear to be more political and philosophical than they are scientific or medical. I'm not sure what it is you were trying to accomplish by writing this.
What would you like to see happen as a result of your posting your opinions regarding the causes and treatment of depression?
I don't know if it is important enough to you, but I would be curious to have you summarize your conclusions by providing a numbered list of one-sentence statements. It would help to clarify the input you have tried to offer here.
My opinion:You arrive at your conclusions based solely upon your personal and subjective experiences of things to which the word depression has been chosen to describe. This is probably an innocent and understandable mistake. The English language has come to rely upon one word to label several different things. It is a description of what is observed rather than a description of what is wrong. I think you may be making the mistake of explaining the whole world by equating it with how you explain yourself.
My questions:Are you recommending to the people around the world who are reading this that they should discontinue taking the medication that has been prescribed to them because they really don't need it?
Are you confident that not a single person being treated for a diagnosis of major depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia suffers from a malady that has been determined to be a brain disorder by the consensus of current medical research?
When you posted this, were you ready and willing to assume the responsibility to God for the consequences that would result from everyone acting upon your assertions?
Discourse:> There is a big black hole obscuring the subject of human emotional suffering. It seems to me that there is very little mention or debate on these pages of the causes of the pain that every one is so anxious to be rid of.
I see some on the board currently.
> There is a dangerous assumption
> (no doubt fuelled by the self interests of the pharmaceutical companies and the pyschiatry/therapy business)
Ah... a cynic.
> that we are all suffering from ‘illnesses’ that are a combination of genetic/physiological or moral deficits.
I have never, never read anything written by anyone that has made such a statement. ALL? Who said this?
> Of course it is not one or the other nor is it some nasty combination of the two.
Are you sure?
> We have become obsessed with palliative care as if treating the causes of our real suffering was hopeless, so hopeless in fact that we too often happily deceive ourselves that no such causes exist at all.
What are the causes of which you speak?
> To refute that our society is intrinsically ‘ok’ and that we are ‘ill’ when we feel unable to be happy in it has become a great taboo.
Well, I don't know about taboo.
Personally, I have never refuted or advocated the idea that society is *intrinsically* O.K. However, I look around and see quite a bit of it that *is* O.K. - even healthy. I think it is important to recognize these pockets of healthy society and encourage them to grow and prosper. It seems to me a bit easier to recognize what's wrong in society than it is to recognize in it what is right.
No need to define the word "healthy" here. Let's just Imagine.
> We do suffer but not because we are morally or organically deranged.
Are you sure? Always? Never? Universal?
> Our abilities to function in a healthy moral manner and keep our brain chemistry on course are utterly compromised by finding ourselves coerced into taking part in a social structure that alienates us from our real selves.
Perhaps. Things can get pretty difficult sometimes. Unfortunately, it is always difficult for some people. Some of these things represent the psychosocial stresses that can cause someone to become ill, psychologically and/or biologically.
> Our emotional perceptions are uncannily correct
I agree. In healthy people, it is uncanny just how uncannily correct they can be - sometimes, even in not-so-healthy people.
> (for we do not feel ‘bad’ for no real cause, we do not imagine it)
Semantics are critical here. "real" "cause"
> These ‘normative’ procedures unwittingly conspire (in spite of the best will of their practitioners) to reinforce the criplingly false notion that it is the individual who is sick and that our social structuring is healthy.
Who is refusing to take into consideration sociological phenomena? Everyone? Not me. Not the people who write stuff.
> Incidentally the ‘poop out effect’ often seen with antidepressant drugs confirms that the problem is not a biochemical one...
Are you sure?
> I do not believe that there is any medical salvation to be had for such ‘non-medical’ problems
Which non-medical problems have you described exactly?
Oh well...Just a few of my beliefs:
1. Many maladies that are considered mental illnesses are brain disorders.
2. These brain disorders are treatable using somatic therapies.
3. Psychosocial stresses can trigger self-perpetuating unhealthy brain function.
4. Psychosocial stresses can produce psychological as well as physiological pathologies.
5. Psychotherapy can help treat both.
6. Depression is one word that is used to describe different phenomena.
7. Someone with a healthy brain can have an unhealthy mind.
8. Someone with an unhealthy brain can have a healthy mind.
9. Clinical depression is simply a diagnostic description, regardless of etiology.
10. Healthy people can get depressed about stuff. This depression is phenomenologically different from the condition labelled as "major depression" or "bipolar depression". It even feels different. I know.
I found much of what you wrote to be relevant and consistent with my own beliefs. Thanks.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:39430
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000630/msgs/39480.html