Posted by Larry Hoover on March 26, 2005, at 21:48:21
In reply to what do you think of these arguments?, posted by greg diamond on March 26, 2005, at 13:11:48
> http://www.thisisawar.com/DepressionPills.htm
>
>
> see attached article (in particular quote below) challenging the philosophy behind psychopharmacology (or at least this author's interpretation). i am writing a personal prose piece on my own experiences and wonder what all of you that post here think. i am perpetually torn!
>
> craig> 'Commonsense would hardly dictate otherwise for, by suggesting to people that they are merely biologically defective mechanisms capable of handling their emotional/psychospiritual crises only with the aid of a technological crutch, many of the fundaments and principles of psychological healing are completely undermined.
> Encouraging patients to give up on personal growth and understanding in favour of pills is, apart from being a philosophy of despair, a recipe for emotional disaster. Thus, helplessness is substituted for mastery, dependency for autonomy, and an unexamined life takes the place of self-discovery.
> Moreover, at precisely the time of greatest need, the patient-cum-psychic adventurer is delivered up to a zombie-like state devoid of both mental acuity, and the capacity for deep feeling, self-awareness and self-empathy. That biological psychiatry could so blithely trample underfoot such granite pillars of therapeutic commonsense is chilling.'
Just analyzing the excerpt, it is clear that inflammatory and/or florrid rhetoric is being used to disguise the true arguments being raised. What I like to do is to distill the simplest form of the argument, and see if it stands up.
Premise: Current treatment presents depression as a biological disturbance which has only one possible treatment, medication. The provision of medication is accompanied by active suppression of emotional healing, to produce helplessness, dependency, and self-denial. This culminates in a zombie-state, devoid of cognitive and emotional life.
Somehow, I don't even feel the need to argue against this premise. It is simply false, on its face.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:475844
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050326/msgs/476046.html