Posted by SLS on July 18, 2005, at 7:17:53
In reply to Re: SSRIs worsening Social Phobia?, posted by linkadge on July 18, 2005, at 6:36:14
> It is fully concivable that SSRI's alter the way that human interaction transpires.
>
> For starters, they lower dopamine, a chemical inticately involved in socaial interaction, secondarily, they potently activate the 5-ht2a and 5-ht3 receptors, which are bad news for people with social anxiety. Activating the 5-ht2c receptor can also make people socally agressive.
>
> It's not that I don't think that certain socialphobes could use a little tweeking, but rather that SSRI's are just plain MESSY.Empirical evidence is usually more important than the theory that attempts to support or refute it. It is what it is. These drugs are what they are. If they work - and for many people, they work well and without the appearance of apathy - then they must be considered seriously as effective therapy.
Are they messy? Yes. So are just about all psychotropic medications, but they are the best we have to work with at the moment. I have an observational advantage over most people posting here as I volunteer at an adult partial hospital program for the mentally ill. I've seen the results of both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy and combinations of both. I believe in magic. I have seen recovery from mental illness occur through the use of modern psychiatry.
I believe the regular participants at Psycho-Babble are predominantly treatment-resistant. However, many of these folks are resistant only to what they have yet tried. I hope we can see more success stories in the future as these individuals progress through treatments that are to them, novel.
Alas, the same people always seem to be faced with failure after failure. What are we to do with them?
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:529220
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050718/msgs/529428.html