Posted by chujoe on June 20, 2010, at 20:37:10
In reply to Re: Rejection of Meds Gives me Hope, posted by Huxley on June 20, 2010, at 19:22:12
Huxley, my point was that many people willingly submit to cancer chemotherapy with even slimmer odds of recovery than many who take psych meds. This is an empirical fact. And even the doctors administering the drugs don't dispute their toxicity, whereas (though you will probably disagree) many doctors who prescribe psych meds honestly do not believe all the sensationalist and alarmist studies and reports claiming that psych drugs are both ineffective and dangerous. Does that mean they do not understand the risks? Perhaps some don't, but many do and just as with the oncologist they discuss these risks with their patients. But then I reject the broad-brush picture you and others here paint of "psychiatry" as populated by ignorant, unambitious, evil doctors in thrall to Big Pharma. My analogy to cancer was meant, among other things, to suggest that oncology and psychiatry use drugs in similar ways, but it is very rare to hear people raging against that medical specialty. Which suggests to me that the hatred of psychiatry is cultural, not medical, probably because it is rooted in a peculiarly American form of Puritanism that prefers to blame mental illness on moral failure and lack of character and which enforces these beliefs with an individualist ideology that tells people they must pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. It's a view I categorically reject.
As for the supposed exclusivity of this thread, no one specified that requirement at the start and as Scott suggests we're all likely to learn more if we hammer these things out in reasoned debate. Finally, I would note at least a stylistic asymmetry between the defenders of psych meds in this and related threads and those who oppose them: The defenders, by and large, understand that psych meds are not for everyone, are likely over-prescribed, have side effects that can be debilitating for some, but also work for some; whereas the anti-med camp makes unsupportable global claims about all of psychiatry and uses an arsenal of words and phrases that carry negative connotations. It also seems that the defenders of psych meds often take pains to distinguish between different kinds of drugs, to admit that Big Pharma is a problem, and to agree that some doctors are ill-informed; whereas a lot of the recent posts in this thread from the anti-med camp make no such fine distinctions, implying that those of us who take medications are either ignorant or deluded. We are neither: we have simply made different choices from you.
poster:chujoe
thread:951199
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100615/msgs/951674.html