Posted by SLS on December 16, 2012, at 20:27:24
In reply to Re: TRD MAOI heads. Tranylcip + Nortrip + Stimulants?, posted by jono_in_adelaide on December 16, 2012, at 17:07:49
> I'd take what the doctor said to mean that there isnt a pill that can make you 100% happy, 100% of the time. Even when your depression or whatever is in remission, you still have to deal with lifes normal ups and downs - its here where a course of CBT can be very usefull, teaching us how to deal with those down without letting them turn into catastrophes in our minds.
This is exactly right.
"Magic" is in the mind of the sufferer. My psychiatric drugs work magic for me to reduce the severity of my neurobiological dysfunction (MDD or BD) and the dysregulation of mood and impairments of cognition associated with it. These magic drugs will not live my life for me and find for me happiness any more than an antibiotic would. However, both of these types of magic drugs help facilitate one's ability to create happiness. This takes work. It does not come automatically with remission.
I hate when psychologists say that there is no magic pill. To me, this is a rather ignorant and unenlightened emotional investment in their own sense of relevance. I have always come away with the impression that this represents a belief on their part that psychotherapy can heal depression as well as pills do. It is as if psychotherapy will make the depression go away as long as one works hard enough and long enough and pays enough. It seems self-serving to me. If the depression doesn't go away, whose fault is it?
The pills do what they do. Psychotherapy does what it does. I don't feel that they are focused on the same targets of pathology. I consider them to be complementary rather than competitors. It is true that psychotherapy can reduce psychosocial stress by treating the mind. This can influence the course of brain disorders by effecting physiological changes. However, not all people need psychotherapy to find happiness after their depressive brain disorder is brought into remission by our truly magic pills. It does happen that this remission resolves the warping of mood, perceptions, and cognition such that one can go on to recover from illness and work to find happiness just like most other people do - without psychotherapy.
I guess insulin is no magic elixir just because one can use diet (food therapy) to help manage blood sugar.
I need to stop here before I end up writing an essay or a very long rant.
- ScottSome see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1033062
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20121130/msgs/1033139.html