Posted by SLS on April 2, 2019, at 9:29:40
In reply to NYer essay on psych drug detox, posted by beckett2 on April 2, 2019, at 0:54:00
> If you're not behind the New Yorker's paywall, a good essay. There is an excellent audio version on the Audm app.
>
> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-challenge-of-going-off-psychiatric-drugsThere are valuable lessons to be learned here. There isn't very much formalized study of drug-discontinuation syndromes and how to minimize them. Also lacking is the study of how long-term drug treatment changes the brain, and how persistent these changes are after a drug has been discontinued. I only skimmed the article, but I did not find any mention of how psychiatric drugs can dramatically improve how people experience life after years of torment and living in a vegetative state. Up until now, doctors have been hampered by a lack of scientific data and understanding. Choosing treatments has largely been trial-and-error using drugs with disturbing side effects. Obviously, there are too many people for whom drug treatment produces disappointing - and sometimes negative results. The same can be said about other types of illnesses. Psychiatric drugs can save lives and make them worth living. However, there is a need for finding new treatments and optimizing old ones. Psychiatry is not the work of the devil, as some people would like us to believe.
Robert Whitaker
Irving Kirsch
Joseph Glenmullen
David Healy
Peter Breggin
- Scott
Some 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:1103801
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20190206/msgs/1103812.html