[QUOTE=BrightNShiny]
I guess I’m not understanding this. If somebody believes things that clearly didn’t happen, then isn’t that a condition in need of treatment? I don’t understand how this is considered proper brain function.
[/QUOTE]
At the risk of putting words into AHunter3’s mouth - the problem is that modern SSRIs and related medications don’t precisely fix whatever went wrong with the affected person’s brain.
The last time I checked there were over 100 different chemicals being used in the brain as neurotransmitters. An over or under production of any of these may lead to what could be considered improper brain function. SSRIs and their related medications work by affecting how quickly the brain’s natural processes ‘clean up’ the neurotransmitter chemicals. At this point, there are so many known mental illness disease states, with so many different, but potentially interrelated, physical causes - most psychiartrists are using SSRIs in a shotgun fashion: They keep trying new ones until they find one that works for the patient.
With that background, it’s easier I think, to understand why some people believe that as long as someone can keep functioning on some level, it’s better to leave them alone, than to force them through the ahem mild side effects that SSRIs and related medications can cause.
I don’t believe that AHunter3 ever tried to say that what you’re describing is normal, nor even particularly healthy. Simply that forcing a persont to take medications that will most likely be uncomfortable at best, and oppressive at worse, often with no visible effect on the condition it is intended to treat may not be effective.
I’m something of a fan of modern psychiatric medicines, they allow me to function as well as I do, now. But I’d be among the first to point out they aren’t magic, and they don’t come without costs.
And even when they do work properly, it’s often difficult for someone who’s had decades of living with something like schizophrenia to adjust to a more normal mind. If you’ve had voices in the back of your head for as long as you can remember, and suddenly they’re gone - even if the voices were disruptive, scary, and often simply bad - it can lead to reasonable questions about identity, and simply finding oneself scared to be in a strange place where one had never been alone before: One’s own head.
In some ways treating mental illness is like treating alcoholism - progress really will only become permanent once the patient admits that there is a problem. Forcing treatment on a person who isn’t incompetent will often push them further away from that admission. (I don’t think it helps the treatment of the incompetent, either, even when it may be necessary - the rights of society to protect itself from people do trump the rights of the individual, though.)
Without going into my own history or anyone else’s, I do want to add that there are a lot of different views of how effective or human psychotherapy can be. Suffice it to say that there are a number of people on the Dope who have personal experience to give them excellent reason to doubt the honesty of mental health professionals.
ETA: AHunter3, I see you’ve spoken up, but since I believe our posts are complimentary, not redundant, I hope you won’t mind the support.
