Shock treatment

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
21

AHunter, your perspective is a little narcissistic. Just because a given paradigm is anathema to you, that doesn’t mean it’s anathema to the rest of us.

I can say that biochemical deviations of seratonin uptake do indeed run in my family. Almost any one of us with X blood in us suffers from some variation of depression.

Thing is, seratonin deficiency can both be found in the blood and can be *induced in laboratory animals. *
The medical research behind the theory is sound, Ahunter.

That’s not to say we know everything about clinical depression. Science is not static, and never has been. It’s dynamic. We progress with scientific knowledge. Sometimes today’s answers are tomorrow’s regrets, but most often, we realize we are right. I’m sure new and better treatments for depression will come, eventually making ECT completely obsolete.

22

Ahunter,

Thanks for the link to your site. It does explain your vehement perspective.

I certainly agree that there HAVE been abuses. And I can empathize with your feelings if you have percieved yourself, and/or those who you care for, to have been victims of such abuse. Involuntary committment/treatment generally requires that someone is felt to be a clear and present danger to themselves and/or others. I know of no-one who advocates such for anyone else. Nevertheless, the decision of what constitutes a clear and present danger is a subjective one. I’m sure that your research can document many examples were such asessments were biased by class and other status distinctions. (You may be interested in reading “The Insanity Files”, which documents the case of Mary Todd Lincoln’s committment, BTW.)

Still, your potrayal of psychiatrists as the enemy, and your lack of recognition of the tremendous good that modern psychiatry has done for so many … your apparent denial of the biologic bases of many mental illnesses and their treatability … this only fosters the unjustified stigma that mental illness still suffers and discourages people from receiving treatment that IS generally safe and effective.

23

Jeremy and DSeid,

If you would be so kind as to take a glance at the section titled “A Little Story About a Conference” on this page…

OK, yes, my situation is a bit different. I would not describe myself as seeking help or treatment. (I actually went through a period of many years during which I wanted help pretty desperately, and might have been considered to be “depressed”, but my experiences with psychiatry came later when I did not consider myself to be in need help).

I’m sorry that I so often come across as uncaring or insensitive to the suffering of others when it comes to these issues. I’m…well, at least mildly regretful? …that my (warranted) skepticism about the psychiatric profession, its theories of biological-based “mental illness” and its “treatments” for same and so forth, are upsetting to people who want good treatment and care for their suffering loved ones.

I think there is probably common ground. Our concerns converge in places, especially with regards to quality of care issues and the prevention of abuse, and (hopefully) the attempts to empower the “consumer” of mental health services so that, on the one hand, the heavy-handedness of medical authority is ameliorated by an informed, organized, and aware population that insists on explanations, options, and choices; and, secondarily, so that funding for mental health services is no longer determined and allocated without the input of those who will be receiving and making use of it.

Hopefully, you would also agree that you and your loved ones benefit far more than you suffer from the existence of a vocal, angry, militant-radical contingent of pissed-off former mental patients screaming our heads off about callous disregard for patient welfare, unsafe treatments, misuse of coercive authority and violation of civil rights, and lack of adequate redress for malfeasance.

Jeremy is hoping for an improvement in the quality of the types of treatment and care that can be offered. While I remain unconvinced that the profession is even playing in the right etiological ballpark, I do think that candor and rigor plus research funded by other sources in addition to the pharmaceutical industry will stimulate new findings and improvements, and hopefully you, with your greater faith in their current knowledge base, would concur with that.

We are addressing the stigma by ripping the cover off the box: the profession, the patients, the condition(s) known as “mental illness”, and the possibility of receiving treatment are ALL overshadowed with the stigma of how psychiatric treatment has been and continues to be used: as a means of dealing with those whose behavior disturbs society, for the benefit not of the patients but for the protection of society from them and the disturbances they create.

I don’t think the stigma problem will ever go away until and unless we either quit dealing coercively with people except by charging them with violations of the law (unlikely and probably impossible) or else quit pretending that we don’t do it by labeling the activity a form of “help” and imposing it on people who don’t want it. Perhaps the police functions of psychiatry could be separated entirely from the provisions of mental health services for those who seek it–then we could go head-to-head with the police functions and have a better public debate over its abuses without the care systems being used as their shield and ending caught in the middle of the debate.

24

With all due respect, AHunter, the biological-based “mental illness” is not a theory, it’s based by hard science. Seratonin levels (in the case of depressed patients) and dopamine levels in terms of receptor sites(in case of psychotic patients) are very easily found in blood tests.

The funny thing here, AHunter, is that really we are talking about 2 different issues. I’m referring to psychopharmacology and ECT as a method of correcting seratonin levels, while you’re talking about an almost-unrelated civil rights issue…(that is, involuntary treatment)

You might be right about abuses, and involuntary treatment, AHunter. But please don’t throw out the good with the bad.

Without the help of ECT, at least one of my relatives believes she would be dead by now.

I wish I could talk to you about the civil rights issue, but it’d highjack the thread. In terms of social science, your topic is interesting, AHunter.

25

JeremyT has a good point about your good points, AHunter!

Maybe a Great Debates thread devoted to civil rights abuses of the mentally ill and of those questionably labelled as such? (The “other side” being society’s obligation to protect its citizens from danger, even danger from themselves.)

I am sure that you are correct that we’d find ourselves with a fair amount of common ground.