I Am Anti-Psychiatry

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I seriously believe Psychiatry is detrimental to our society. Who needs a pill to simply deal with ups and downs, or to deal with change and transition? These Doctors enable people to hold themselves back from being aware of and dealing with their emotions. People are zombies with these medications and I have seen it for myself. I felt bad for these people with "mental illness" or individuals with "disabilities" Even people with higher functioning ASD take that stuff because they had outbursts they claimed they could not Deal with for themselves. Let people embrace their different perspectives on life instead of giving in to this capitalist scheme to turn people into cattle so they do not get to jail or just learn how to overcome real battles. I am not sure what else to say but at this point, Let people free to their own minds and scare everyone with uniqueness. Let them be who they are. I remember hearing how this former co worker's cousin was schizophrenic and my co worker said they should stay on meds because it's "scary" Shows the pitfalls of medicine.

Agree or disagree because I am a firm believer. As someone with autism who had behaviors in the past, I was taught to deal with them with the prompts of my parents. My parents took holistic approaches to everything which helped shaped my view today.

End of rant for now....

Are you also a Scientologist?

I think it's good to have restraint as far as prescribing medication is concerned. I believe at least some people are over-medicated.

However, there are times when medication is needed.

'Shup. He's a pragmatist.

I agree unequivocally with RobRageous, a lot of psychiatry is silent killing. My friend got stuck on a Lithium Carbonate regimen earlier this year and despite repeated visits, I only got to see him once more when he threw those pills away. If the intensity of someone's mind scares people, those have got to be some very weak-minded people.

Yes but contemporary psychiatry pretty much holds that everybody who comes knocking NEEDS antipsychotics, SSRIs, benzodiazipenes and barbituates. I think any medical degree-holding drug kingpin is usually sicker in the head than practically anybody they might try to treat. That's been my experience anyway, the guy tried to feed me drugs that would rot my kidneys & liver before he was willing to sign me onto a transcranial magnetic stimulation trial, then he scheduled appointments we never once discussed and immediately sent the details of those to a debt collection agency. That scumbag won't even give out his email.

I don't agree with that.

I do agree that medication could do more harm than good. Psychiatrists have to consider rhe possibility that medication might not be the answer.

Otherwise, they are not doing their job properly.

Psychiatry nearly ruined me.

It tried with me. I did actually learn something though - fictional debts can be ignored until I'm 6 feet under! That guy facelessly tried to extort six hundred dollars from me over zero work whatsoever. I spoke to him ONCE and as soon as he realized I expected mutual professional respect, he started demanding cash.

I strongly disagree with the OP.

Psychiatric drugs are keeping me alive and functional. They allow me to be more myself as they remove the symptoms of my illnesses.

I am offended by the simplicity with which you are discounting the experiences of people with psychiatric illnesses. I am perfectly aware that one has to overcome the ups and downs of life. This is not what depression and other illnesses are.

I thank God for the psychiatric profession. They have saved my life.

Your psychiatrist must be great then. All I wish to see discounted is bribery & obfuscation in medicine...

Tbh, they are still working in the dark. I believe psychiatry is in it's infancy. While most of the psychiatrists I have seen are well-meaning and want to help, brain chemistry is a relative new frontier and a lot of doctors still have only a rudimentary understanding of psychological functioning. I put more faith in the drugs than I do in their counsel. They are the well-meaning, but dumb guardians of the medicinal gateway.

Modern psychiatry is at least 250 years old yet they are arguably less objective that other fields barely 50 years old such as neuro-psychology which for years has been collecting data in a less anecdotal way.

I think becuase psychiatrists are also MDs people assume it is done in a scientific way. However this is an a big assumption.

Psychiatry has been standardised and this didn't use to be the case. This isn't necessarily so good, becuase it makes it difficult for new schools of thought to be tested as it assumes what they have is a viable approach.

The major problems with psychiatry are : The over reliance on drugs to solve problems (and yes sometimes they are necessary), and also not treating traits a free moving until they can establish relationships.

The whole of the DSM is littered with arbitrary relationships such as "one of a) and two of b)", when in reality these are not empirically derived models. In fact the reasons for determining the mutual-exclusivity or coincidence of traits is not even applied consistently. It can be purely due to the convenience of the clinicians, not wanting certain things to be mixed up, however this can sometime misrepresent nature.

Conditions still have to be decided on and defined. Nature doesn't fit into neat boxes. They are attempting to model. That is what a "condition" is, a model. However despite acknowledging the spectral nature of things, I don't think they have picked a methodology that is responsive to that.

I'm not psychiatry at all, it just want it to progress.

I agree with you there. I think what the original post was complaining about is over-prescribing, and not enough restraint in keeping medications restricted to those who really need them such as yourself and others with serious psychiatric conditions, when other means are available to those with less severe problems other than medications. Medications can do more harm than good in those whose problems can be addressed in other, healthier ways than drugs. Psychotherapy could actually help these patients address their problems in a more beneficial way. It's like the complaint people with severe clinical depression make about the frivolous overuse of the word "depression." It ends up creating a situation of misinformation where people believe depression is something trivial than can just be got over by cheering up, instead of realising that clinical depression is not about stimulus, it's about brain chemistry and not under that person's control. Without anti-psychotic medications alleviating severe symptoms, many patients if this type would not survive.
I used to be anti-psychiatry because of their "boxed" attitude, and their tendency to pathologize everything needlessly. But they're slowly improving with this. I also found the profession laughable for a long time because they were so very, very easy to fool. You found out what they wanted you to say and said it, and no one was ever able to call BS. But I also think it depends on the individual practitioner. I had to see one for a surgery clearance a few times and he was actually an exception - intelligent and discerning, but also open minded and non-dogmatic. I'm defensive and noncompliant in a psychological setting, but he had no problems putting me off my guard even when I was aware of how he was doing it. That takes skill.
It's like everything. There's the good, the bad and the mediocre.

Have you ever taken a college psyc course? And if so, how many?
I will say this, I have seen more extremely valuable knowledge in my college psyc courses, than I have seen qualified people who are able to use that info properly. It's very sad. I even saw a person on Shark Tank trying to start an online psyc forum with professional psychologists and her background did not give her any edge over her emotional responses, and it did not give her the knowledge she needed in the field to succeed.....or get the deal. Based on what I've seen, you might only be able to find 2 in 10 good psychologists....meaning there is a huge potential for misdiagnosis and poor treatment of disorders. However, when people find a "good" qualified psychologist or psychiatrist, and they treat people and change lives within days for the better, and help those people be able to spend more happy, quality time with their families....that would be the testimony for psychiatry. And there are many many people who have led better lives with psychiatry

my husband and i both would be dead or institutionalized instead of happy and productive were it not for antipsychotics. i agree that there is over-prescribing. surgeons like to cut. internists and psychiatrists like to prescribe. if all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail.

Kudos cathylynn!! This isn't my thread, but I appreciate you sharing that. I'm also happy for you and wish you the best!