Ariela wrote:
Med free is the way to be.
Check you Harold Mandel's new book, The Deviant Psychiatric Mind Syndrome.
Actually that's not entirely true. There is this horrible three part chasm with psychology on one side, psychiatry in the middle, and neurology on the other side and psychiatry often gets caught in a tug of war between psychology and neurology, with many psychologist declaring psychiatric disorders to be illnesses that originate from the subconscious mind...or learned, and can thus be controlled through behavioral therapy,and many on the neurology side who believe all psychiatric illnesses can be medicated.
Well let me set things straight.
Some psychiatric disorders, though require some biological pre-disposition, are behavioral in origin and the most appropriate means of treatment is cognitive behavior type therapies, talk therapy, etc. These disorders include, but are not limited to, borderline personality disorder, many eating disorders, and so on.
Some psychiatric disorders have a predominant neurological basis and the best treatment method is frequently medication. This includes schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, Tourette Syndrome, OCD and so on.
Some disorders fall into the first category, and the sufferers can potentially benefit from medication (people with environmentally based, yet severe depression) and some disorders fall into the later category, and sufferers might benefit from behavioral therapy approaches (medication resistant OCD).
I was forced to take medication much of my life until I was a teenager and realized they couldn't make me take it, and my parents agree that I do much better without it, because my OCD is generally non-responsive to medication, however I did experience often severe side effects.
I would not recommend some individuals with bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia go off their medication, however.