Antipsychotics / Neuroleptics For Mental Disorders- Comments

Post Reply New Topic

Antipsychotics / Neuroleptics For Mental Disorders - Comments



In terms of antipsychotics / neuroleptics meant for the treatments of mental disorders, clinical evidences actually indicate that those troubled with mental disorders, especially the serious ones, shouldn't just rely solely upon the medications as the one and only means of solution to their mental problems.


To put it bluntly, such medications, they are no different from sleeping pills whereby their calming effects just 'come and go' after the lapse of their effective period whilst their potential disastrous side effects can be permanent upon manifestations. In medical sense, such mental disorders, especially the serious ones is mainly caused by the malfunctionings of the mood regulator neurotransmitter, especially Serotonin in the brain. Next, though the related medications can to a certain extent bring such a severe mental disorder under control by 'artificially' regulating, blocking and controlling the re-uptake of it in the brain of the persons suffering from it, medications alone however, by no means would be able to deal conclusively with the problems due to the fact that the root causes of such a disorder is actually resulting largely from the environmental, circumstantial and other interpersonal factors (or the changes of them) that are deemed to be emotionally and adversely unacceptable to the ones suffering from it to a very great extent. Such negative changes in turn actually account for the negative behavioural changes in them as described


In short, it remains the truth that most of the antipsychotics / neuroleptics meant for especially the treatment of chronic mental illnesses would tend to work in such a way that they would need to change / alter the chemical balances in the brain of those taking such medications in the process of bringing such disorders under control. In the process of doing so, such a mechanism would unavoidably and eventually antagonize the neurotransmitters of the nervous system, especially the serotonin and dopamine (which is necessary for various neuromuscular functions), and hence disturb and interfere with the normal functionings of the nerves of the human body.


Next, though it may take years for such undesirable side effects / scenario to manifest onto the ones taking such medications, I am just in the opinion that in the case of the medications having potentially such unwanted side effects, it would naturally be the duty of the medical personnel / specialists-in-charge to take all the precautionary measures to safeguard the well-being of the patients for the sake of their healthcare and welfare.


The real-life examples that I have come across so far is such that for the ones relying merely upon medications and nothing else to deal with their mental disorders, they would tend to develop both emotional and psychological dependences upon such medictions over the long-term whilst getting their mental conditions deteriorated from time to time, eg, from neurosis to psychosis and then just acquire all those almost irreversibly disastrous undesirable side effects like Extrapyramidal Symptoms, Tardive Dyskinesia, Dystonia, Akathisia, Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome, Parkinsonism disorders etc from such medications in the end.


In such a connection, psychotherapy, counselling, emotional and other communication / interactive supports would be needed to complement the use of the related medications to achieve greater curative effects for such patients troubled by chronic mental disorder.


As such, medications is one thing, but the mental / cognitive abilities of the patients themselves to eventually change their views and perceptions about their environments / surroundings, circumstances and people they are facing in a more positve way, particularly developed through the help of such counselling supports from the others in order for them to really get better and gradually develop positive behavioural / personality changes, is simply another thing that cannot achieved solely with the help of medications alone.


In a nutshell, medications alone by no means can be a substitute for the positive interpersonal experiences that such patients would eventually need for genuine improvement and recovery of their sanity and the use of them should at the same time be complemented by other psychotherapy efforts to achieve the purpose of holistic healing.


Lastly, I hope that the information given above will turn out to be useful to its intended readers. Thank you.

Statistics of Recovery Cases For Mental Illnesses



In fact, statistical evidences actually show that among the ones getting mental illnesses, especially the serious one like Schizophrenia, generally one-third of the population of such people would eventually manage to achieve full recovery, another one-third would gain significant improvements while getting occasional relapses of such disorders, whilst the remaining rest would just get their disorders worsened day after day until no recovery is conceivably possible.


Lastly, what I am trying to say is that as long as there're hopes in getting improvements for one's mental disorders, one should put in the necessary efforts and work hard towards that goal of gaining more and more sanities and finally full recoveries if possible.

General Cognitive Behavioural Process



Well, a psychologist has actually explained to me before that any human actions / behaviours are generally dictated by a cognitive mental process summarized such as follows, and it would apply as well to the ones suffering from any mental disorders, but nevertheless are still mentally and cognitively well-aware of their surroundings and other objects / factors around them. Next, I find that such reasonings really make great senses, and hence, I just feel like to share it with the intended readers :-


Perceptions (anything we see, we hear, we know, we taste, we touch etc from our surroundings / other people) => Feelings (the way we feel about our surroundings and other people based on anything we see, hear, know, taste, touch etc) => Thoughts (the types of views and opinions that we form in our minds based on the types of feelings we have for anything we perceive) => Actions (how we choose to react in response to those surroundings / other people based on the feelings and thoughts that arise in our minds).


In such a regard, the underlying problem faced by the ones with schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and other mental disorders are such that they would tend to treat their perceptions (as mentioned above) in a very much negatively different way, and that in turn results in them forming all those negative feelings, thoughts and then all those negative actions of which others get to label them as negative behavioural / personality changes.


For example, a person suffering from schizophrenia may, after 'observing' his surroundings, (Perceptions), just in turn, for certain reasons like past traumatic experiences, anxiety disorders, panic attacks etc, would tend to spontaneously and directly feel very much uncomfortable, anxious, scared and fearful for what they get to see, hear, know, touch etc (Feelings) , and in extreme cases, maybe they may get to hear 'voices' and feel very much threatened by their surroundings then have such false and unreal imaginations of which they subconsciously choose to firmly believe in that someone out there is 'really' / 'actually' threatening his life (Thoughts or in this case, purely false hallucinations), and finally just try his very best based on his own misguided judgements, to subconsciously become violently defensive and hostile against the others in order to save himself, from being killed etc (Actions).


Similarly, such an explanation to a certain extent would apply as well to the ones having such disorders like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Claustrophobia (a morbid fear of being closed in a confined space) etc whereby a given surrounding, which may appear normal to other people, would nevertheless and otherwise appear to be abnormally unacceptable to them possibly because of past traumatic experiences, anxiety disorders, panic attacks and other reasons. Next, the feelings and thoughts that such people would have based what they perceive for the given surrounding in turn would be largely uncontrollable, if not subconciously involuntary, while their subsequent responses/ reactions / actions based on their such negative feelings and thoughts, would in turn be very much the so-called reflex reactions which are substantially and in most cases, totally beyond their self-control.


In this regard, it would be very much helpful for the ones dealing with such persons to understand their basic underlying problems and difficulties and in turn treat them considerately and thoughtfully with care, respects and most importantly, compassion, whilst at the same time, also try to be friendly and amicable to them in such as a way that rather than feeling uncomfortable with a given surrounding and becoming agitated, these persons would on the other hand, feel more mind-easing, emotionally calm, placated, pacified, soothed, comfortable and relaxing with that given 'uneasy' / 'uncomfortable' / 'threatening' surroundings that they perceive. Subsequently, all these efforts will definitely be tremendously conducive to the improvements of the conditions of their disorders and possibly the final recovery in the end.


With all due respect, the antipsychotics and other neuroleptics just serve to temporarily block such negative nerve impulses about their such negative perceptions from getting sent to the brain of the ones having such disorders so as to artificially block all those negative feelings, thoughts, and then the actions. Hence, they are simply not a conclusive and permanent solution to such disorders.


Well, in such a context, the most direct way of treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in the most effective, and maybe largely hypothetical way would be for such persons to totally change their perceptions about their surroundings, environments, the other people in a positive way and to start having positive and realistic thoughts and at the same time, to get rid of those hallucinations, fanciful ideas, little by little gradually and slowly out of their mind and replace them with anything normal, practical, realistic and positive. Theorectically, positive perceptions => positive feelings =>positive thoughts => positive actions.


In this sense, a great deal of interpersonal, interactive, communications and emotional supports from the ones genuinely willing to help them would be very much essential in getting this achieved, essentially in changing the ways they perceive, feel and think for anything they deal with so as to enable them to come to a decision on their own to have positive actions.


Nonetheless, above all these external constructive helps from the others, all the self-initiatives, self-controls and self-disciplines that are meant to be exercised, essentially on the parts of the ones suffering from such a disorder, particularly to 'mentally-train' themselves to think realistically, positively, optimistically and to cast out / expel all those weird thoughts, hallucinations, fanciful imaginations and preposterous urges and whims little by little out of their minds and get them replaced with the positive, practical and realistic ones, so as to slowly develop positive behavioural changes in themselves, would in turn actually be the decisive factor in determining whether their conditions will pracitcally improve or not, slowly and gradually in the end.

Further References (please look for the posts made by ntuc in the website given below) :


http://www.mentalhealthforum.net/forum/ ... php?t=3039

I take an antipsychotic, 50mg Chlorpromazine.
Before I had it I used to lay awake all night and worry about everything.

You need to post in the other threads currently going on about psych meds. I think you have a valid point. Its funny people these days think there problems can be solved by medication. What do you think all the mentally ill did before the invent of psych meds? They just went on with their lives like everyone else does. Interestingly there are more suicides today than there were before the crazy pills came into such fashion.

No they didn't they had labatomies and was seriously disturbed so much that most of them had to be institonalised there whole life.

That's not true. Only a small fraction of the people who were mentally ill ever went to institutions or had labotamies. The whole reason institutionalization stopped is because Reagan cut out the funding otherwise many people on WP would be locked up.

First, on your concept on perceptions, I think the whole process of feelings and thought is part of perception. You perceive the computer screen to be bright. What you referred to are senses. You also skipped intuition as that often plays a role, and I really don't know enough about the concept as to where it fits in, but a person's gut reaction really has nothing to do with sensing, feeling, or thinking. I kinda use Myers Briggs as an inspiration for the vocabulary. I kinda also hate it when dictionary definitions are changed that drastic in other fields like psychology.

Second, I totally agree that these brain meds are ridiculous. They are addictive, and the cost outweighs the benefits. I don't know why they are prescribed so often. Docs are either sell outs or idiots I guess. But the ones that bug me most are the psychostimulants (the ones that re-traffic your dopamine) and the SSRI's (the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). You know some of them are prescribed to toddlers to help them with shyness? In one case I heard in Colorado, because of IDEA, the school was trying to get more funding with this new ADHD addition to disabilities, and they were very pushy to this one guy to medicate his kid that they thought (and they are not professionals) was ADHD. He did, and when Ritalin was causing his kid to stab stuffed animals over and over again, he weaned his child off. The school threatened to kick his kid out without medication. He fought it. Eventually, the school took him to court to try to get his child removed from him for neglect because he wouldn't poison his child.

'I take an antipsychotic, 50mg Chlorpromazine.
Before I had it I used to lay awake all night and worry about everything.'




Well, I think the information included in the following websites about Chlorpromazine will be very much relevant to you.



http://www.drugs.com/cdi/chlorpromazine ... trate.html


http://www.drugs.com/cdi/chlorpromazine ... ories.html


http://www.drugs.com/enc/chlorpromazine-overdose.html


http://www.drugs.com/pro/chlorpromazine-tablets.html


I myself took Risperdal before for the same purpose. At first, I simply found nothing wrong with it. In the end, when I got its Tardive Dyskinesia side effects, everything was almost irreversibly sealed.



http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/At ... inesia.jsp

'You need to post in the other threads currently going on about psych meds. I think you have a valid point. Its funny people these days think there problems can be solved by medication. What do you think all the mentally ill did before the invent of psych meds? They just went on with their lives like everyone else does. Interestingly there are more suicides today than there were before the crazy pills came into such fashion.'



Well, I came across that ordeal before.


It's just like my thoughts, feelings and actions for everything I perceived were simply and totally beyond my control. At that point of time, I did think of suicide as a solution to my problem when all such antipsychotics / neuroleptics didn't work out anything positive for me anymore.


My point of view is that, those antipsychotics / neuroleptics would serve no more other purpose than just to bring the persons having the uncontrollable, involuntary anxiety / panic attacks, 'violent outbursts' etc under control so that they could get to be calm, pacified, soothed, whilst, in the meantime, be able to accept all the constructive and practical helps of interactive, communication, counselling, emotional and other psychological supports from the others to help them think more optimistically, positively, sensibly and realistically so that they could get back their sanities bit by bit.


It's saddening that most people simply don't understand that point whilst the ones dispensing such medications just tend to exploit on such an aspect of ignorance on the part of their patients to make more and more money out of them. How pathetic.

'I disagree. Research and you will find that most people with a mental illness was locked away.'


You may be right, nevertheless, locking such persons away, well, most of the times may just worsen their conditons for the very fact that most of such mentally-illed people might actually have experienced extreme cases of oppression, interpersonal pressures, high stress and sometimes abuses by the other persons before they actually come to develop such mental disorders.


Next, the surroundings of a limited confined space / environment, which in many cases may just represent some form of oppressions to such people, and well, I don't think that such confined surroundings are, in any way actually conducive to the improvement of the mental conditions of such people, especially when such people are actually locked away for a long period of time, for that may actually constitute another form of extreme oppressions to such people.


And that's why psychotherapy and other interactive / interpersonal / emotional and communications supports are important for the mental health care of such people.

'First, on your concept on perceptions, I think the whole process of feelings and thought is part of perception. You perceive the computer screen to be bright. What you referred to are senses.'


Well, for a given perception, such as computer screen like what you have mentioned, different people may just feel or sense in different ways for that given perception in that some may just feel that it's bright enough for them, and then they may come to a thought that it's not necessary to make it brighter and then choose to do nothing about it. Whilst some may feel or sense (Feeling) otherwise and choose to think that it's not bright enough (Thought) and then just make the screen brighter (Action). In such a regard, the types of mindsets that each different persons have would actually be a part of their thoughts.


Whilst what the persons troubled with mental disorders face are actually their 'distorted negative feelings' which in turn lead to 'negative thoughts and negative actions. For example, a person washing his / her hands, may, after seeing his/her hands (perception), just subconsciously feel that the hands are still dirty (negative feeling), and then just keep washing it again and again (negative action).


Next, other people trying to help them may need to repeatedly, by means of inductive reasonings, other gentle, friendly, subtle and tactful persuasions, to convince these people that what they try to do to serve their 'imaginerily meaningful' purposes as defined by their distorted subconscious mind, are actually pointless and purposeless and hence, there're simply no reason for them to engage in such 'negative actions / behaviours, and unfortunately, these people would need to come to such rational conclusions themselves in order to regain their own sanities gradually and slowly step by step. Certainly, patience would take a long way for the ones trying to help them to bring them to their senses eventually, and that's simply something almost unavoidable especially when such repeated 'negative actions' arising from the repeated 'negative thoughts' formed by the repeated 'negative feelings', have been going on and on for a long period of time until they have actually become a part of their habits for their everyday lives that're in turn, hard to be 'broken away'


'Second, I totally agree that these brain meds are ridiculous. They are addictive, and the cost outweighs the benefits. I don't know why they are prescribed so often. Docs are either sell outs or idiots I guess. But the ones that bug me most are the psychostimulants (the ones that re-traffic your dopamine) and the SSRI's (the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). You know some of them are prescribed to toddlers to help them with shyness? In one case I heard in Colorado, because of IDEA, the school was trying to get more funding with this new ADHD addition to disabilities, and they were very pushy to this one guy to medicate his kid that they thought (and they are not professionals) was ADHD. He did, and when Ritalin was causing his kid to stab stuffed animals over and over again, he weaned his child off. The school threatened to kick his kid out without medication. He fought it. Eventually, the school took him to court to try to get his child removed from him for neglect because he wouldn't poison his child.'



Well, my opinion is that it's easier to heal a kid / teenager of their mental illnesses than the elder / older adults. Whilst my experiences dealing with such people just simply reveal that younger people especially kids are more easily influenced and more receptive to external advices and reasonings that sound sensible and logical to them owing to their not-yet-fully-mature minds.


Next, one more thing worthy to take note would be that antipsychotics / neuroleptics would tend to manifest their disastrous irreversible side effects more quickly and severely onto the kids / small children compared to the other adults due to their more vulnerable and fragile physical conditions.


Hence, extreme care, precautions, cautions and other safety measures should be strictly adhered and carefully taken when treating the kids / small children with such antipsychotics / neuroleptics so as to safeguard their personal health care and well-being against the disastrous irreversible side effects of those medications.

'ntuc wrote:
Eventually, the school took him to court to try to get his child removed from him for neglect because he wouldn't poison his child. '



Kindly take note that the I wasn't the one making the remark above and it's merely something that I quoted from Tantybi's post when I responded to her views. So, please refer to the prior posts above for further clarifications.