I suspect that the same is true with schizophrenia (though with a much greater emphasis on medications because its generally proven to be more effective on positive symptoms).
"Many people suffer from depression and just take their doctor’s word for it on whether or not they should be medicated (not to mention which drug) and/or seek psychotherapy.
There really hasn’t been a ton of research looking at how a doctor can or should make these decisions. With drug choice especially, it is kind of a roll of the dice. There’s not a lot of rhyme or reason behind why one drug makes sense for one person and not another."
“Over all, about 40 percent of the depressed subjects responded to either treatment. But Dr. Mayberg found striking brain differences between patients who did well with Lexapro compared with cognitive behavior therapy, and vice versa. Patients who had low activity in a brain region called the anterior insula measured before treatment responded quite well to C.B.T. but poorly to Lexapro; conversely, those with high activity in this region had an excellent response to Lexapro, but did poorly with C.B.T.”
How exciting.
I personally, have responded to both medications alone and therapy alone for my depressions. I respond to therapy better for mild depression, and to medications for deeper depression. Right now, I’m only on Celexa for depression. No therapy. And it works great for me. I had to turn to medication, unfortunately, after my 30 year old son died, three and a half years ago.
I believe forced drugging should only be done after a year of therapy. Then if that don’t help then therapy. There is no therapy at all for forced mental patients and that is wrong. They don’t even give someone a chance to recover without drugs they just force drugs on you. I personally got hurt by drugs when I told them give me a chance and I’ll show you I’m fine. The only way out for me was to get a job but the meds made me so sick I couldn’t get a job so I am stuck in a trap and there is alot of people like that but it is kept under the wire. There voices usually are not herd. That’s why the law needs to be changed. Nobody understands that this is major torture.