In light of an influx of certain posts I am interested in people’s positions re psychiatry.
My view is that there should be a greater emphasis on environmental and social factors than there currently is. That is not to deny that genetics has an important role to play.
In terms of psychiatrists working with patients, I get a strong feeling that symptoms that may disturb or annoy/upset the general public(positive) are seen as more important than those that primarily affect the patient/service user(cognitive and negative).
You can be leading a life of quiet desperation, but so long as you are not upsetting society then that is seen as the main thing.
I think that attitude needs to change or else it only lends credence to those who argue that psychiatry’s primary function is as a vehicle for social control.
Psychiatry is in its infancy. It will advance as new technology allows us to map the brain. Right now, psychiatry has little to offer those suffering with mental illness.
Changes are needed - major changes. First of all the entire Diagnostic system needs to be changed. The entire DSM system is very vague and confusing. I think that psychiatrists need to diagnose based on symptoms not relying on labels.
Also the medications that are supposed to treat us need to improve - meds today are basically all the same - focusing on dopamine D2 blocking - they need to be more effective and less harmful to our physical health, especially in the metabolic department.
I agree with you @firemonkey, currently there is a focus on the positive symptoms but not enough emphasis on the negative symptoms - psychiatrists need to address our social needs more - How are we doing socially and how are we functioning in life generally.
Psychiatrists need to work with therapists and social workers more closely - recommending therapy and social skills training as needed.
I also feel that there are too many unskilled non dedicated - incompetent psychiatrists out there (my current pdoc not included) I feel that many of them also lack appropriate people skills - many of them dont treat us holistically - this needs to change as well.
Many of them need to be better trained - education should include research and a better understanding of the biological aspect to the more severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar etc…
I also think that there should be a mandatory amount of time spent with the patient. 10 - 15 minutes is not enough time, the more time spent with a patient leads to a better understanding of that patient - a focus should be on the needs of the patient as well - taking on a more humanistic, individualized approach.
I am not anti psychiatry or anti meds - I am a bit tired of the current system - I do think that there needs to be a major overhaul in how they diagnose especially. The meds need to be more effective and less harsh - this is necessary
i selected being critical, but if you sincerely want to know, where i stand on psychiatry is very highly dependent on my level of relative stability.
right now? i’m critical of certain aspects, but i do trust my psychiatrist and overall think he does a bang up job with what he has to work with. i know he does his best and keep abreast of developments and he’s seen me through some real ■■■■.
unstable, i would probably qualify as being “anti psychiatry”. it’s not directed at that, per se, but it’s part of a larger framework i have that it’s all experimental mind control, labels of the means of discrediting those they’ve abused and experimented on, and meds facilitate conduction that enable them to control me through the neurotechnological implants they’ve placed. i could go on and on about this, which is a problem for me, so i won’t.
i’m pretty sure i’m not currently amongst those you’re referencing because i’ve been pretty even keeled of late. i’ve not been in the hospital for a few months, so i’m certain i’m not. but that said, i certainly have the propensity toward and am posting to suggest that maybe there’s more to “being anti psychiatry” (or in my case, having written some polemics in my day) than might meet the eye.
i saw your other thread about whether the things you post are unwanted though and i think even if there were a huge influx of anti psychiatry people, all the more reason what you post is needed for balance. just my perspective. cheers
The problem is any post critical of psychiatry is labeled as anti-psychiatry. Anything that questions major psychiatric presumptions (such as schizophrenia being irrecoverable) is targeted as anti-psychiatry.
If you want to lick your psychiatrist’s boots, be my guest.
I think that is a good point and why I asked in another thread about defining anti-psychiatry. Since some psychiatrist are anti-med then it’s perhaps not anti-psychiatry that seems to bother some but being anti-medication?
I would say I am anti-medication. However, I am even more firmly anti-symptom and anti-relapse. Sometimes you have to date the Devil you know. I’ve also had as many bad psychiatrists as good ones. My advice to anyone who finds themselves with a psychiatrist who downplays recovery – fire them.
10-96
I am not particularly anti or pro med. I see them neither as wonder drugs for most people nor do I see them as a source of great evil.
It is antipsychiatry’s “psychiatry is all bad” mentality I take issue with, just as I take issue with those who see no faults with it.
Contrary to @gainesms accusation it has nothing to do with any desire to lick anyone’s boots.
The main aim of die hard antipsychiatry folk is the destruction of psychiatry with no real focus on replacing it with anything better.
If they were seeking to improve things through constructive and balanced criticism then that would be an entirely different matter and one that I would fully support. .
It is evident from the responses to the poll so far that people are in favour of some degree of change whether it be minor,moderate or major.
I put moderately critical. I liked the link someone posted about genetic testing to see if drugs will work with your metabolism. If more pdoc’s and insurance’s did this sort of testing, it would take months or years of guess work out of it in finding drugs that work for you.
I voted critical: major changes but to put that in perspective I am critical of society and believe we need to put some heart into some positive “major changes” before we are eaten alive even and more violence befalls us.
I am not critical of my current doctor but am critical of the social structure of our system in a well meaning positive way. Do we need positive change? Yes. I believe our system (social structure) caters to what may be a majority of people on the spectrum of the human experience. But what of the many good people who our society essentially broke in an attempt to make what is different but otherwise of value to society fit in.
So yeah there’s a snippet of social philosophy from over here in my corner.
I’m not saying anything against medicating a mental illness here, but perhaps re-examining the way in which those of us hit with major mental illness are supposed to get up and reintegrate in a society that in many ways from my perspective doesn’t work for all of us.
if psychiatry worked we would all be cured…
twenty years ago they tried to lock me up and throw away the key…not helpful.
today they are more flexible…hence they don’t mind me not doing meds…
meds are not a cure for all…they are there to assist.
for an industry to grow and better itself , change is inevitable.
take care
I saw this today and it just seemed too appropriate to pass up.
I think psychiatry should be free.
Obamacare
yes
i chose critical but needs major changes bc i don’t think they do a good enough job,
all they do in my opinion is check on you to see if your ok and i think they should be doing more.
having a diagnosis is not just about taking pills it a whole lot more than that.
i sometimes wish i was referred to more specialists instead of being left to suffer for so long on the wrong med, it was my choice to change med and if i didn’t i would still be zombified. i wish i could have gone to more groups and had more kinds of therapy bc maybe i wouldn’t have suffered as much and for as long.
Although not against meds, as I know they have helped others, my own experience of them has been mediocre. With mainly meds( few brief bouts of bad therapy) over 40 years I have not got near to what might be termed a recovery.
I think sometimes too much emphasis is placed on medication and the eradication of positive symptoms of psychosis to the exclusion of other approaches and problems/symptoms.
For me it has been severe social anxiety and chronic social interaction difficulties that have been the real barrier to employment coupled with unrecognised learning difficulty, rather than any relatively mild psychosis(compared to many here) .
It took till last year for someone to actually state I had very poor social skills. Why was this not picked up on and help given decades ago? It might have made some difference.
Then there are the chronic drive and motivational problems . I quote from a newsgroup posting nearly 5…5 years ago .
firemonkey
11/6/09
Had my injection on Wednesday.My care co ordinator who usually gives me
my injection thinks i might need to see my consultant again. I explained
to her that although the injection helps me to be less paranoid and
prone to weird thoughts it
doesn’t do much for my lack of motivation- that sometimes i don’t get
dressed for several days at a time and don’t like going out of my flat much.
She thinks i might be depressed.I told her i don’t feel as though i’m
depressed,that i either feel too little ie blah/grey or feel too much
ie negative emotions.
When i explained further(that the lack of motivation/not wanting to get
dressed etc had been going on for quite a while) she said the lack of
motivation sounds like a chronic rather than acute problem and could be
a negative symptom of my illness.
I wondered what she meant by negative symptom of my illness as currently
as far as i know i’m dxed personality disorder NOS and i associate
positive and negative symptoms with schizophrenia and schizoaffective(my
previous dx- mixed type) .
The best that can be said is that I live independently and didn’t end up in a care/group home(albeit described as having limited ability to live independently in the community) but I have never been employed and have no social network.
There needs to be greater recognition and utilisation of other treatment approaches beyond giving a pill or injection to someone.
Psychiatry really falls short when it comes to the negative symptoms. For me, Haldol worsens my motivation and social interaction. It takes me at least a couple hours to get ready in the morning. I don’t do much throughout the day. I talk and interact less when I’m taking medication; I don’t like being around people; etc.
It’s hard to tell how much is caused by the diagnosis and how much is caused by the medication. For me, the major barrier to medication is the notion that true recovery can’t be achieved on medication.
I’ve heard that CBD (medical marijuana), as opposed to antipsychotics, alleviates negative symptoms as well as positive symptoms.