... to think that psychiatry is a bit of a con ...?

[Rommell]

... hidebound as it is by cultural and societal norms. Yet it posits that the criteria it creates are truths as to who is 'well' and who is not. How can a person's mind, their psyche, their being be 'ill' anyway? Plus if it really were possible for a drug to produce 'correct' thinking, then the person who created it would be ruler of the world.

[HecatePropylaea]

There's so much to it, if anyone could be arsed, I've banged on about it loads on here over the years I remember the side effects from the meds (trifluoperazine) were fairly horrible and I had to have meds to counteract that (procyclidine).

Funny story - at one point I was sleeping must have been up to 18 hours a day, I mean I was totally zonked! Practically catatonic and they used to wake me up to make me take my sleeping pills. cos it was on the sheet. you've got to laugh!

Clearest memory I have of that time is the bloke who used to give me fags (roll ups) and they tasted of baby lotion because he was constantly smothering his hands in it. I can still taste it when I think of it.

and absconding to the pub they put me on constants for that.

Anyway, it was just to say that it really doesn't matter what 'it' is or whether it's 'real' (physical, testable, scannable?) - When you can't function, you need help, because otherwise you have no life at all.

[SparklyMonkeyMummy]

I would like to point out that actually current research is moving away from A biomedical model of mental illnesses and biopsychosocial model are becoming the more accepted norm.

You clearly have no training or understanding on this topic and it would seem have not even bothered to do basic research. As someone training in a related field, it drives me to despair when I see/hear people like you, who are misinformed and uneducated on the matter. It is no wonder that there is still a stigma on mental illness with attitudes like yours.

[GiddyUpCowboy]

I could not agree more when you can't function you need help it is sad to me that the wrong help is given, and psychology doesn't fix what is physical in nature and will never fix it, what may look like a mental health condition may be secondary symptoms to a physical condition.

[2teens2tots]

And OP as you have stated on another thread that you yourself suffer from MH problems perhaps you should be more aware of the actual training and scientific research involved in MH !

[ThefutureMrsTatum]

Can we sabotage the thread for when the op decides to come back then to hand out more biccies to the people she doesn't like? Lets turn it into a discussion about biscuits instead.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

I dunno, I have a long history of mh issues and also work in the field. I see no reason why this subject should be off limits and don't find the op goady. I don't think I want to be on MN if certain subjects are completely off-limits - I thought this was a website for grown-ups.

My take is this: I think medication kind of works some of the time but nobody really has a clue about how it works, even the experts. Sometimes it doesn't work, sometimes it does harm.

is interesting but uncomfortable viewing - it's from a scientist who is part of the Cochrane Collaboration.

for anyone who is suffering mental distress or who is caring for someone with mental distress. I do not doubt your experience for a moment.

[ThefutureMrsTatum]

Oh goodness hecate I hope he hadn't been doing anything else with his baby lotioned hands!!!

[Mitchy1nge]

even if the OP is short of ideas for an essay these still sound like valid questions

my own consultant psychiatrist described his profession as a 'series of stabs in the dark trying to pass itself off as a science'

obviously psychiatry is imperfect and obviously if it has the power to help and heal then it must also have the power to harm, as with any other intervention

[HecatePropylaea]

Noooooooooooooooooo

Why? Why did you say that to me?

[NinjaLeprechaun]

MrsTatum It was certainly implied by the OP though. That's why I put it in quotes. I've heard people say it, and things like it, and mean it, too many times.

I have bipolar disorder, and I remember being so relieved at being told that there was something genuinely wrong with me. Something that could be treated. I'd been told enough times by that point that if I only tried hard enough I would be fine. It's just not true.

[Mitchy1nge]

I recently read (or possibly heard on the radio?) something fascinating about a fictional woman with a set of experiences and symptoms and what her diagnosis and treatment would be decade by decade through recent times as psychiatry cycled through phases variously emphasising a biological basis or social factors and back again. Bet I can't find it now.

[BillyBanter]

Like any science psychiatry and psychology are in a constant state of development, evolution. They are not perfect. Far from it. Are you suggesting we just bin 100 years of investigation and start from scratch? Not do anything for people with MH problems until we're sure we've got it completely right? Even though this would be impossible without actually trying anything out on MH patients?

The mind is in the brain, it does not exist outside the brain. It is the product of physical objects, chemical and electrical actions in the brain. Not separate from it. Thoughts aren't magicked out of the ether.

With enough technology and capacity we could map out the process of every thought. But we don't. As one of the inventors of prozac said, 'If the brain was a simple thing we would be too simple to understand it'.

[HecatePropylaea]

That would be fascinating. I would love to read that. I hope you find it.

And the same is true of other illnesses, isn't it?

leeches, drilling holes in you, sticking hot pokers up your arse (treatment for piles!), spells and incantations, an imbalance of humours, purging, vomiting, flogging yourself to get rid of the plague...I am sure people could come up with a massive list.

All because??? the actual diseases were not understood. I think that when the brain / mind are better understood, we will better know how to treat it.

[ThefutureMrsTatum]

Haha I'm sorry. Its just my mind, I'm sure he just liked having soft hands!
Ah sorry ninja, my DH found the same. He first went to the doctors at 22 and only got access to mh services at 24 he changed gp twice as the general concensus was it was "all in his head" to which he told them its the worst place it can be. He's 34 now and is only just finding the right balance with his meds and he's fortunate to have a good psychiatrist at last. It really should never take a decade to get the proper treatment.

[FreudiansSlipper]

I partly agree with the op many many people in MH are questioning the way the profession is going

Do a little research on the DSM the bible of psychiatry those on the committee of compiling the DSM, their connections to pharmaceutical companies and the alarming rate of new diagnosis which of course have a drug to fix the problem, very very worrying when many drugs prescribed we still do not have a full understanding how they work yet alter many people perception

Of course this has to be challenged, we are too accepting to research we should, be questioning all research

[Mitchy1nge]

it's not true to quite the same extent, I don't think we have quite such difficulty categorising and re-categorising and classifying and re-classifying physical injury or illness in the same way

am pretty sure it was this blogger who also posts on MadInAmerica

[BillyBanter]

A lot of the difficulty is we can't directly observe what we want to measure. There are ethical issues on what experiments we can carry out. There are capacity issues with how much we can measure. There are technological issues in that we only have the technology we have at any one time. And there is the issue of building on existing knowledge/work. You can't go straight from Alexander Bell's first telephone to smartphones.

[GiddyUpCowboy]

It was only this week that the research into TAMIFLU was as I experienced, it was useless and made us all vomit, we didn't need that on top of being so ill. We stopped taking it and let our body do it's work.

I guess the same will be said for the anti cervical cancer drugs they are giving teenage girls. The leaflets levels of reactions are not a true reflection of two whole year group's reactions. That was why my youngest didn't get it she watched her older sister and friends suffer and then her friends. She is not sure what she wants to do she is sure right now that drug is not the answer for her.

[Mitchy1nge]

but billybanter we can easily observe people taking anti-depressants for shit life syndrome without needing to further our understanding of the biological basis of depression

we can see that social inequality directly and indirectly contributes to mental suffering without experimenting on anyone

I hope we do learn lots more about our brains, but it shouldn't stop us critically examining the wider cultural and social causes of mental illness, didn't we leave the 'broken brain' model behind a long time ago?

[BillyBanter]

I'm not suggesting we don't! I'm arguing for building knowledge and that that is what is happening!

There is so much to 'measure' to have full understanding - genetics, hormones, electrical impulses, experience and learning, first relationships, societal norms and expectations, to name just a few things that influence what goes on in the mind and how that is perceived personally and in the context of society. We can't control for these things, so we go with what we can observe and measure, and treat that as best we can with what we have.

[Mitchy1nge]

sorry I think I misunderstood you or got carried away with an idea from further up the thread that all mental illness could ultimately be understood neurologically

am sure future generations will shudder at the drugs my generation has been prescribed so widely and how responsibility for mental health is constantly shifting from the 'damaged' individual to the family of origin to 'society' to psychiatry and back again

[x2boys]

As a mental health nurse,with 21 years of experience I can categorically tell you that when people are mentally unwell the illness is justbas real as a physical illness ,antipsychotic medication does not just sedate people it helps,treat their psychosis not every anti psychotic,will work for everybody and sometimes some people need to try several before they find one that helps,them some,of the older amtipsychotics have some very nasty side,affects such as akithesia ,dyskinesia,etc but there care medications to help,with these side affects,newer medications can increase appetite drastically but dietary advice can help,with this.

[DinkytheShrink]

Nc'd as I am not on duty on here but I am another consultant psychiatrist and a trained psychotherapist.

giddy psychiatrists and psychologists are not the same. Psychologists do a psychology degree +/- further training in a specific field of psychology. They can train to be therapists.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors, who have done a degree in medicine and currently a minimum of 5 years postgraduate training as a junior doctor in a specific psychiatry training, a with both exams and competency based assessments (performed by medical and non-medical colleagues, service users and their families or carers) which all much be passed along with a yearly appraisal process before they can progress towards a consultant post.

We are rather different beasts I am afraid. I can prescribe medication but a psychologist cannot as they are not licences to do so (only doctors and nurse prescribers).

I am horribly strict on ruling out an underlying medical condition. I recognise not all my colleagues are, but I am sick of people being palmed off as mentally ill when they have a treatable medical illness causing their symptoms. I have fallen out with groups of colleagues (non-psychiatrists) over this as I am a bad ass. and of course always right... Not. I have not been a service user but I have been mentally ill and covered it up, and later found it was due to post-partum hyperthyroidism.

So when someone sets foot in my clinic for the first time, I will insist on bloods, a physical, usually a Ct brain and EEG as well if indicated.

I work with mentally disordered offenders, though I have had quite a broad range of experience during my loooong postgraduate training. I am in the biopsychosocial camp, with a psychodynamic approach to looking at someone's early life and attachments to see how it fits with them now.

Unfortunately psychiatry is being murdered by the government's cuts. We are bearing a disproportionate amount of service cuts compared to the rest of the nhs, and as a result, only the illest of the ill are getting anything, which often amounts to fuck all of what they need. Eg inpatient beds running at 110% capacity and you only get admitted if you are detained eg acutely psychotic or have been caught in the act of suicide. People who are unwell but not at the most acute end of the spectrum are being scandalously deprived of services.

For example, when and where I started out, I would readily admit people for respite, to help them and their families get a break and for the person to get some good nursing care and more intense treatment - this is just a dream now.

I would love to do the full range of what I have spent years, a huge amount of money and personal stress training to do - to deliver psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatments as indicated for as long as needed.

But at present in the nhs despite being hugely qualified, I cannot get a permanent job (boo hoo poor me, I know how lucky and well off I am!).

OP you are a goady twat. Very adolescent, C- minus for effort (I am feeling generous today).

I am sorry, this turned into a mega post! I am more than happy to engage and to enter in a dialogue, as I know my profession is far from perfect and subject historically to the gravest abuses (eg in Soviet Russia).

[x2boys]

The problem with mental illness is that its not something people can see ,even professionals often have different opinions on a persons diagnosis ,two,people,presenting in similar ways probably won't respond,in the same way to treatment.when somebody has a,broken leg its visible,its treated and!ifmtwo people,have the same breaks and get the same treatment they will probably have similar outcomes (not all the time of course but usually) with schizophrenia ,it can be very,different and there is still so much unknown about mental illness.