that 'chemical imbalance' myth

[Alameda]

so nice to see this notion that has been used to oppress and repress women for decades finally discussed as a dangerous myth - chemical imbalances and other black unicorns

although I despair at how sort of prevalent it is, how regressive and how effective it is at distracting women from the cultural determinants of their unhappiness

Sorry to hear that Misery - I hope you get some decent help soon. It must be hard that your family are so unsympathetic. There is a good Mental Health section on MN with some nice supportive people on it if you'd find that helpful.

I do wonder (and this is 100% speculation) if depression etc on a social level should be seen in a similar way to obesity, diabetes etc. There will always be a small minority of people who have a genetic predisposition to obesity or depression, perhaps because they don't generate enough of the relevant hormone or whatever. It may be possible to invent a drug that supplies the missing hormone and solves their problem, and that's great.

However, if nearly half a population are obese or depressed then doesn't it make sense to look at why this is, rather than just doling out the drugs?

(And similarly - if nearly half the population are obese or depressed then blaming individuals for eating too much cake or not exercising enough or feeling sorry for themselves makes no sense at all. It's a wider issue.)

racing - I think canard said he does prescribe antidepressants and other psych meds 'judiciously', although I want to know his thoughts, particularly as an mph, on prescribing masturbation

not hijack misery, don't worry, is exactly what we are talking about I think. Wish could think of something helpful but am apparently 'beyond the reach of therapeutic help' so it's just drugs for me

Mooncup said: if nearly half a population are obese or depressed then doesn't it make sense to look at why this is, rather than just doling out the drugs?

That is such a wise idea. Why are we not governed by people who ask questions like this, or care about the answers?

Misery, so sorry to hear you are down and unsupported. People don't understand you can't snap out of it. Do the forces not have their own MH team? I'd have thought isolation and depression could be rife among forces wives, due to the incredible constant stresses you are under.

this is an interesting and slightly scary (women make up 70% of forced ECT patients? can that be true?) related piece by a woman open letter to liberals and feminists and, bit of an aside, had no idea there was such a movement as 'fat acceptance'

hello racing i am glad to hear you benefited from citalopram. I never said anything against psychotropic medication in my post, indeed I do prescribe them. It is always a joy to see people spring to life after being in the depths of depressive despair. Sadly, this does occur often enough. I am not against the judicious prescription of medication for depression and other psychical symptoms, but it just isn't the case that 99.99% of the time antidepressants are correcting a 'cause' of depression. We don't really understand fully the different levels at which they might help. If depression were really due to low serotonin then antidepressants wouldn't work anyway! as you need to have serotonin for them to work.

hello alameda i do think more research into therapeutic effects of masturbation is urgently needed and have advocated for making vibrators available on prescription and tested like medical devices so they would have to undergo head-to-head comparisons so you could find out which ones work best and for whom! but i digress...

hello wickety pitch you are correct that most serotonin is not found in the brain (but in fact the gastrointestinal tract), but are incorrect to say serotonin is manafacutured in the brain. blood serotonin is produced in platelets, so tell us nothing about brain levels, and serotonin in the gut is produced in neurons in the enteric nervous system which controls gut motility - again outside the brain. You can measure levels of serotonin metabolites in spinal fluid, which gives you a better estimate of levels in the brain, but again only a proxy. The association with depression, however is weak. The most replicated finding is that low levels of 5-HIAA (the breakdown product of serotonin) is associated with impulsivity, and not depression.

hello miserybusiness - im not sure that from the feminist perspective talk therapies like CBT or even psychodynamic are any better than drugs and biochemical explanations. In many ways, it is even more pernicious, because rather than acknowledging there are often very good reasons for women to experience suffering in our society, they seek to displace the problem onto women and blame faulty thinking! It is how you think about the situation which is claimed to be at fault, not the situation! Incidentally, CBT which is often helpful for depression, does not actually change negative thinking - people who have CBT have just as many negative thinking patterns before as they do afterwards! So we don't quite know how that 'works' either...

I do have a MH team out here. I've seen them a few times and they decided that being here (in Germany) is having an effect on my MH however, at my last appointment I was discharged because they said even though I have depression and anxiety I'm not classed as psychiatrically ill so they dont have treatment for me except Prozac.

They have chosen to ignore that my depression is only made worse by being here, it is not the cause.

I found CBT quite good for my anxiety but not so much for depression. I think I've come to realise that it's not down to one life event or situation but many different things over time that have piled on top of me.

I've been told by my cousellors and GP's that its all caused by a chemical inbalance/thinking errors/my personality etc.

No one has ever suggested I should explore further why I might be the way I am, just that it is some how my fault.

ugh just IMAGINE an NHS vibrator, bet they'd be nice. Hope the Wellcome Trust fund that study, they have the perfect name for it.

:( misery

think it might help a bit if you had more friends where you are? how long will you be there, could you move?

We're being moved back to the UK towards the end of the summer, maybe Sept.

It's quite hard to make friends, most of our neighbours are German and I dont speak any.

The place we're moving to I have one very good friend so that should make things slightly better.

Things will improve, eventually. I know I look at things different because of the depression and that actually things probably aren't that bad.

moving back to uk sounds good, must be easier to make friends when not divided by language

don't know how best you could address the depression though, it could be that antidepressants might help you make other changes, decide how you feel about past events and the extent to which they can inform your future and feel more in control generally, there must often be a case for that?

COME ON THEN

Add message | Report | Message poster canardtheduck Thu 28-Jun-12 04:56:09
hello alameda i do think more research into therapeutic effects of masturbation is urgently needed and have advocated for making vibrators available on prescription and tested like medical devices so they would have to undergo head-to-head comparisons so you could find out which ones work best and for whom! but i digress...

There are so many causes of depression, I think drugs are way of alleviating symptoms and making life bearable while the root causes are investigated. I don't think you can say that antidepressants oppress women. They help people to cope will they figure out what is making them depressed, which could of could be due to them being oppressed in some way.

just want to get started on this urgently needed research into the therapeutic effects of masturbation, mainly

I'm sure there are therapeutic effects, there must be some research somewhere, not sure it's an effective cure for mental illness though.

Cured hysteria didn't it? All that C19th research was grim though wasn't it, not really a laughing matter at all.

Not a laughing matter at all. Psychology was very weak in some terms then as it was bases on pyschoanalytical theory which gladly has been mainly left in the past.

part of me is fascinated as to how and why you think psychoanalysis is not still alive and kicking but mostly the rest of me is wondering if canardtheduck is ever going to post on his blog again and whether there will be any masturbation when/if he does

My statement wasn't very clear. There is a movement away from psychoanalysis in terms of the type you were discussing... however like all movements, it's effects are not felt everywhere. This is an interesting paper:

here

hello alameda i will write something on masturbation if you like, but it will require some research on my part! there too my knowledge a long history of prescribing masturbation as a medical treatment dating back to ancient greece, or maybe it was egypt?

hello eclecticshock you are partly right - clinical psychologists do not learn psychoanalytic theory or therapy during their training, as it is almost exclusively cognitive-behaviorally based though they may have a supervisor who is psychodynamically inclined, or could opt to train in psychoanalytic therapy later on. In contrast, psychiatrists do learn about psychoanalytic theory and in the UK all psychiatric trainees have to attend a psychoanalytically based group to discuss the dynamic aspects of their patients and their countertransferences..
Here in the US psychiatrists have their own personal psychoanalytic therapy, learn psychoanalytic theory, treat a patient with psychodynamic therapy, and attend a psychodynamically-informed T-group.

As far as I can tell, this leads to psychiatrists coming up with convoluted object-relationist formulations to explain why someone is psychotic, and then prescribing 3 antipsychotics!

As for hysteria, I have a special interest in the treatment of conversion disorder but use hypnotherapy not psychoanalysis. much quicker. I have never recommended masturbation to an hysterical patient, and considering most of these patients have a history of sexual abuse or trauma that might not go down so well.

Thanks canard, really interesting, must read more about it.