Great job @agmoore. Your posts are always so detailed. I would think with this subject, it was kind of hard to stay on just the topics you brought up here. There is so much about psychology and mental health care that is used, misused and still unknown. What works for one may not work for another.
The one thing that still baffles me. Is I know in some cases, like mine, the medicine helps. Yet no blood work or testing has ever been done to check on my serotonin or dopamine levels. I have recently learned about psychologists using MRI and CT scans to try to evaluate patients. In fact, EMDR treatment in itself is very simplistic, yet a CT scan is supposed to be done on a regular basis to see if the treatment is working. I have yet to have one. Not that I could afford any of this, yet I can't help but think if proper tools were used how much of a difference would it make?
For a long time mental health has been an industry rather than a treatment or cure. Big Pharma basically grew out of mental health care (it had a hand in other areas, but the medications for mental illness have been one of the top products they sell). As you mention the practices have always been symptom based. Numb it, dull it anything to stop the 'negative' behavior. It is still very common today.
Talk therapy alone doesn't do the job either. If you get a therapist that is Freudian based, then they blame everything wrong with you on one or the other parent. Sometimes they even manage to convince the person being treated something actually happened to cause this. I even had one therapist tell me I needed to sever ties with my entire family since I can't remember half of my childhood.
I have done so much research over the years, like you mentioned also, that each doctor would have their own diagnosis. That still happens. If I listen to everything I have been 'diagnosed' with. I should be locked up.
I've rambled on enough. It's a great topic especially for open discussion. To share experiences. Learning more of how things came to be is still extremely fascinating. If you're going to keep on with the mental health articles like this, I would love to see you do an article on Nellie Bly and maybe something on Waverly Hills. I've done a some research, not a lot. Both very fascinating.
What a thoughtful, helpful comment. It seems your doctors are trapped in the old paradigm. Of course, there are limited tools available to treat diseases of the brain, but even those few tools have not been applied to your difficulty. I am so sorry. Writing about this is very important. We cannot be passive consumers of medication. We need to understand the methods, the reasons so we can support progress. Change comes hard, especially when the financial incentive is there to treat in the old way.
I hope you find more appropriate, constructive treatment. I will look up Nellie Bly and Waverly Hills. Many suggestions have come back as a result of this post. That's great.
Thanks for reading. Truly do wish you better health and much better medical care.
You're welcome. I love posts like this. I feel if anyone can learn from the mistakes I've been through then it's for nothing. Yes a lot of it is an internal battle and no amount of medicine is going to fix that. I have to play 'mental' games with myself. I joking tell others when you're so upset you can't see straight. Yell squirrel, it's better if someone else does it. It interrupts that train of thought and you usually get a laugh. It makes it easier to move through. I am at the point, I don't want to be on medication. I was told several years ago I would always be. So I admit, I'm a little apprehensive, since I have gone without and have medicine changes that have greatly affected me. Time will tell.
I would imagine you have gotten a lot of ideas. You really only caught the tip of the iceberg on this one. If you stick with it, you may have enough to write a novel.
This would have to be a book of horror, and hope. I do wish you well on your journey. Most of all, I hope you find intelligent, caring, effective doctors. I'll be seeing you around Steemit, I'm sure. Have just followed you.
Thank you @agmoore :) It might be. After you start looking into Waverly Hills it will be . My therapist I currently have is the best I have had so far even though there are some things we don't do. I have made the most progress with her. It's nice to not be judged for a change. I can be candid with her, I have never felt that safe before to open up like that.
It’s really a bad situation when doctors have strong financial incentives to use certain medications. Unfortunately what’s best for the patient doesn’t always come first.
I hadn’t heard of Paul McHugh before, but it sounds like his reforms are something that psychiatry really needs. I remember in university learning about some treatments for mental health, and the lecturer told us that we really have no idea why these drugs work, but it seemed like depressed patients got a little better if you gave them lithium, so we just kept doing it! We are starting to understand the brain better, but there is still a long long way to go.
Such a long way. I think it might help if doctors were more honest with patients about how little they actually do know. As it is, many patients feel the failure to "get better" is theirs. That only compounds distress.
We all have to support the movement toward more research and less guessing, I think. Thanks for the feedback.