On Thu, 29 Jul 2004, John Thornton wrote:
> People taking AD's need to have someone monitor their
> behavior carefully. We still do not know enough about these drugs to treat
> them as cavalierly as we so often seem to do. It seems sometimes as if the
> desire not to stigmatize patients on AD's works to suppress awareness
> and/or discussions of the need to carefully monitor a patients behavior for
> potentially fatal side effects. Whenever I mention the possible negative
> side effects I am almost always hit with a reply about how much good they
> do as if saying anything bad about AD's means I desire to have them banned
> or believe them to be more harmful than beneficial. That simply isn't true.
I agree that people seem to have a pretty cavalier attitude about these powerful drugs. This is one signficant reason why psychotherapy is often more effective (and safer!) than drug therapy for the treatment of various psychological problems.
Miles