[lbo-talk] Let them eat Prozac (was: let's argue about the causeofmental illness

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Mon Sep 28 17:49:28 PDT 2009


Interlinear

--- On Mon, 9/28/09, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:


> >
>
>the diagnostic criteria in the
> DSM were under such political pressure to be rendered so
> vague as to encompass broad swaths of the population
> (because Pharma saw this as a big market) and to eradicate
> any reference to Freudian clinical evidence and insights,
> that the populations for whom anti-depressants, especially
> SSRIs, are being given are composed of people who have very
> different problems, lumped into one category and, thus, are
> very likely responding quite differently.

As I said, big Pharma corrupts research, and psychiatrists overmedicate because it's what they know how to do. Also good talk therepy helps sometimes. No disagreement there.


>
> Their depression is so mild and so
> situational that this is about all they need to feel better.
> What that placebo article also pointed out,

Sure, and some people have other problems.

in line with a
> sciam review I read back in 2004, is that it's quite likely
> that some non-drug therapies actually do work in ways that
> help change the "chemical structure" of the brain.

As a Zen and yoga practionationer I will say absolutely!!

(I put
> the term under erasure for the same reasons that Healey
> calls this sort of talk "biobabble". Please don't go off the
> handle: he is a psychiatrists who thinks we need SSRIs and
> did major research on serotonin reuptake himself.)

AFter what I said about MDs and their lack of scholarly and scientific research training, his being a psychiatrist is not necessarily a recommendation. :-)
>
> As I understand it, from reading these three authors, there
> are different kinds of responses because people are
> different. There are different kinds of responses because
> people who do suffer from a serious "chemical disorder" are
> part of the population taking ADs, as are people like my
> mother, with utterly no history of depression and clearly
> experiencing what they call "situational" depression.

Agreed,


>
> So, tossing out the placebo response as bunkem is wholly
> unfair to the experiences of people who _do_ respond to
> placebos and get better. It dosn't help us get any closer to
> what is going on that's for sure.

Agreed

Soo we are prretty much on the same page after all.

Andie



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