Psychiatry Exposed

[Rayaan]

As terrible as that can be, I don't think it's fair to expose psychiatry without balancing it out by mentioning the good it has done (dammit, now I sound like a theist defending religion).

Well, most people already know what good it has done. The good is already quite heard of, but the dangers and unscrupulous practices that exist in modern psychiatry are less familiar. So the darker, hideous face of psychiatry should be brought to light. That's the reason I wanted to put attention on the harms of psychiatry. Those are the things that are being kept from the public.

One of the problems in psychiatry is the increasingly mislabeling of normal human emotions and fear reactions as "disorders." Another problem is the excessive reliance on antidepressants and other antipsychotic drugs and the resulting side effects of those drugs. That, according to Robert Whitaker, who has delivered a stunning critique in his book Anatomy of an Epidemic, is a big part of the reason why mental illness in America has tripled over the past two decades. There is evidence, too, that the use of psychiatric medications has contributed to the growth of new mental illnesses in many patients. You can get a little insight into this shocking phenomenon by reading this interview.

Does it look like psychiatry is heading in a positive direction? I have to give a resounding no to that, unfortunately. Rather it seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Psychiatry has been rapidly moving towards a drug-based paradigm of care. So now psychiatry is becoming less talk, less personal, and more drug pushing. Along with that, more unnecessary labelling, too.

There's also a good chance that psychiatry will turn out to be better, yes. But, right now, it's evidently going the other way.

Where is psychiatry headed? What the discipline badly needs is close attention to patients and their individual symptoms, in order to carve out the real diseases from the vast pool of symptoms that DSM keeps reshuffling into different "disorders." This kind of careful attention to what patients actually have is called "psychopathology," and its absence distinguishes American psychiatry from the European tradition. With DSM-V, American psychiatry is headed in exactly the opposite direction: defining ever-widening circles of the population as mentally ill with vague and undifferentiated diagnoses and treating them with powerful drugs.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10...0227601116

I agree with you that a lot of the abuse happens because of the ignorance on the part of the patient also. So, yeah, that's a fair argument.

They numb almost everything to the point I just don't even care half the time about a thing.

Damn. You should be very careful then. That's not a good sign ...

Oh, screw sex because the sex drive doesn't even exist while on these pills.

Yeah, many of the SSRIs and anti-anxiety pills will do that to you. Do tell your doctor about it as soon as you can. And look it up on Google also, when you have time.

Low Libido? 11 Drugs That Affect Your Sex Drive