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I'm not saying that all he drugs are useless all the time but for many the other options will have a better overall impact. If you take for example the asthma the underlaying cause for most will be the environment they live in being polluted(hence why asthma is greater in cities), for most with asthma the inhaler will win out over moving to the country as it's a simple fix to what we see as a small health issue. If you put that side by side with a long term work/lifestyle related depression would an ongoing dose of drugs win out over say a career change.
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I'm not sure what I repped you for originally, bothwell, but now it is two times I have wanted to rep you and been unable.
I am in the middle of a long super slow recovery that involves a cocktail of drugs. It is hard and takes a lot of conversations with doctors to figure out what works and what definitely doesn't. And doses. I think the medications never get you to what you may have been before but only can get you to 'life is tolerable in most cases'.
@JWestland That is a really sad story. It is a hard thing when what you need is to be forcibly calmed down for a time but then stop being able to communicate with the dr to get you to where you need to go. That dialogue is the important thing, I think, because the medications are all so imprecise* and what works or doesn't is so personal.
*And for a lot of them they don't even know why or how they work. Psychiatry reminds me of that horrible type of problem solving that one sometimes resorts to where you are just trying random things that have sort of worked before on other similar problems and seeing if there is a positive effect. It happens at like 2AM computer programming sometimes.
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@joeym and MM - Thanks for the kind words. Merely sharing this in the hope somebody may read it and ask for a review of medication for a family member/a health professional reading up on their notes.
Obviously, as they say "that's life" and there was no malicious intent. Yet...somehow that doesn't help you feel better. But that's also life... :)
They did try to have him live independently with help (we have that in The Netherlands where people live in a group with one helper in case they can't manage but do their own shopping etc...) but no success. I assume too much drug side-effects didn't help.
I have to admit it has left me with a certain wariness of mental health medication.
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Just spotted this...it seems the model of mental health issues as purely biologically driven can increase stigma.
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Just spotted this...it seems the model of mental health issues as purely biologically driven can increase stigma.
Interesting article.
Like the link to the nurture / nature argument which, as far as I recall when I studied developmental psych, concluded that a persons development is a combination of both. My tutor was particularly keen on Jean Piaget view of stages of development which suggest biological developmental stages a within a social environment
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http://www.robot-hugs.com/comics/2014-06-24-More%20Helpful%20Advice.png
http://www.robot-hugs.com/comics/2014-06-24-More%20Helpful%20Advice.pngHa!
I love that. Ahhhh, the 'helpful advice' of others...
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@joeym and MM - Thanks for the kind words. Merely sharing this in the hope somebody may read it and ask for a review of medication for a family member/a health professional reading up on their notes.
Obviously, as they say "that's life" and there was no malicious intent. Yet...somehow that doesn't help you feel better. But that's also life... :)
They did try to have him live independently with help (we have that in The Netherlands where people live in a group with one helper in case they can't manage but do their own shopping etc...) but no success. I assume too much drug side-effects didn't help.
I have to admit it has left me with a certain wariness of mental health medication.
And you are right to be wary. My father has been pumped full of so many drugs over recent years as well as ECT and other trials, with little or no positive effects. But sometimes it's been a case of "it can't get any worse so let's try this..." The one tiny consolation is that in treating his extreme illness the medics are hopefully learning more about his diseases and how to better help others. It is horrible to be almost powerless when it's your own family.
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Interesting article.
Like the link to the nurture / nature argument which, as far as I recall when I studied developmental psych, concluded that a persons development is a combination of both. My tutor was particularly keen on Jean Piaget view of stages of development which suggest biological developmental stages a within a social environment
There seem to be very few things that aren't a bit of column A/column B...now that research in epigenetics is kicking off this hard gene theory may fly out of the window for many things.
The tricky bit too is that if depression runs in a family...certain bad mental habits/circumstances also run in the family. A few things have been found with genetic links, but even identical twins can have totally different personalities. I suspect if you "re-run" a person* every time you get different results.
*as defined by their DNA container.
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On the topic of psychology: There's some theories that arguments with words (not uncommon on the internet as we all know....) are parsed by the brain as actual fights, with the increase in adrenaline etc.
If true, arguing on the internet is not only generally pointless but stressful. I tend to leave it as much as possible, but everyone now and then it's either a topic I'm involved in/schooled in, or the nasty BS just gets too much.
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There's some research I read about CEO personality traits during my undergrad and I was gobsmacked at how similar they were in regards to mental health patients.
That's so interesting!
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Oh, there's papers and papers and papers and books and all sorts about that. There's a Trust called the Daedalus Trust that's dedicated to researching it: http://www.daedalustrust.org.uk/category/latest-publications/books/
Fascinating stuff overall.
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Sounds about right - I've got in internet arguments, and the adreneline rush is huge, which leads to stupid things being said, and feeling like a dick afterwards.
Everything I've read about persuasion suggests that you preferably need to be face to face, with empathy and respect. Or, if you only have words, then they must be received when your target is in a state of calm, and ready.
Or, use violence and / or force. But this is not persuasion, it's imposing your will, and will come back to bite you later.
On the topic of psychology: There's some theories that arguments with words (not uncommon on the internet as we all know....) are parsed by the brain as actual fights, with the increase in adrenaline etc.
If true, arguing on the internet is not only generally pointless but stressful. I tend to leave it as much as possible, but everyone now and then it's either a topic I'm involved in/schooled in, or the nasty BS just gets too much.
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Well sometimes there's mutual ground to be had. It can take ages to find it though...
...a long thread with a Christian who thought it was OK a local minister compared Islam to terrorism led to FINALLY finding some mutual ground that surely religion is about love (well, Christianity is sold like so) and he acknowledged calling people terrorists ain't the way to go.
But it takes a lot of time. So...it can be done, but the question I ask myself: Is it worth it? Usually, no. And some people just want to be convinced that for example there's more foreigners in jail (true) but ignore some details (a lot of woman, because of drug trafficking) that may not suit them.
Surely I can do it too...it can be helpful to have a discussion and discover things on how you react/others react. As you say, it depends on the mood.
I try not to persuade people directly...but my experience is that asking questions can be more fruitful. If people can read that is...some seem incapable of doing so and so as the success rate is low to truly have a conversation instead of a shouting match... :)
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Hm, are they?
Enlighten me...I've somebody complaining they're getting too fat, but not that much action is taken... ;)
I suspect we're all a mish mash of habits/knowledge/emotions on different levels. It's the only way I can explain childish behaviour in otherwise reasonably mature adults.
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Four years into mental health, 3 as an undergrad 1 as a post grad - sadly the more I learn, the less I seem to know. I hope I know more in another 4 years and be an expert on something.
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The reasons why people change their behaviour are very well researched. I'm amazed that, in my work, I see many people who should know better do the exact opposite of what is known to work. Old habit die hard I assume.
Hm, are they?
Enlighten me...I've somebody complaining they're getting too fat, but not that much action is taken... ;)
I suspect we're all a mish mash of habits/knowledge/emotions on different levels. It's the only way I can explain childish behaviour in otherwise reasonably mature adults.
I'm not surprised as all. I think we all have ideas of how we would like to be, what our recovered/ideal self looks like, what 'tools' we can utilise, etc. - so it can all seem perfectly doable and logical when talking about it in therapy, on here or illustrating it on a pretty flow diagram with lots of arrows.
However, as soon as we're alone, experience a trigger, or take our eye of the ball, it can be so damn hard not to slip back in to old automatic patterns of thinking and acting. That's my experience anyway. My brain feigns a sort of amnesia of the previous day (and all the days, weeks, months before that), skips out the majority of what I'm trying to teach it, and goes straight to the soothing, numbing but highly destructive behaviours.
Perhaps it's denial, or a deluded sense of uniqueness - that somehow we're exceptions to natural laws? I've often been surprised to see how many medics smoke, for example. I've often questioned the mental health of mental health practioners I've seen too. (The ultimate cliche, I know.)
For so many people, ill or not, it feels so much easier to procrastinate, and tell yourself you'll just try again the next day.
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For getting fat you just need to look into the vast psychology of food marketing with everything from "brands you can trust" to precisely worked out sizes so 1 is too little and 2 is too many but you still end up with 2, well designed/coloured packages to provoke certain moods and that's all before the supermarket is mapped out to bombard the senses even more. You can try and avoid that but then you are at the mercy of the fast food giants and you will soon find that for no apparent reason you know kfc has 11 herbs and spices which you now feel are essential for human life. If it wasn't for just as heavy marketing of looking good and standardised seat sizes we would all be blimps.
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Why does blame need to ascertained?
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Over eating/drinking/smoking etc, are all just forms of rebellious behavior surely !? Giving the finger to society's norms - which we all do sometimes - but then getting into a vicious circle of repetition because of the short-lived benefits.
My friends who have quit smoking have (mostly) used Mr Carr's book, which "sells" the benefits of not-smoking. You are told NOT to attempt giving up until you have read the whole book, or you won't be sufficiently re-programmed to succeed.
IMHO, we all become what we WANT to be; higher aspirations are just dreams and we don't really want/need them.
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Define WANT...I'm not trolling here, but considering the sheer arseholery some people inflict on others/^OR themselves I wonder if that's what they WANT or if they're led by habits they don't quite understand.
So several opinions, several models of eating/smoking already... :)
1 - Marketing based
2 - Rebellion based
3 - Old habits/behavior basedMay I add 4 - Chemical addiction based?
So with 4 different views, how does one go about with diagnosing what needs amended?
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JW,
A) please don't call me to reference anything I post on here - I probably can't do it - see the adrenaline comments (hangs head in shame emoticon). Off the top of my head, writing quickly before work, without going through my bookshelves, I would probably talk about
a) desire to change
b) perceived advantage of changing
c) rewarding new behaviour
d) reinforcing changed behaviour by environment and other stuff that I'm vague about.B) I don't think it matters which model you use. Pick the one which you like best (resonates?) and go for it. My theory is that you have to use a model you believe in, one which fits into your internal belief system, or else you won't believe that it will work (my NLP roots showing here, sorry about the fluffy language).
To widen this thread out again - it seems as if, as a society, we have no commonly understood vocabulary for expressing matters of the mind. Is it too complex to express using words? Is that why we fall back on metaphor? Or, perhaps it doesn't matter - what's important is the process and screw the language we use?
Steve
Clockwise
arrowplum
JWestland
skydancer
bothwell
stevep
bluebikerider
Alkali
Gren-
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Psychiatry, psychology, mental, mind matters
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@Miss_Mouse
The side-effects of mental health related medication can be severe and unlike insulin we have no baselines for the dosing. When is somebody's issue under control...?
There is obv. a psychological side to it, as the comic points out, but how does the medical health professional deal with this? People have genuine concerns about treatments (also non mental health)