Psychiatric drugs: More harm than good ?

I felt like making a topic, kind of slow here lately.

Here is a google search for that question.

http://www.google.com/search?q=psychiatric+drugs+more+harm+than+good

Lots of page results from both sides but what do you think ?

Thanks! But whats your take on it? Your opinion? You have a lot of eloquent stuff to say about it, I think you will do great!

IMO when psychiatric drugs are over prescribed, recklessly prescribed or forced onto people they do far more harm than good. The drugs themselves often have major side effects, some even life threatening. Medications isn't the only way to treat illness either. The entire system of prescribing when a disorder is suspected or made needs to be over hauled as well.

Areas of concern I see are children who receive ADHD and like disorders so much then immediately prescribed medication without going in depth as to why such might be happening. Adults can be misdiagnosed, and most of those misdiagnosis are toward mental conditions that require more psychotropic management.

Just walking in for the first time, and say "I have this problem" and its met with "this will help" (a prescription.

If anyone wants to get a feel, Google amount spent on psychotropic medication, or how many people take psychotropic medication. The numbers are jaw just dropping.

Modern psychiatry is just this: Observe; make a diagnosis closet resembles to what was observed; find a anomaly (to sad, to nervous, ect); give medication to eliminate or manage the said anomaly. Its entirely based on 2 things: 1. relative observation guided by ones ( the psychiatrists) own moral code. 2. Trail and error of medication type and dosing. That's all it is. Its not a science, there is no test, no evidence, NOTHING. Let alone the debate whether or not certain DSM illnesses even exist, or what symptoms they might have.

The DSM to start with is nothing more than a book so something can be labelled (mostly for) insurance purposes. The DSM is just a constellation of disorders psychiatrist came up with, sat together and voted in based on what looked good. That's all it is, no science, no equations, no solid reality. To put it honestly the argument can be made that its flat out biased. Who to say what is dubbed as a disorder like ADHD (nothing based upon a check list of relative behaviors) even to exist?


Of course, that isn't necessarily the big issue. Its definitely questionable, but the second even more unproven part is how to go about treating those supposed disorders. This is where medication is said to be the wholly grail, the ultimate solution. And it compliments a theory that says relative behaviors are of chemical imbalance origin within the brain, which again has never been fully proven. Yes there is for example the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia, but just as easily as it has been proven it has also been disproven. Not all those that have "schizophrenic behaviors" have this issue. And still, nothing exists to prove all the other theories. Heck its even unknown by neurologists what the exact cause is even for classical schizophrenia.

So the cause has never been proven. Yet medication is still dolled out.

And here is another head scratcher. How much medication should be given? What kind? What combination? General rules do exist, a few recommendations (that again aren't fully proven), and a few considerations like age, body weight ect. But still, how do we know what is right? We don't.


Why hasn't it changed if its like that? Because medication is easy money for those that sell it. Change the entire system to think in your favor and profit is free. Its nothing more than that. A person who is ill just receives a trial: a string of meds until one somehow gives the desired outcome. That's all it is. Science plays absolutely role. Perhaps if science did, financial gain wouldn't be so much for those that make pills?

Real medicine doesn't work that way. Real medicine works on evidence, on proven theories, on actual treatment that can be backed up by real data.

IMO, I do believe psychotropic meds help some people, I have seen it. But I have seen others where medication has destroyed them. Some just aren't helped.

The reason for the whole mixed result IMO has to do with an inexact science dolling out neuro toxins. Some may argue nero toxin shouldn't be used, but lets fact it, we don't even know exactly how these meds work! Look at the warnings, look at the ticks, the weight gain, SSRI horror stories, theories on increased chance of drug use... I can go on and on. More backs up psychotropic as a farce than something that works for everyone.

Anyway, my 2 cents

Hi Copy. Did you get my PM?