I work in healthcare and am profoundly dismayed by the overuse or misuse of psychotropic drugs. I’m also quite saddened by groups like the “Church” of Scientology who claim to have definitive treatments for mental illness.

A few points:
1) Scientology has referred to the DSM reference as a work of “fiction.” A truly ironic description, as none of Scientology’s treatments for mental illness (centered around “auditing” and “purification” rituals involving vitamins and sauna) have been subjected to little, if any, credible, peer-reviewed research.

2) Scientology has a long and storied history of pressuring people into running up credit cards, getting second mortgages on their houses and the like. Why? Because their “treatments” can easily run up bills that surpass tens of thousands of dollars.

3) Scientology is keenly interested in quashing criticism of its practices. Excellent examples of this are retold especially well by Time Magazine’s “The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power” and by the BBC’s Panorama documentary series. In an era where we’re already working hard to ferret out good research from bad, the last thing we need is any organization quashing free and open discussion of a topic as critical as mental health care.

There are many examples of medicine practiced badly, but that is hardly a reason for anyone to replace it with specious and costly practices by Scientology.

Bob’s last blog post..wiki.pdxanon.info

I take Abilify and it has really helped in stabilizing my bipolar cycling. However, I wonder if the television ad — you could help me here — mentions side effects such as tardive dyskinesia, which is continual involuntary movements of the mouth and jaw. I click my teeth and purse my lips, which drives my wife crazy! Personally, I consider it a trade-off for the benefits of the drug, but others might not look at it that way.

The drug companies tout the benefits of their product like any other advertiser. Every advertiser stretches the statistics as far as they can without actually lying. I imagine the ad agency for Abilify searched the research journals until they found a study that says what they wanted. Unlike other companies, though, drug companies are required to state the negative effects of their products. But they are going to skim over them as fast as possible and to minimize them as much as possible.

Fortunately, my psychiatrist is very good about giving me the complete rundown on the good and bad of each medication she proposes to give me. Still, I research the drug and actually have a big chart that lists all the side effects, as described in Take Charge of Your Medications!

It is interesting that you say the makers of Abilify are probably hyping the numbers to say that so many people are not getting relief. Wouldn’t that also suggest that they or other drug companies are hyping the numbers is other ways? Like, to suggest that so many people are getting such amazing relief and that everything is so rosy?

Anyway, I am heartened to know that drug companies are now being sued for millions upon millions of dollars for their false advertising and for hiding severe side effects. I think it is any adults right to take whatever substance he or she wishes, but that it is not okay to downplay or hide side effects, and a person has a right to be informed and then to make their own decision.

Therefore, in Schedule II, there are the narcotics cocaine and opium, and the non-narcotic amphetamine. I would not describe Adderall (an amphetamine which I take daily) as being addictive like cocaine and opium, but I suppose the DEA has a reason other than addictive qualities for classing them together as Schedule II Controlled Substances.

My numbers for people receiving relief from psychiatric drugs are extrapolated from the many, many research papers that say that psychiatric medications help people, multiplied by the number of people taking them. That translates into millions. Maybe I shouldn’t have said “millions,” but I am confident that there are many more people receiving a benefit from these drugs than are not.

I am in contact with literally hundreds of people taking these medications. Some of them are dissatisfied, but most of them are getting at least some relief. I have observed that the ones that are dissatisfied are expecting that the first drug they try is going to completely relieve them from symptoms.

What most people don’t realize is that it takes time and experimentation to find the right psychiatric medication(s) for an individual. Each of us is different, and the drug that works fine for one will not work for another. As I said, it has taken 5 years to find the combination that works for me. People expect instant relief such as you get with headache pills, but psychiatric medications are different — it takes time.

I’ve not seen the Abilify ad but I think that they are hyping the numbers of people who take depression medication and not getting relief. That being said, no medication is a silver bullet that will completely take away all your symptoms. For complete relief, drugs should be combined with therapy, which will teach you how to manage your mental illness. I’ve even written a post about it: Drugs Are Not a Silver Bullet! There’s Another Way to Gain Relief!

I take a combination of six psychiatric drugs, and although they relieve most of the symptoms of my ailments, they do not relieve them all. I am able to cope with this state because I have had effective therapy that enables me to manage those symptoms. If I relied on the medications alone, I’d be complaining, too.

By the way, I would not argue that you are addicted to medication in a “psychological way” if you can stop them and have no physical symptoms. What I am concerned about and have heard from various people is that getting off the drugs is something to be done slowly and dangerous if you do it cold turkey. I have even heard some professionals say it is easier to get someone off heroin than some of the psychiatric drugs! It didn’t seem necessarily that the people had withdrawal symptoms like heroin or other drugs like that, but that they had mental symptoms that were worse than before they took the drugs. Again, I do not have personal experience because I have never taken any. What is interesting is that you and Jocelyn both say how you know of so many people who are greatly benefitted from these drugs, but I only seem to know people who feel dissatisfied. (Some more than others.) The best I have heard is that the person doesn’t feel the medication is doing anything much, except they feel sort of wooden and they gained weight. You mentioned psychiatric drugs are preventing suffering of millions of people… I don’t know how to ask this without the fear of it sounding flippant, but I am sincerely interested to know how you know this? I’m assuming you haven’t talked to millions of people? Was this info gotten by survey? Was the survey done by the drug companies? Or doctors on the take from drug companies? Did the surveys include side effects? Do I just have a weird ability to only find people who are at best conflicted about their medication? I’m not saying that there is not a portion of people who are helped, and maybe others whose lives were so bad that side effects are worth it to them. I just haven’t found things to be so rosy for all as it seems that you and Jocelyn are saying. Or maybe I don’t have contact with a certain segment of the population?
Yet, I just heard a commercial for the drug Abilify and the ad states that 2/3 of people suffering from depression still have symptoms even though they are taking medication. I get that it is an ad and they want to sell stuff, and maybe they are proving that it only means you need MORE drugs, but doesn’t that also mean that drugs are not helping?

Also, I don’t know why I missed your previous answer to my query about hereditary research, so thank you so much for your reply!

I would classify none of these medications as a narcotic. The dictionary definition of narcotic is “a drug or other substance affecting mood or behavior and sold for nonmedical purposes, especially an illegal one.” Certainly, my medications affect mood, but they are given to me legally for a definite medical purpose. They literally have given me my life back.

@Robin, welcome back! I agree that it looks like a number of mental illnesses that might be helped with vitamins, minerals and other natural supplements. There’s a lot of research going on right now about dietary supplements that can affect mental illnesses positively. For example I wrote about oxytocin last month in the post Social Phobia Fear Inhibited by Hormone Oxytocin. Many researchers also think that vitamins, such as B12, are connected to some mental illnesses.

As you might note in my reply to Jocelyn, I am of the opinion that my medications are not narcotics. In all the years I have been taking various ones, I have never been addicted to any medications. While there are some that are addictive (ex. Xanax), the vast majority are not addictive in any way.

You might counter that I am psychologically addicted to my psychological medications. It is true that I count on them to keep me mentally healthy. But if that is so, I am also addicted to the diabetic medications that I rely on to keep me physically healthy. Depending on drugs to keep you healthy is not addiction. An addiction is where you can’t stop taking a drug without adverse results or side effects. I could stop any or all of my medications at any time and the only result would be a less healthy me.

It would be wonderful if we could treat mental illnesses with natural substances such as minerals and vitamins and leave the psychiatric drugs behind. That day may come, but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon. In the meantime, psychiatric medications are preventing the suffering of many millions of people.

I agree with you that psychiatric drugs are over-prescribed, especially by family physicians. I think that the effectiveness of therapy is vastly under-rated, especially by insurance companies, for whom drugs are cheaper. Neither people nor insurance companies want to take the time to get effective therapy, though it can help you learn to cope with your problems for a lifetime. I believe that the idea of holistic medical treatment, or wellness treatment, could change this notion over time. Fortunately, this approach is championed in both Presidential candidates’ health plans.

For many, many years twins (identical and fraternal) have been tracked all over the world. They offer a unique way of studying the heredity of both mental and physical diseases. Many of the genetic studies for heredity involve twins who were not raised by their birth families and/or were separated at birth, so the family environment does not enter the equation.

The family studies involve large groups of up to 2,000 families, especially in Scandinavia and Iceland, where excellent records of family medical history have been kept for 50 or more years. Since such large groups are studied, family environment is a very small factor in the determination of the heredity of mental illness.

Besides trauma, there is evidence of many other life events causing brain changes that predispose people to mental illness. For example, the brains of depressed people are physically (not just chemically) different from those of people without depression. That does not mean that every person with these brain changes will get depression — it just means that they are vulnerable to it.

Evolutionary biologists and psychologists have several theories of how the human race has survived and flourished despite mental illnesses. I do not have space to cover their theories here. However, the gist is that, either the mental illnesses somehow served the survival of the species, or that mental illness was not a large factor in the survival of humans over the eons.

I do not know the exact process used by scientists to determine the genes that might predispose people to mental illness. I do know that these tests involve large populations, both mentally ill and “normal” people, rigorous review and the cross-reference of findings to existing genetic information.

And remember that none of the genes so far discovered can be called a single “crazy” gene: It is suspected that it takes many genes to make up a predisposition to mental illness. Since these genes involve large populations of subjects with mental disorders, the possibility that they are mutated is small; it is more likely that they are inherited.