There is no need for psychotherapy or psychiatrists, the left as declared all former mental problems now as a “normal special interest victim group” to be loved, cherished and demand that they are accepted by society no matter how (previously) insane they would have been and should be now evaluated as.
I would not be surprised to find a movement by the left to outlaw psychology and psychiatry as occupations.
Apologies in advance to any Freeper MDs out there, but I don’t trust most medical doctors. I trust psychologists and psychiatrists even less. This is based on personal experience with various MDs, dentists and one family psychologist over the years.
Regardless of what oath they take, they are people in the end interested in making $$. Sick people generate more revenue than healthy ones. I am in my mid-50s. When doctors find out I am taking NO prescription meds, they are always surprised. Even though I am healthy, they still try to recommend some. I kid you not. Its an industry like any other.
It seems that I know more people that were not helped or their situation worsened as a result of a psychologist.
There was a time when most of what I knew about psychiatrists came from my psychiatry training.
Psychiatry as an active, clinical specialty has been destroyed by the government. The greatest opportunities for an MD psychiatrist today are a) private practice in Manhattan or San Francisco, or b) working for a public agency signing thousands of prescriptions a week for patients you've never seen, because psych social workers can't prescribe (yet).
Not too long ago there was a clear division in psychiatry over two distinct forms of mental illness: organic and induced.
A good way to compare the two is with psychopathy and sociopathy.
Psychopathy is a “spectrum state of mind” in which a person does not empathize with others. A little bit of it is essential for people to function, more than that is useful in providing objectivity to emotional situations, more than average makes for good leadership. Beyond that it starts to become pathological and dehumanizing to others. In the extreme, other people are nothing more than objects to be used or abused with indifference. Only a small number of “psychopaths” are unable to adjust their behavior so as not to criminally offend.
And all of psychopathy is a natural state of mind, how your brain is wired.
Sociopathy achieves a similar result, but it is trained behavior. If addressed before adulthood, sociopaths can be retrained so as not to be abusive. After adulthood, it is usually set for life.
In any event, if a person suffers from any number of organic problems, including brain damage and trauma, they need medical care before psychiatric therapy. And granted there can be some overlap between organic and induced mental problems, such as PTSD subsequent to a concussion.
When the SHTF who’s going to supply all of those meds?
About time for the Scientologists to join the fray, if they aren’t here all ready. My mother has Alzheimer’s , late stage. Thank God for her wonderful Psychiatrist.
Certainly many meds are over prescribed. It seems like 1 out of every 5 parents I know has been told their child has ADHD.
I believe Jung said that most mental problems are spiritual in nature.
>>>This second option is controversial because it may involve medicating people against their will. We have no trouble allowing treatment of unconscious, injured people when doctors deem it necessary. But civil libertarians oppose involuntary treatment of people incapacitated by serious mental disorders — many of whom, Lieberman points out, will end up in emergency rooms or jails if left to their own devices.<<<
So you’re against same-sex marriage? Oppositional defiance, take your meds.
Go to church regularly? Religious mania, take your meds.
Don’t like Obama’s policies? Racism is a reflection of paranoia or depression, take your meds.
Pro-life? Obviously you don’t like women, take your meds.
Full disclosure here. I’ve been battling with anxiety problems my whole life. That anxiety is usually expressed by shortness of breath, which has plagued me since I was 17 years old. I’ve been to a fair number of therapists, doctors, and psychs about it, and in April of this year, I had a debilitating panic attack that was so extreme the troopers were involved (no violence, I was just breaking down in the middle of the street) and I had to take several days off of work.
The clinic immediately gave me Lorazepam, which was as close as I’ve gotten in the past 30 years to psychedelic drugs. Then it was off to Fairbanks, where someone I didn’t know sat down with me for 45 minutes and concluded that I needed Zoloft to deal with a chronic mental issue which I had not been able to handle. I didn’t like the idea but I took the Zoloft.
The next month was literally a fog. Sometimes it would be as if my waking life was a dream. Yes, my shortness of breath vanished, as did dreaming, libido, focus, and imagination. Sadly, there were moments when I would snap at people in an angry manner, something that I had never done. And as the Zoloft took hold, the anxiety was replaced by depression and thoughts of suicide.
So I quit the Zoloft, carefully, since I had read online about bad withdrawal. Then it was over, and my mind returned. The anxiety was still there.
My neighbors, who attend a nondenominational evangelical church, talked with me one day on the street, and I explained my time with anxiety, something that I suspect they knew after being around me for 15 years. So my neighbor and her daughter stood next to me and said a prayer for the peace of God to lift the burden from my heart.
The shortness of breath disappeared. It has not returned.
To describe this as a miracle is not hyperbole. I’ve had this problem for 43 years, and it is gone.
Of course, there’s this scientific guy in part of mind dissecting this miracle. I can still feel the anxiety building up in my chest sometimes. I bite my lip now, something that I have never done before - classic displacement behavior. But the labored breaths are gone.
The two methods face each other - a lifetime of medical practice, and a moment of prayer. The prayer was what was needed all along.
I’m still recovering, but facing God as I do so, and that has made all the difference. Better than Zoloft, too.
Um.
A bit Pollyanna-ish.
The practice has moved from recognizing mental illness to accepting it as real and courageous with the cure being mutilation of the the afflicted’s sexual organs.
That’s one example of how it’s got so much better over the past few decades.
Phycology is not a true science.