I think one of the questions about amnesia drugs that would arise from my background presumptions would be something like this: what are the effects on the community if the trauma is chemically purged? Some memories, arguably, need to be retained by the collective--memories of genocide, torture, oppression. If the up-close and personal victims of them forget them, how can they help the rest of us remember? But I don't know how to weigh the need of these people to forget against the need of the rest of us to know.
This is really interesting, and it seems some empirical information would do a great deal to help us address it.
If what we are talking about is trauma rather than grief (and these are meaningfully different, as not everyone who grieves experiences symptoms of, say, PTSD), then it seems that there is a great argument for relieving the suffering/disrupting the patterns of traumatic symptoms. From what little I know about PTSD, the traumatic memory is "stored" in the brain differently from other kinds of memories and involves more immediate connections to primitive areas of the brain. So when a traumatic memory is triggered, you get a seemingly "inappropriate" reaction to the stimulus (flight or fight sympathetic response, panic, etc.).
The only reason I could imagine for asking a victim of PTSD to "work through" the problem rather than utilize technology to "fix" the problem (what does this puppy do, btw.?) is if working through proved to be a beneficial method of building up psychological resistance to future trauma (and this would not necessarily result in being indifferent to traumatic experiences, it might just help someone remain functional in the face of them). Does processing have an adaptive function? If it does, and if the pill prevents that function, then we have a problem. If not, then I fail to see the moral good in someone living, say, the horrors of war over and over again.
Our willingness to use enhancement drugs is surely tied to their utility (another deeply ingrained value scheme).
One need merely look at athletic performance enhancement drugs, or speed for truckers. Were it not for punishment for athletes caught, the vast majority of them would use enhancement drugs, just as all cyclists in the 80's and 90's used them. It was the only way they can compete with the people who have already enhanced themselves. A prisoner's dilemma kicks in, and the problem becomes global.
Truckers take speed and speed-light to enhance their ability to drive through the night, stay focused, etc. Again, more driving is more money, and a PD will kick in again.
But the rest of us do not take either. I could be a better baseball player or cyclist if I take EPO or steroids. But I do not want to be either, so I dont. For amateurs, there is also a huge push for enhancement drugs, so its not just the money, but how important doing well at the sport is to you. I remember a med student friend of my brothers taking steroids for weightlifting (he was 'hulked' up) because weightlifting was his thing, but he was an amateur.
So its not clear to me who will take advantage of this drug, even if it works for minor stuff.
Also, while bad things happening to you does improve your character, it does not follow that all bad things that happen to you improve your character. In particular, I do not think there is any reason to think that anyone suffering from PTSD is improved by it in the slightest. Even when time lessens the grip of the memories, you can not point to the benefit they have achieved through their suffering. Instead, when it kicks in again and again, it simply causes pain and suffering, and debilitates the sufferer. If this drug makes them forget the trauma (and more than that! It must eliminate it at the subconscious level!) more power to it.
I--
If what we are talking about is trauma rather than grief (and these are meaningfully different, as not everyone who grieves experiences symptoms of, say, PTSD), then it seems that there is a great argument for relieving the suffering/disrupting the patterns of traumatic symptoms. From what little I know about PTSD, the traumatic memory is "stored" in the brain differently from other kinds of memories and involves more immediate connections to primitive areas of the brain. So when a traumatic memory is triggered, you get a seemingly "inappropriate" reaction to the stimulus (flight or fight sympathetic response, panic, etc.).
You remind me that PD was in favor of giving these sorts of drugs to people who really need them, perhaps PSTD patients. However, my question is how do you draw those lines? And, empirical information is key on ALL of these drugs. Too much hype seems to dominate the conversations about what these drugs do that land us into bringing up the "Brave New World" scenario.
If we keep it real and look at what these drugs actually do, we might be able to stave off some of the more hyperbolic concerns.
But, as for drawing the lines of who is deserving and who isn't, well that is a tough, tough project. It is compounded by the fact that mental illness diagnoses are not discrete entites in most cases.
Maiden--
I think you raise a really interesting point about how collective memory of atrocities is important. But, when we really look at this in the case of the individual, it gets icky. Do we need to force some victims of torture or witnesses of genocide to retain these memories and be haunted by them so we are a better society? I know you don't think so, but it just goes to show how complicated these questions get when you get down to the patient-physician interaction.
Hanno--
Also, while bad things happening to you does improve your character, it does not follow that all bad things that happen to you improve your character. In particular, I do not think there is any reason to think that anyone suffering from PTSD is improved by it in the slightest.
I agree wholeheartedly, but to be fair to the "Calvinists" I don't think they believe that all trauma should be 'worked through' in the old-fashioned psychotherapy way. But, they want to prevent the less traumatized victim from taking them.
The thing that worries me is that trauma, even if it is forgotten, still has an effect. People who forget traumas still retain some trace of the event and still behave as though the event occurred. But if you don't remember, then the behaviors are completely bewildering for you and everyone. And not remembering only increases the risk, I would argue, of reenacting that trauma. I think it could thus have really dangerous implications, and could cause worse traumas than the original ones.
As the person mentioned in the post, I thought I should clarify my position.
My basic issue is whether it is more likely that propanolol will be underprescribed to those who need it, or overprescribed to those who do not. It is not whether or not the drug should be prescribed at all.
I can think of at least three reasons why it would be overprescribed. First, there is the tendency of the medical community to treat psychological problems as solely neurochemical. Second, there is economic pressure to find ever-larger markets for products, including the suspicious invention of disorders. Third - and this is the one emphasized in the original account - people do not typically want to go through the labor of overcoming suffering. They are far more likely to want a pill, a quick fix. The overuse of xanax, zoloft, prozac, opiates, etc. seems to testify to this.
These three factors indicate that it is far more likely that propanolol will be overprescribed to people who just want to the simple fact that life is often painful rather than denied to people with legitimate trauma that makes them unable to work, love and play.
And I do think that that is a problem. Suffering is not good in itself. It is not punishment for our original sin - as a true Calvinist would believe - but a mere fact of life. But we become more interesting and complex people by overcoming hardship. Anyone who has dated knows this. To want to neatly avoid suffering rather than 'work though it' is an infantile desire that ultimately renders us childish.
I do not really see these amnesia drugs truly working one must come from the old-fasshion assumption that ones mental health in has hinged on one defining moment of trauma..Most people with severe post-traumatic stress syndrome have a constellation of mental health problems..IN someone severely traumatized as a child psychologically and/or physically abused there are signs that the brain development is changed in unhealthy ways..It would be heart breaking to give this medication and not give the patient any relief and taking away from them a definition of why they are ill and replacing undrstanding with simply no bad memories but still reacting in old repetitive ways of behavior..I find this might be a case of medicating the patient instead of doing the hard work of therapy on the part of the mental health community and the patient.
I would like a drug that could help me wipe out the memory of emptying my mother in law's bedpan out this a.m.
Only partly joking. Life is full of unpleasantness that is not necessarily character enhancing.
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