mentalblog.com comments:
this is refreshing for being one of the more intelligent comments on the subject.
the nytimes has a great piece on this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/2...d&
ex=1177128000
This sounds like damage control by the pharmaceutical and mental health industry. They feel their giant business being threatened (check stats on how big this business is and how dramatically it has grown in recent years) so feel compelled to react.
They can't anymore ignore the problems of their drugs, so their line now is, well, drugs per se aren't bad, it's just when they are prescribed wrongly.
However, the problem is more than just the suicides related to their drugs. Those are just the most extreme cases. There are many other cases of their drugs making things worse, which must be taken into consideration, even if they didn't end so disastrously.
Other ways must be explored to treat people with problems instead of taking the easy drug route first. Such quick, easy and cheap appearing solutions are often quite costly.
Another issue that should be explored is the orthodox background of patients and how it effects them and their treatment. The approach of basically treating all mental patients the same and disregarding their religious background and lifestyle (beyond giving them kosher food and the like) is wrong and needs to be fixed.
According to a recent articles in Forbes magazine, there somewhere around 9 million Americans on drugs for mental disorders.
Of the available treatments for bipolar, schizo and similar illnesses, drugs have the best chances of success because they have been tested more than any other treatment. Way more.
You could argue that this testing is only a result of all the money that the pharmaceutical have to fund the tests. Maybe. But it doesn't change the fact. You have the best chances of getting good results with drugs.
Tzemach when is the post on Ohel coming? There is so much to write about them. Their Adoption, Domestich Abuse, Safe houses, Halfway houses,counseling, Gov funding, Fundraising, the list goes on just look at their website and propaganda. All to help the Jewish community. We need some peple in the know to write exposes.
what is the help that you need?
Can you post names of reputable doctors who are familiar with the frum lifestyle, therefore can understand the problems some of our troubled youth is faced with?
Tzemach, you definitely have a troll here. Besides for me, I mean :-).
"Of the available treatments for bipolar, schizo and similar illnesses, drugs have the best chances of success because they have been tested more than any other treatment. Way more.
You could argue that this testing is only a result of all the money that the pharmaceutical have to fund the tests. Maybe. But it doesn't change the fact. You have the best chances of getting good results with drugs."
Their main driving factor is the profit motive and quick and easy fixes, basically management of the problems, instead of cures and long-term thinking.
There are very serious problems with the pharmaceutical industry, how they have used their power and money to bribe doctors and influence trials. This has been reported by mainstream media such as the NY Times at length.
Is that the way we should be going, just following them blindly after they have so deceived in the past ? They do not deserve such a level of trust.
If the general society wants to take that path, well, we can't control them, but for ourselves, shouldn't we seek better and more responsible solutions ? Better to be more careful now than wake up in a few years when big exposes come out about the scandalous goings-on in the pharmaceutical and mental health industries and they get even more seriously discredited.
Concerned Jew, your accusation about me could not be more wrong. Not only have I never worked for the pharma industry, but as an attorney I've gone up against them in several battles.
But I've also seen mental illness up close and personal, and I know from experience and over a decade of research that, while there certainly are serious problems with how mental illness is treated in this country, many of the medications on the market -- when prescribed and used responsibly -- not only save countless lives, but improve the quality of life for even more people.
No doubt, there are very serious problems with big pharma. But so far, at least when it comes to severe mental illness, nothing whatsoever has come along that even remotely shows a chance of treating those disorders. Likely much of that is because science as a whole still knows virtually nothing about the human brain and mind. Which you can't blame on pharma.
To counsel people who could benefit from a medication not to take it because the industry has serious structural problems is just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. When it comes to diseases like schizophrenia, bipolar, even severe chronic depression, there are no alternatives whatsoever that any reputable study has concluded has any efficacy at all.
Better they should all just suffer? Or worse?
Concened-
If you live in the NY area I can send you a couple of references for frum therapists.
I am sure they can give you even more.
You can email me.
"To counsel people who could benefit from a medication not to take it because the industry has serious structural problems is just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. When it comes to diseases like schizophrenia, bipolar, even severe chronic depression, there are no alternatives whatsoever that any reputable study has concluded has any efficacy at all.
Better they should all just suffer? Or worse? NLG"
There are alternatives such as moving people into better and different environments and surrounding them with spiritually and emotionally healthy and caring people, helping and counseling them.
Of course, those are not the quick fixes that pills claim to be and are not big money makers. They require individualized attention and sensitivity to Torah and spirituality, as well as being slower acting, so they will be laughed at and rejected by those who don't want to admit that spirituality, religion and the humans around people have a great affect on their mental health. They would rather treat humans as intelligent apes and collections of chemicals and just pop out the pills.
If you are not religious I can understand that type of position from you. However, for frum people and agencies like Ohel to take such a stance is inexcusable. Man is not just an animal controlled by chemicals in his brain. He has a soul and is greatly affected by his faith and human surroundings. They want to ignore that and make everything into a chemical matter. That is wrong, criminal and short-sighted and has and will backfire.
I am a religious person, and a deeply spiritual one.
There's no doubt that many people could benefit greatly from what you are talking about. But if you think that "individualized attention and sensitivity to Torah and spirituality, as well as being slower acting . . ." etc, etc., etc. alone will be sufficient for someone suffering from severe bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, all I can say is that could be an extremely dangerous, even life threatening approach.
I was married for 8 years to a woman with a serious bipolar disorder. We actually tried all of the above, but without medication, she was simply unresponsive. WITH MEDICATION, however, all of those things were at least at times tremendously successful.
You should really try to educate yourself on all this stuff instead of passing judgment without really knowing much about it. Medication alone is no panacea, but completely rejecting medication in favor of other things is not always the best approach either.
As in much of life, a middle approach is often the best.
See great NY Times review of a new book re medicine and the drug industry
Hooked
Ethics, the Medical Profession and the Pharmaceutical Industry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/2...lth/
24book.html
NLG -
"that could be an extremely dangerous, even life threatening approach."
As could the drug approach, which has claimed its own victims.
Severe cases may need a different approach. However, how many such severe cases are there ? Nine million in the USA alone ? Sounds high for me.
The drug industry is pushing their drugs here for the masses, not just a small number of severe cases.
"You should really try to educate yourself on all this stuff instead of passing judgment without really knowing much about it."
And where did you get your education on it from ? Sources untainted by big pharma ?
"Medication alone is no panacea, but completely rejecting medication in favor of other things is not always the best approach either."
Okay, if you don't completely reject my approach, I won't completely reject your words.
Has anyone considered that much of what is labeled a mental disorder is actually and fundamenatally a physiological disorder therefore requiring a medical intervention. Chassidus has been described as the refuah for every spiritual disorder but have you ever come across a ma'amer addressing a treatment modality for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc. And even if the etiology of a disorder can be traced to a cognitive-spiritual problem, once it results in a disruption of normal physiological functioning it then becomes a medical problem. The only problem is we are still quite ignorant about how the brain functions hence psychiatry reamains more of an art than a science.
The question is - are we intelligent apes controlled by chemicals in our brains - or are we human beings with souls from above and free will to control our lives.
Do chemicals in our brains control us or do we have the power to exercise control over ourselves ?
For religious people the latter is the correct answer.
So why do some religious people take the line of big pharma and the mental health industry and pick the former instead ? And why does Ohel not take the religious position ?
Truman! It's been a long time since I've read something of yours on this blog that reflects your obvious intelligence. THIS post was GOLDEN!
You express the point beautifully. Unfortunately, I have been in the position many times to have to fight idiots who think that chasidus can cure mental illness. I remember the mechanech who told the fifteen year old boy who was having visual and auditory halucinations, "Be masiach da'as l'gamri."
I am going to save your comment and keep it on file. Thank you.
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