I don't know what people know or don't know, just ignore this if it's
old hat. Trying to be useful.
Medications are problematic, for sure--there are side-effects, in
most cases inpredictable who will suffer from them, and their
effectiveness is also unpredictable with absolute accuracy--an
antidepressant or antianxiety medication may turn one person into a
zombie without affecting their condition, another will have no side
effects and no benefits, another will thrive. Dosages likewise. It
can take as much as 6 months to a year of being a human test tube to
find the right medication in the right dosage. But the stuff saves a
lot of lives and makes a lot of other lives more pleasant. My brother
describes the effect on him eloquently: "I used to get depressed
about something trivial and stay depressed for six months. Now I get
depressed for a couple of days."
On the other hand, people need to be watched a lot more carefully
than they are in the US while they're settling into a regimen,
because there are considerable dangers, as in the case of Rebecca's
family. Most patients don't have paradoxical reactions, but it's not
rare, and the relief of depressive lethargy can indeed give one the
energy to hust her/himself.
And the drugs are grossly overprescribed in the US, by psychiatrists,
sometimes, but often by doctors with very little knowledge beyond
what they read in the PDF (if they bother). Any MD can prescribe an
antidepressant, and his/her total psychiatric education may consist
of a two month psych rotation in med school 30 years before. So you
get poor diagnoses, treatment of normal mood swings, and no
supervision or follow-up.
And often (though not always) antidepressants are not a substitute
for talk therapy, though often talk therapy without medication
doesn't help much.
In the US talk therapy is becoming increasingly the privilege of
wealth, because of poor reimbursement by private health insurers.
A further complication: if talk therapy lasts for a few years it's
difficult--maybe impossible--to compare its effectiveness with that
of the passage of time. I was in endless psychotherapy. I learned a
lot, but I've also learned a lot in the 15 or so years since I've
been in a therapist's office.
I'm absolutely certain that I helped some of my patients, and I'd
like to think that I helped some others. I also am pretty certain
that there are some that I didn't help at all, and I usually knew at
the time that it wasn't working. Some just left pretty quickly, some
I referred to other therapists. You do what you can and you try to be
honest with yourself about your limitations. It also happens--it
happened to me, as both patient and therapist--that one can be
helpful up to a point, and then it's a good idea to find another
therapist. The rule of thumb is to give it a few sessions beyond
when you've decided it isn'tworking to talk it through.
That should confuse just about anybody who was already confused enough.
Mark
At 03:42 PM 4/2/2006, you wrote:
>On 4/2/06, Rebecca Seiferle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Oh, I went and looked up beta-blockers since I thought
> > they were mostly for heart trouble, though perhaps,
> > looking at that phrase, it was just that, in which
> > case, there are plenty of times, I could have used
>
>I am not a doctor and I was having issues at the time. Apparently, the
>beta-blocker would be used in conjunction with the anti-depressant of
>that time. I was in such a state that I rejected the effects
>anti-depressant. It wasn't till I got to the step bck from the void
>that the drugs started to do their work.
>
> > one! And I went and looked at the past posts but
> > didn't see you on the lists earlier, it seemed that
> > you returned after your breakup last May? Anyway, I'm
>
>I've been on and off with different email addresses -
>[log in to unmask], [log in to unmask] amongst them.
>Occassionally I've dropped off the list out of sheer emotional
>(self)-pressure. I have been known to take things a tad seriously.
>
> > glad that you found that therapy helped, that it gave
> > you the validity of your own experience, and access to
> > different aspects of your creativity. Therapy has been
> > helpful to me too, in some ways, and I only wish that
> > I'd gone a long time ago, as it's made me aware of how
> > much stuff, what I'll just call these hollow
> > constructs of various sorts, familial wounds, had a
> > destructive effect upon me and my relationship.
> > However, I don't think it makes one a different
> > person, or really changes anything in one's deepest
> > fractures, or feelings, and perhaps there is some
> > sense in which it could be criticized for that reason,
> > it makes one more bearable to what I'll just call
> > social interaction, having more ways to live with
> > one's fractures or feelings. There are certain things
> > that are excruciating, some tears which never end,
> > even if one might learn not to bother others with
> > them, and it seems to me that nothing, not therapy,
> > not reading, not philosophy, not art, makes any
> > difference though they might keep one moving. But,
> > perhaps, that's just me. Anyway, I don't know, someone
> > else will have to say if you're a different person,
>
>Sure. I may have been exagerating a bit. I feel a lot different, more
>confident, happier, more resistance to my past and it's allures, the
>predominant theme of much of my poetry.
>
>I've used the metaphors and analogies from my sessions to go towards
>the collection I hope to publish this year or next - the rough draft
>of which is here: http://www.badstep.net/text/poetry/sojourninwinter/
>
> > though I am surprised and glad for your openness and
> > warmth in this discussion since I had a somewhat
> > impression of you as more crusty, but then there is
> > that hidden libelling one so perhaps it just went
> > underground!
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Rebecca
>
>I'm trying to be more open. It seemed a good time to interject.
>
>Cheers
>Roger
>
>PS This thread and it's various rivulets breached the 200 mark a while
>ago. Go, team!
>
>--
>http://www.badstep.net/
>http://www.cb1poetry.org.uk/
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