I think you have a lot of misconceptions about mental illness, psychiatrists, and therapy. First, eating well, taking care of yourself, spending time with heathy family members, spending time with friends, etc. are good ideas. However, these things cannot fix delusions, trauma, bipolar, panic attacks, moderate or severe depression, eatin…
I think you have a lot of misconceptions about mental illness, psychiatrists, and therapy. First, eating well, taking care of yourself, spending time with heathy family members, spending time with friends, etc. are good ideas. However, these things cannot fix delusions, trauma, bipolar, panic attacks, moderate or severe depression, eating disorders, etc. In fact, a lot of moderate and severe mental illnesses prevent people from taking care of themselves. They can also make it hard for other people to be around the mentally ill individual. Second, I have never met a psychiatrist who thinks they can cure mental illness by just prescribing medication. They understand the benefits of medication and medication's limitations. That being said, most people who need medication do better on it. Third, a good therapist does not tell a client they are a victim or defective. Just the opposite, they are trying to help their clients be independent and not need a therapist.
I have been in therapy for decades and I can tell you I am not there because I think I should be always happy. I am there because I struggle with a lot of difficult issues which I cannot fix on my own.
Reading your comments, I really don't think you understand mental illness or what mental health professionals do. Mental illness is very hard and unpleasant. No one wants it. Fixing it is very hard and right now, the best a person can do is get help and find something which works for them.
Again, respectfully, thank you for responding and I appreciate your engagement in this conversation.
In one sentence you say therapist are trying to help their clients be independent and not need a therapist, and in the very next one you say you have been in therapy for decades and you have issues you cannot fix on your own.
My point is, maybe you can, and therapy is not the answer. If it were, don’t you think decades of this treatment would have helped? It may feel good or feel like progress, but like you pointed out, the end point of treatment is the obsoletion of its need. If you need it for decades, maybe it has failed to give you the tools you need to deal with this on your own.
The way I see it, mental illness is a spectrum. On the extreme side there are severely mentally ill individuals whose mental issues create a lifetime of debilitation. Disorganized schizophrenics who end up homeless, bipolar people with manic episodes that destroy their entire lives, violent people who destroy the lives of others. And such people have existed since the dawn of time, continue to exist now, and they will never be properly treated because there is no cure. Even management of symptoms is somewhat of a farce in my opinion - these floridly psychotic people may respond to one drug or another after weeks or months of experimentation, but they eventually have another relapse or trigger to psychosis and they’re back where they started. Ultimately, they’re psychotic people who occasionally get some control, but they will always be psychotic people. I think psychiatrists really overestimate their role in these peoples treatment - if temporary control is ever attained, it’s fleeting and the majority of these people don’t live normal productive lives.
On the other end of the spectrum are people with occasional anxiety or depression. Things literally everyone experiences. The therapy and psychiatry culture will encourage these people to get help. It used to be such problems would be solved by talking to family, leaning on your community, church, synagogue, friends, whatever. But therapists will encourage them to replace those connections with therapy. Psychiatrists will immediately offer medication, many with side effects. And the message is always, you need help. So if one could be enabled to deal with these feelings and overcome them, through perseverance, and come out the other side better for it - therapy and psychiatry encourages people not to do that.
The proof to my hypothesis is that we have more therapists and psychiatrists and mental health awareness now than at any other stage in human history. And yet… it seems we also have record mental illness. The treatment is not working. The culture of therapy is facilitating, normalizing, and encouraging the pandemic of mental illness.
I think you have a lot of misconceptions about mental illness, psychiatrists, and therapy. First, eating well, taking care of yourself, spending time with heathy family members, spending time with friends, etc. are good ideas. However, these things cannot fix delusions, trauma, bipolar, panic attacks, moderate or severe depression, eating disorders, etc. In fact, a lot of moderate and severe mental illnesses prevent people from taking care of themselves. They can also make it hard for other people to be around the mentally ill individual. Second, I have never met a psychiatrist who thinks they can cure mental illness by just prescribing medication. They understand the benefits of medication and medication's limitations. That being said, most people who need medication do better on it. Third, a good therapist does not tell a client they are a victim or defective. Just the opposite, they are trying to help their clients be independent and not need a therapist.
I have been in therapy for decades and I can tell you I am not there because I think I should be always happy. I am there because I struggle with a lot of difficult issues which I cannot fix on my own.
Reading your comments, I really don't think you understand mental illness or what mental health professionals do. Mental illness is very hard and unpleasant. No one wants it. Fixing it is very hard and right now, the best a person can do is get help and find something which works for them.
Again, respectfully, thank you for responding and I appreciate your engagement in this conversation.
In one sentence you say therapist are trying to help their clients be independent and not need a therapist, and in the very next one you say you have been in therapy for decades and you have issues you cannot fix on your own.
My point is, maybe you can, and therapy is not the answer. If it were, don’t you think decades of this treatment would have helped? It may feel good or feel like progress, but like you pointed out, the end point of treatment is the obsoletion of its need. If you need it for decades, maybe it has failed to give you the tools you need to deal with this on your own.
The way I see it, mental illness is a spectrum. On the extreme side there are severely mentally ill individuals whose mental issues create a lifetime of debilitation. Disorganized schizophrenics who end up homeless, bipolar people with manic episodes that destroy their entire lives, violent people who destroy the lives of others. And such people have existed since the dawn of time, continue to exist now, and they will never be properly treated because there is no cure. Even management of symptoms is somewhat of a farce in my opinion - these floridly psychotic people may respond to one drug or another after weeks or months of experimentation, but they eventually have another relapse or trigger to psychosis and they’re back where they started. Ultimately, they’re psychotic people who occasionally get some control, but they will always be psychotic people. I think psychiatrists really overestimate their role in these peoples treatment - if temporary control is ever attained, it’s fleeting and the majority of these people don’t live normal productive lives.
On the other end of the spectrum are people with occasional anxiety or depression. Things literally everyone experiences. The therapy and psychiatry culture will encourage these people to get help. It used to be such problems would be solved by talking to family, leaning on your community, church, synagogue, friends, whatever. But therapists will encourage them to replace those connections with therapy. Psychiatrists will immediately offer medication, many with side effects. And the message is always, you need help. So if one could be enabled to deal with these feelings and overcome them, through perseverance, and come out the other side better for it - therapy and psychiatry encourages people not to do that.
The proof to my hypothesis is that we have more therapists and psychiatrists and mental health awareness now than at any other stage in human history. And yet… it seems we also have record mental illness. The treatment is not working. The culture of therapy is facilitating, normalizing, and encouraging the pandemic of mental illness.