I also feel strongly about the dangers of the wholesale distribution of anti-depressants and other psychotropic drugs. Like others have written, I can understand their prescription as a temporary relief, but not as a cure for normal human feelings of depression, grief, anxiety, etc. And, just as Sarno questions the reasoning behind the human structure being weak & faulty after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, the same can be asked about our brain chemistry.
wrldtrv mentioned Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist who has been very outspoken about the dangers of anti-depressants and other psychotropic drugs. I'm related to someone who consulted with Breggin in the mid-1980's. Like Sarno's, Breggin's reasoning strikes me as down-to-earth and sound. My relative was in his late teens and at a troubled turning point when his mother was advised to start him on drug therapy. Another relative suggested consulting Breggin, who agreed to take him as a patient, with the condition that therapy wouldn't involve drugs or his mother (who was very interfering & domineering). Though he was 19, she made the decision for him and he's been on heavy doses of powerful drugs for almost 30 years and spent his adulthood on disability and as a patient. He narrowly survived an attempted suicide by overdosing. He's never worked, experiences drug related physical problems, and now that his mother's financial support is over, he's facing imminent homelessness. I know this is an extreme example, and it's certainly colored my perspective on the subject, but I've often wondered how his life could have been different had he'd followed Breggin's treatment sans drug therapy. I fear future generations will know no other experience of life other than that lived on mind and mood altering medications.
(I've added psychotropic pharmacology--alongside religion & politics--to the list of subjects to steer away from while in polite company. I don't understand parents--or anyone--who take a daily cocktail of expensive, brain altering prescriptions, and then wonder, worry about & condemn their kids for taking street drugs. Yes, one is legal and regulated, but really, what's the fundamental difference in the desires & methods chosen to seek relief from that which is painful?) |
Fatigue and Depression
Posted - 05/02/2011 : 18:22:48
