can we trust psychiatric drugs?

Answer 1

I think that they are good in a short term sense. The problems really start when people begin to abuse them, don't take them in the correct manner, stop taking them cold turkey, or don't tell their physicians when they are experiencing abnormal side effects. These kind of medications are not alike to anti-biotics..there is no literal 'bug' to kill..no specific time period to take these kind of medications for in order to recover. It's a hit and miss situation..and all psychiatrists can do is give their best guess as to which medication will help you the most while giving you the least amount of debilitating side effects. If they find something that works..then you stick with it.

Long term of course, there can be some problems. I took neuroleptics for years and they left me with numerous problems..loss of memory, an inability to think quickly, a general haze..i was referred to as a zombie often. This has cleared slightly over the years...but the effects are definately still there. Newer drugs have come out too in recent years that seem to have less side effects, withdrawal symptoms..and hopefully less long term effects on the brain.

I would be the first to promote anti-depressant short term, because I do believe that they can help turn around a person's life. But beyond that, for people like me that will inevitably need to take psychiatric drugs on and off for the rest of their lives due to diagnosed mental disorders..no, we cannot trust them to not impact our minds in a permanent sense. Often we are left without a choice as to whether we take such medications or not...so we just have to find a reasonable balance between good mental and physical health and learn to live with it.

Answer 2

you can trust psychiatric drugs about as much as you can trust any drug. Just like you have to trust that the FDA knows what it is doing, and that they wouldn't allow something to be used by millions if it had some sort of horrible side effects.

However everybody has different reactions, such as some drugs make people 'zombies' and those people for some reason don't feel the need to tell their doctor that the prescription is having a negative effect, they just figure it must be a lie cause it didn't work for them.

Answer 3

No!!!!
Psychiatric drugs are just a marketing name for stimulants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbTqjSfMPKA&mode=related&search=

“Although it is often stated with great confidence that depressed people have a serotonin or norepinephrine deficiency, the evidence actually contradicts these claims”
Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience Elliot Valenstein

“I spent the first several years of my career doing full-time research on brain serotonin metabolism, but I never saw any convincing evidence that any psychiatric disorder, including depression, results from a deficiency of brain serotonin. In fact, we cannot measure brain serotonin levels in living human beings so there is no way to test this theory. Some neuroscientists would question whether the theory is even viable, since the brain does not function in this way, as a hydraulic system”
Source: Stanford psychiatrist David Burns, winner of the A.E. Bennett Award given by the Society for Biological Psychiatry for his research on serotonin metabolism, when asked about the scientific status of the serotonin theory in 2003.

“A sugar pill was more effective than either St. John’s Wort or the antidepressant Zoloft in providing relief to severely depressed patients, according to a new study that is unlikely to end the debate about the role of the popular supplement in treating the disorder.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3076831/

Not only that but these drugs are source of increased suicidal tendencies and extreme violence. Even the FDA has labeled these drugs with black box warnings about these tendencies.
http://www.drugawareness.org/
http://www.adhdfraud.org/
http://www.escapefrompsychiatry.org/
http://www.antipsychiatry.org/
http://www.mindfreedom.org/
http://www.endofshock.com/
http://www.stopshrinks.org/
http://www.gwenolsen.com/
http://psychrights.org/index.htm
http://www.prescriptionsuicide.com/
http://www.breggin.com/

Answer 4

Can certain people possibly be helped by them ? Yes. Are they for everyone? NO
I was on Paxil for about a year since i was diagnosed with "depression"
Well... anti depressents have a tendency to cause depression.

Answer 5

Hell no! I had a miscarraige and they thought i was depressed and put me on that crap and it made me into a Zombie. I ended up wrecking my car and hitting a Semi because of it!

Answer 6

More than we can trust a psycho.

Answer 7

if used correctly and monitored ?
yes

Answer 8

NO NOT AT ALL!

YOU ARE ALLERGIC TOTHEM ALL!


AND WILL GET WORSE EVERY TIME YOU TAKE THEM !

DARN PSYCOTROPICS!

Answer 9

no they can screw you up worse then you were before you took them