Why psychiatry may be in denial

[compsports]

I thought this article featuring a psychiatrist who blogs on the Mad In America might provide an insight as to why psychiatry is in denial. It talks about Dr. Steingard finding getting trained in the Open Dialogue Program that Bob Whitaker wrote about in his book that substantially reduced schizophrenia in Finland.

 

I was struck by this particular exert:

 

""Steingard also saw firsthand that many of the antipsychotic drugs she was prescribing have serious side effects — treated by still more medications — including weight gain, seizures, diabetes, depression and sexual dysfunction. As a result, a certain percentage of HowardCenter clients simply refused to take them.

 

“I thought they were effective for a good chunk of people, and I knew they weren’t effective for other people,” Steingard says of the drugs she prescribed for hundreds of patients. “But I didn’t really know what else to do. I didn’t see any other path.”

 

Steingard’s breakthrough came in May 2011 when she read Anatomy of an Epidemic, a book by journalist Robert Whitaker that attempts to answer an alarming mystery in American public health: Why has the number of adults and children diagnosed with mental illness and put on government disability skyrocketed in the last 50 years?

 

Whitaker begins his book by looking at several studies of the long-term risks and benefits of keeping people on antipsychotic drugs. As Steingard explains, researchers have known for years that schizophrenia is associated with a loss of brain tissue, which was long believed to be a result of the disease. Whitaker uses the studies to suggest the brain atrophy may be due not to the illness itself but to extended exposure to antipsychotic meds.

 

Reading Whitaker’s findings, Steingard says she felt like she’d been “kicked in the belly.”

 

“If you’ve just spent your entire career giving people these drugs, and in many cases convincing people why this is what they really need to do, that’s a pretty horrible thing,” she says. “I wasn’t sure I would come to work the next day. That’s how profound it was.”

 

I guess essentially, it is easier for most psychiatrists to stay in denial vs face the very uncomfortable feelings that Dr. Steingard went through.

 

More at this link:

 

http://www.7dvt.com/2013burlingtons-howardcenter-tries-new-approach-treating-mental-illness-more-talking-fewer-meds

[flower]

That is disturbing to say the least..It makes me more determined.

[Altostrata]

Wow! Sandy Steingard might change the treatment of psychosis in this country.

[starlitegirlx]

It only takes a few to start influencing things to change. It seems like more people are coming forward. We need both doctors and people who have been on these meds to say they did no good and there is no longer term benefit but rather only long term damage being caused by them. Until then, society will continue to be indoctrinated to believe that drugging people is best. Ironically, it's only certain drugs. Those illegal ones that don't make the government and large corporations billions are on the bad drug list. I find that comical.

[compsports]

Wow! Sandy Steingard might change the treatment of psychosis in this country.

 

I sure hope so Alto.

 

CS

[Jemima]

My doctor, when she realized I'd been critically harmed by Lipitor (clinical depression and muscle damage) nearly ran out of the examining room when the reality of it struck her. I think she felt ashamed and fearful that she had caused my problems. I'm hoping that the few really moral physicians on this planet will come forth and speak out against the horror of antidepressants.