Patagonia, I can see how this is confusing to you. What I "can" say however, is that your old treatment providers when you were younger were going along with whatever was "thought" to be the best way to treat individuals that struggled with depression or other MI challenges. Actually for a while it was felt that the route to go was not therapy but medications and there was a time where there were "less' therapists and more psychiatrists because for a while MI's were consider to be more of a chemical imbalance in the brain and that no therapy could fix that.

Well, we are beginning to realize through research that often the imbalance can be due to trauma or a person's environment and social challenges that stress them out so much that leads to some of these mental illness challenges. We have been learning about different learning disabilities and how some individuals are treated badly because of dyslexia or ADHD, or other challenges they cannot help, but that if they are helped, they can do much better and thrive and don't end up with some of these mental illnesses. It has been slowly turning to where the field of psychology/psychiatry is realizing that they are only treating the symptoms, but not the illness itself or whatever is happening with a patient that is creating their psychological issues to begin with.

I think that what your treatment provider is trying to do is to take the drugs away that are treating your symptoms so they can see if you respond better by working through therapy and bringing up the "root causes". However, IMHO, for someone who's brain is used to being treated with drugs to create chemicals that help your brain function, it can be dangerous to take that away because often the brain's natural ability to do this has been challenged and may be very weak. What I am thinking about is if someone is given something to use instead of their hand and arm for example, and that leads to that person barley using that hand and arm, then what is given them to use instead is taken away, that hand and arm is going to be "very weak" and hard to use.

I am not a specialist by any means, but I am concerned about how making a sudden change might do more harm than good. I don't know if this is something that has been done a lot and they have discovered it to be very helpful and successful or if you are in a group of patients that is actually a guinea pig. That being said, I do know of people that have weaned themselves off of medications and have found they do much better and have stated that they wished they were never put on drug treatment plans. I have even read threads here that have discussed that.

I do not know what medications you are on now, what you have used long term for maintenance and what stopping these medications can present in patients either. I have heard that some AD's, after a while have lost their effectiveness in patients. I have also read how it isn't really known for a fact if AD's actually "do" work either. I have read that the placebo effect has been found to be challenging and that drug companies often have to run several studies until they can provide the results that are favorable to get their drug finally approved for market. We have discovered how the placebo effect is significant where someone just "thinking" they are on a medication that will help them will report they feel better, when in reality they were not even given a drug.

I think you are "right" to question this and to take your time to research it before making a decision.

It will be interesting to see what responses you get. I think you should also present this question in the open forum too. Perhaps under medications, and Other mental health issues too.