I am curious to know what peoples direct experience with the psychiatric/ psychology/ therapy community has been? Helpful? Harmful? What approaches did they take? In my 20 years experience with the community they all took a bio/psycho/social approach even in 1995. That seems to be the current wisdom. Kaiser in Northern CA was a little more cutting edge on implementing "alternative" approaches based on good research.
I am in America and not a world traveler so I have to stick to my experience. I have been lucky in that most of my life I had good insurance and dealt with private institutions. Currently I am with a public one in a small town. The town is just big enough to have good services. This one happens to be very very good. My experience has been a very good one and found they all took a holistic approach at least to a point.
I do think the profession does need to be reformed overall. A large percentage of the prison population has mental illness problems and get crap for service. Maybe much incarceration could be eliminated with good care. I do not at all agree with forced care and forced meds. I am vehemently opposed to it. I am a "give me liberty or give me death" type. Large public institutions in big cities can have horrendous care. Way overloaded and a shortage of care givers. Rural areas have a very bad shortage of caregivers.
I do think we are way over diagnosed and over prescribed with meds overall. Anyone with the tiniest of problems can walk into a GP's office and walk out with a med. I think it minimizes the issue for those of us with very serious mental illness and causes a back lash.
I think the biological approach should be aggressively studied and researched with better medications and personalized medicine as a result. This is a
part of the solution for many people, not all.
I am 100% for therapy, diet and exercise, lifestyle, meditation, spiritual practice, and means that could possibly work and it should be studied just as aggressively.
There are some people who advocate reform who I disagree with. Dr. Peter Breggin is one. Not that I disagree with everything he has to say or all of his philosophy, but much of it I do disagree with, and I don't like his tactics. Robert Whitaker is another example.
Many views on madinamerica or theicarusproject I would agree with and disagree with.
Its not that psychiatry doesn't deserve criticism, it does, but I think it gets demonized by some. I don't think that demonizing is fair to the many people who work in that field and very much want to help people and don't have ulterior motives. I can base some of that on my own experience.
Getting back to my question. I could write a book on my personal experience with the psychiatric community. Below is a copy and paste from another thread.
Quote:
I guess maybe I have been very lucky but since my first encounter with psychiatry in 1995 I have had an excellent experience. They have always taken a holistic approach. At least based on what was known at the time but they were always up on the latest. I could write a very long post about it all.
My current therapist calls it the four legs of a table.
Medication and having a very good and trusting relationship with your psychiatrist.
Therapy/ psychological/ emotional/ support including more than therapy. Online support like here or a group in real life or friends who also suffer. Others who truly understand you can talk to. Self Help. Spiritual Practices. Education and awareness groups. Group therapy.
Social support. Family. Friends. Healthy relationships. Activities.
A healthy lifestyle. Diet. Exercise. etc.
For me the middle two have always been very strongly emphasized. Medication was never a huge part of it. It wasn't until about 2005 that Kaiser Permanente as a whole really started emphasizing preventative medicine- diet, exercise, quit smoking, meditation, yoga. They have classes for all of that and the mental health side started focusing on that.
I would add that I feel I have a responsibility for my treatment. I have to own it and not just let it be dished out.
I can honestly say that the vast majority of the time in the last twenty years I have had all four legs firmly in place. Diet and smoking not so much. Deep depressions definitely make the legs wobbly at times. Even with all that in place and all that I have done on my own self help wise I still get very bad depressions. I have been consistently meditating for twenty years for example.
I have been a member of AA for twenty years. Very very active for many years in it. They for sure take a very holistic approach. They believe in treating the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. When I was in a drug and alcohol treatment center (I include that as part of psychiatry) 20 years ago they for sure took a holistic approach. Tons of good food. Lots of exercise. Good sleep. Meditation. One on one counseling. Lots of groups. Social interaction. Aftercare to insure you got all the legs you needed in place. People relapse because they don't get those legs in place when they get out. For drugs and alcohol that is. Mental health relapse is a different story. Tougher nut to crack really I think. Getting and staying sober all these years was a cake walk compared to my depression.
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For further info if you are interested and want to do a lot of reading.....you can decide for yourself.
Mad In America - Science, Psychiatry & Community
The Icarus Project | Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness
Home
Psychiatric Drug Facts with Dr. Peter Breggin - HOME
NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness - Mental Health Support, Education and Advocacy
Treatment Advocacy Center
NIMH · Home
Department Of Psychiatry - Harvard Medical School
Mental Health - Harvard Health Publications
Department of Psychiatry - Stanford University School of Medicine | Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences | Stanford Medicine
Etkin Lab - Stanford University School of Medicine
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences | Johns Hopkins Medicine
I could post a thousand links.