i'm enjoying this discussion too. are you okay okiedokie? i wanted you to know that i do appreciate your input on this thread. i didn't mean to imply or suggest that i didn't, but i was a little concerned that this thread not degenerate to personal attacks and stuff...

i think that part of the problem with the medication debate is that consumers and psychiatrists both feel strongly about it. psychologists often have strong views too, i guess.

- some consumers are very much opposed to anti-psychotics. they report that they sedate them and they do not like that.
- some consumers are very much in support of anti-psychotics. they appreciate the sedation. another issue can be... that if the medication works for them then that is often taken to be some support for the notion that their delusions / hallucinations etc were organic (hence outside their control) and that schizophrenia is a treatable condition (just like diabetes!). if people stay on their meds then their condition is being controlled (just like diabetes) and the people with schizophrenia etc who act violently... well... thats because they weren't getting the right medications. basically... a lot of consumers are very supportive of medications because of what they take to be the political and social consequences of believing in the efficacy of medications. the political and social consequences don't follow as a matter of logical necessessity... but it is often believed that they do.

- some psychiatrists are very keen on medications because they believe that medications are what assures psychiatry's status as a specialist field within medicine. if psychiatrists didn't have medications then psychiatry wouldn't exist as a specialist field in medicine. that doesn't follow as a matter of logical necessessity but psychiatrists are often very afraid that their specialist field (their niche in society) would dissolve if medications aren't prescribed and... there are a fair few who are fearful of neuro-biological advances and the encroachment of neurology as well. there is a way out of this but i don't think the average psychiatrist reflects on that a great deal.

- some psychiatrists are very skeptical of medications. typically those who are also psychotherapists. psychiatrists who are interested in the history of psychiatry (and who consider past and present abuses of psychiatry) and / or psychiatrists who are interested in issues around involountary treatment and hospitalisation and the social consequences of psychiatry are often more circumspect about the use of medication (if not actually opposed to anti-psychotics). such people are often labelled 'anti-psychiatrists' because the concern is that if they are right... psychiatry would dissolve (no longer be a specialist field within medicine). the fact that they are labelled 'anti-psychiatrists' reveals the fear that this kind of view threatens the whole field of psychiatry. it is revisionary to be sure but it doesn't undermine the foundation (that is my view anyway).

- some psychologists have 'psychiatrist envy'. they see that psychiatrists have more power with respect to higher pay, power to involountarily treat / commit, power to prescribe medications. hence the emergence of psychologists who wish to / train to prescribe psychiatric medications. there are interesting sociological issues here around whether such people manage to be 'second rate psychiatrists' or whatever... of course they would indignantly protest by drawing attention to their numerous years of study... my take is 'whatever whatever i don't understand why you are so keen to embrace the biological model when it is so problematic'.

- some psychologists are very sceptical indeed about medications. in part because they want to defend their profession such that it is not viewed as 'second rate psychiatry'. to ensure that they keep their nieche. to try and get the respect that psychiatrists seem to have. funny how psychiatry is considered a bit of a second-rate field within medicine and yet psychologists often have this funny deference / slight fear of it...

weird weird weird.