Hi Alex,
As I read your response, it seems it was I who was pushing your buttons, and for that I apologize.

For clarification purposes, I was speaking earlier of ALL psych meds, not just the anti-psychotics. Are you all speaking specifically to antipsychotics?

Mandy, I guess my comment to you would be that medication effects do not have to be black or white, i.e. totally sedating as in sitting in the corner drooling, or totally useless as in the case of your homeless relative. IMO there is as much art as science in prescribing medications, particularly psych medications. Most schizophrenics that I've treated typically require a "cocktail" of meds and it takes much trial and error to find the right "recipe." During that trial and error period there is no question that the patient may greatly suffer. Some give up before the right combination is ever found. For some, there is no "right" combination. This is a great sadness for me, and a daily burden.

In the state in which I live psychiatrists do not have the legal right to detain, or Baker Act a patient. That decree must come from a CDMHP (County Designated Mental Health Professional.) What a pdoc CAN do is hold a patient until they obtain such evaluation. Additionally, prior to a competency hearing, a patient has the right to refuse all medications for a period of 24 hours prior to appearing in front of the judge. They somehow feel as many do here, that they are better off without medication, and what they find is that with the stress of court, they are not able to control their behavior and are sometimes detained for another 90 days. Also heartbreaking.

We need to know much, much more about how the brain works and all the billions of ways it doesn't.

If I were a bettin' woman, I'd have my 401k on gene therapy.
Take care,
Okie