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Philip Dawdy of Furious Seasons had an excellent piece in regard to schizophrenia, medications, and E. Fuller Torrey that I thought complimented this thread. Here's an excerpt...

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In recent weeks, I've really had mental disorders and how widely varied are individual responses to standard treatments shoved into my face. But much of what I have encountered at the shelter has confirmed what I've known for a long time: some people who genuinely have schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder (these are fairly clear cut clinical cases) have it to completely different degrees, and for some of them meds are a very good answer while for others meds either don't work at all or are toxic to their bodies. By toxic I mean that the meds cannot be tolerated by the patients' bodies and as a result they cannot take meds consistently. I've spoken with several clients at the shelter who've been on a host of different meds and their response is virtually the same across all meds. That's frustrating as hell for them of course. These things are supposed to work, doctors press them to take them because they will work, the system makes them available to them because they will work, so they take them and they get sick and can't take them anymore.

I understood this dynamic before working at the shelter, but working there it is truly a visceral experience in a way that I wish more doctors and researchers would experience. I know they see it on the ER and psych unit end of things, but by then things are very out of control and the texture of what's going on day-to-day is lost.

I think that's led to the silly tautology bandied about by Fuller Torrey, his Treatment Advocacy Center and others in mental health circles that goes like this: the patient has a serious mental disorder; the patient must take meds at high doses to cure this disorder or the disorder will get worse; the patient doesn't take their meds because they claim that they make them sick or the patient is in denial about having a disorder; let's give this dynamic a fancy Greek name so it'll sound authoritative and scientific; we'll call it "agnosia"; these patients just don't know how beneficial treatment with meds is; they must be forced into taking meds because we know and they don't.

Source: The World Isn't Flat


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