So you are suggesting that we should give patients medication from things which may or may not exist? For conditions diagnosed and subscribed entirely by the somewhat arbitrary opinions of fashion among doctors? The history of medicine, especially psychology, is not particularly pretty when it comes to inserting socioculture prejudice into its theories. Freud is a classic case of this. How else can we explain the sudden rise of conditions like ADHD, Aspergers and the like? How real are they? Or are they labels to either genetic predispositions or products of enviornmental upbringing (delete according to prejudice).Freud's theory was unfalsifiable. These theories produce testable predictions. Dopamine antagonists work to treat schizophrenia, just like the dopamine hypothesis predicts. It doesn't matter whether scientific theories bear any relation to reality, only that their predictions bear testing.
They do? At a sufficient level compared to drugs for other biomedical conditions? (And let's not forget, alot of drugs taken here in these cases are actually placebos).What drugs are placebos? I have no idea what you're talking about.
And what do you mean "compared to drugs for other biomedical conditions"? That far from a uniform standard. What biomedical conditions? Cancer? Hypertension? Lupus?
I'm not criticizing the drugs per se. I'm criticizing the attitude behind the drugs. I don't doubt that drugs can help people in certain circumstances but to suggest that biology without any reference to human social life. To make clear, I'm against biological reductionism - the simple fact is that we don't know what causes schizophrenia, bipolar, depression and all these other conditions. To say otherwise is a lie. We know that there is sort of hereditary component as Verin will no doubt explain. But emphasize just the drugs and the biology is morally indefensible imo.
Actually in certain cases drugs can make the condition worse rather than better you know.No psychiatrist will tell you the current state of science tells us what causes these disorders.
But we have randomized, placebo-controlled trials which show the drugs work. And we have the societal evidence of the emptying of psychiatric hospitals caused by the discovery of Thorazine in the 1950s.
On the other hand, what can you show? Has therapy alone ever successfully treated anyone from their schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder?
Okay I admit that isn't entirely untrue (the philosophical prejudice bit anyway); but this is actually based on personal experience. Perhaps the title was a bit overblown. But hey attention.
I'm actually surprised you are against me on this. Given that you are the libertarian and have shown opposition to overly biological views of human beings in the past.
I am a libertarian, but that only means I oppose the abuses within the psychiatric care system, which are only furthered by the sort of long-term hospitalizations that would result of an abandoning of psychiatric medication. Just because I support the civil liberties of mentally ill people, doesn't mean I want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Ditto with evolutionary psychology; just because I reject it doesn't mean I endorse sociological theories either.
And I have some mental health issues myself and I know drugs can help a lot.
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