Psychiatry Medication Criticism

This year, I walked out of a psychiatrist's office without a prescription or recommendation for one. I went into the office:1. With the specific goal of treating my condition with medication,2. An ongoing condition which was diagnosed years ago,3. I am already treating the condition with therapy, and have decided that therapy is not enough, a conclusion which others agree with,4. The condition responds well to a variety of different medications, and is considered "very trea

You are more than welcome here.It's just so many of us have gone through the routine.See a Psychologist--spend so much on dubious Therapy sessions. The Psychologist then give the refferal to the Psychiatrist. We are then given drug, after drug with limited success in many cases. We are always required to keep those mandatory office visits though. In many cases $350/hr.In the end, when the treatment just doesn't seem to work, the profession hides behind, "Oh, well--

don't you mean psychiatrists, not psychologists?

He was down voted because he/she cherry picked one of their easy targets, or theories? It sounds like he/she has intimate knowledge of just how deep the hole Psychiatrists, and subsequent Therapy has fallen?Did he stereotype a entire profession--yes. If any profession has a lot of explaining, and hands on knees apologizing--it's Psychiatry, and Psychology.Sometimes the truth hurts. Hacker news should be that place where the truth is exposed?I'll stop, but if you d

The problem you are pointing out is related to doctors' excessive eagerness to prescribe medicines, not any inherent flaw in the field of psychiatry. This is a problem with the culture among MDs in the US, it is not a global problem of psychiatry.I've been in first-hand contact with a fair number of doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and their patients in Scandinavia, and I haven't seen the rampant prescription of drugs to treat vague diagnoses that you describe. If you'

This quote seems apropos:Though many object to psychiatry’s perceived encroachment into normality, we rarely hear such complaints about the rest of medicine. Few lament that nearly all of us, at some point in our lives, seek care from a physician and take all manner of medications, most without need of a prescription, for one physical ailment or another. If we can accept that it is completely normal to be medically sick, not only with transient conditions such as coughs and colds, but also

Continue neuroscience research; stop pretending psychologists and psychiatrists are more than cranks; admit the pills don't work. Basically quit pretending that this is a science. The problems are not biological that can be solved by pills, the problems lie in society, not individuals.

People using PsychGPT when they need real help is somewhat worrying, I mean, Dr. Sbaitso has decades more experience treating patients.

My brother has had life-long, serious mental health issues, and it's only been because of both medication AND life-long therapy that he has been able to reach a baseline of normalcy and being able to function. I think if you have a serious underlying mental health issue, that it often takes both the meds and therapy. I also don't think most psychiatrists feel they are "playing God." I think most genuinely want to help patients get better, to the extent they can.

My second-hand experience is that many psychiatrists will indeed reach straight for meds when they are looking for a solution.People are naturally incentivized to use the tools they've spent decades acquiring. Just like every programmer when presented with a problem tends to solve it with code. A psychiatrist's career is based on prescribing medicine, so that's what they're gonna do.(Psychologists and therapists, however, will likely tell you to take a walk in nature an