I have had a very hard time with understanding this discipline of medicine. I saw there was a retired psychologist on this thread and wondered if they might explain a few things.
Are many diagnosis based on opinions of the practitioner or are they all based on testing, or both?
I am concerned about the large numbers of children being medicated in this country.
Obviously there are many people who have mental health issues. I am not denying that. I guess I’m just wondering if medicating people in the only answer?
I truly want to know more about this subject. So many people need help.
Smyrna
163
Agreed. There’s always a balance to everything. The other aspect is how much tax money will also be freed up from policing, judicial and in our penal system. That too can then be reallocated to this cause.
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Kelby
164
The diagnosis of a mental is disorder is made by a licensed mental health professional using the DSM-5, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It is way to classify the type of disorder the individual has, help guide treatment, and provide billing codes.
Treatment of mental disorders varies widely. When you seek help from a licensed therapist, e.g., LCSW, LCPC, Psychologist, you will mostly likely get a type of talk therapy, which can be very helpful. A psychiatrist will likely prescribe and manage medication and rarely does therapy. Often, both medication and therapy are used together.
Medications do not provide a “cure”. They help the individual manage symptoms and can be very helpful. There is always a risk-benefit analysis: Do the positive effects of medication outweigh the side effects? If so, the meds are appropriate. For some individuals, they are not. That decision is made between the individual and their doctor/psychiatrist or the parent of the child and the physician.
There is no denying that homeless people have higher rates of mental illness and addiction disorders than the general public. However, in the vast majority of cases that do not rise to the level requiring them to be committed to an institution. Would they be helped by therapeutic intervention? Of course. But that cannot be imposed by an outside agency unless the individual is determined to be an imminent threat to themselves or others.
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Pie Crust Promise, Easily Made, Easily Broken.
Smyrna
166
I agree. When it comes to politicians keeping their promise, well…let’s just say we’re on the same page. 
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rp5x5
167
Get involved in it. Great shortage of decent mental health workers and lots of state education fast tracks. They start training and work hours and internship in every Mental Healthcare profession.
Aids and Technicians, AA., BS, MA, Ph.D, Nursing, Rehab therapists, Social Work, Psychology, MD Specialties. State and County mental health and Developmental Disabilities, systems always need people and have job openings online, including requirements. All of them have paid clinical hours, onsite and at Hospitals, College/Universities. Staff shortage is ongoing.
rp5x5
168
This thinking is WHY there are so many homeless on the streets.
No other way that doesn’t lead to the revolving door, self-medicating with BAD drugs and crime and violence and no medical care and exploitation. “Talk therapy” barely exists and doesn’t do a thing anyway. These aren’t yester-years neurotics.
No regular psych drug works, they are only necessary to dope up patient/clients in emergency. They just add to the roller coaster.
tzu
169
The whole locus of integration-into-productivity and normativeness is dodgy.
At least Freud was just about figure how to be a bit better at having unresolvable problems.
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tzu
170
Laing and Foucault were right: abandon the enlightenment-rationalist insistence upon fitting into society. It was never particularly difficult for pre-modern and non-Euro peoples to ‘deal’ with the strange or the uncanny: leave them alone.
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tzu
171
Dialogue, behavioral-stimulus therapy and chemistry work fine if the goal is to help a body carry its own memories and traumas, or shed them at its own pace.
There’s no reason to throw it all away, esp for new age woo, just because [whatever poorly extrapolated reasons].
DMK
172
In layman’s terms, you cannot talk reason with someone who is drunk or high.
You cannot reach a person who suffers so much from a mental disorder that it clouds their minds to to the same degree as someone who is drunk or high.
You have to get the person “stabilized”, sometimes through medication to be able reach them.
tzu
174
Not the man. His inquiry into the Enlightennent shift towards criminalizing ‘madness’.
Kelby
175
Of course. But you don’t get to do that without their consent.
rp5x5
177
No they don’t. The best that can be done is a large protective, medical, environment that can give some sense of dignity and social and community reality…not fake “normalization,” or hair brained ideas to cash in with urban planning and greased palms.
There is no special technique to help the helpless with anything but transient lip service.
People incapable of functioning have no bootstraps to pull themselves up.
Even now, the politicians plan to close the rest of the big State Hospitals, this time targeting the most severe Developmental disabilities. They will in time end up on the street too. Then people at large, will really see the reason, patients were institutionalized in the first place. Politicians only care if they personally, can benefit financially .
Misguided ideas continue:
Developmental Center Closures - CA Department of Developmental Services
rp5x5
178
Laing was a realist, had some good points but Foucault was an evil fruitcake
I’ve never understood deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill. Seems a sort of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Wouldn’t it be more sensible to improve institutional services than totally discontinue them? As with any illness, some mentally ill clearly are worse off than others. Maybe a couple dozen in Sandy Hook would still be alive had Adam Lanza been institutionalized.
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Here’s where I stand, I studied the Olmstead Case in Grad School…and yes people were treated horribly, and yes there are a great many who did not live to the potential that they could be living up to while in institutions. I work in a field now working with people with developmental disabilities where 25 years ago, most of those people I worked with were either living with their families or in institutions, or in group homes. Those living in institutions most of which were very much more capable of living in the community in assisted living ( which is what I do). But I will say this…every once in a while we run into people who cannot live in that setting, who cannot live in group homes, they cannot live in specialized facilities for extreme behaviors. They need to be in a lock down setting so they are not capable of hurting others or themselves.
I agree with you. Fix the system and keep it in tact for those who truly need it. There are some who just can’t be anyplace else. It’s honest, and it may not be well liked, but it’s the truth of the matter.
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WuWei
181
Intellectual theory. Some eggheads got together and wrote a paper. Did a study. Got a concensus. New and better way to do it. And since it took costs off the government, everybody applauded.
Same thing with that fool Spock and child raising.
